Proceedings of the - British Association for Applied Linguistics

49
British Applied Linguistics: impacts of and impacts on
Guy Cook
would comment critically on PR language for its vagueness, its blandness,
its omission of evidence, its one-sidedness, and its implicit corporate
ideology. There is little scope for a reconciliation, given the deeply
entrenched assumptions of university administrations who see themselves
as Berlitz style businesses – production lines with outputs of successful
students and publications, with factory practices such as quality checks, and
audits.
This presence in universities of two incompatible expertises on language is
surely a "real-world problem[s] in which language is a central issue".
Universities completely ignore their own supposed academic experts on
language use when considering their own use of language, and set up a
parallel administrative department to tell their academic staff, including
applied linguists, how to write.
And we – the applied linguists – do as we are told. We have in effect
developed two ways of speaking: one which adheres to the rigour and
thoughtfulness which characterises our discipline, and one which meekly
accepts the other way of speaking . In this encounter we come across as
pathetically passive, rolling over on our backs, and abandoning the
principles of our discipline without a fight. This is what Richard Bowring
(2011) has described as "the pusillanimous and venal submission" of
academics to centrally generated goals. There must be other academic
specialists who are wrong footed in the same way. The Tone of Voice
Guidelines cited above, for example, using an established PR technique,
both ask a question "What are principles?" and then answer it. "These are
beliefs that you hold dear and would stick to no matter what, even if it cost
you money. Just like a person." One might wonder what the philosophy
department of the university made of that!
Government control
This ascendancy of a PR approach to communication is part of a larger
political and social environment in which universities have existed for
some time. PR and political discourse have become intimately intertwined,
as the Blair and Cameron administrations have abundantly demonstrated.
By setting up bulky administrative offices to dictate the use of language
and communication strategies of their staff, UK universities are responding
to government directives which can not only demand that they make an
impact on the outside world, and give an account of it for approval, but can
also determine what kind of impact that should be, and how it is to be
defined and described.