Henry Widdowson

• Honorary Professor at University of Vienna

This Special Issue presents different perspectives on ‘Global Englishes and translanguaging’. It might be noted to begin with that the use of the word ‘and’ is ambiguous – it could either be taken to indicate that the issue is to deal with two unconnected topics, or to imply that there is a connection between them, which the issue is designed to ex...

In my presentation I argue, not for the first time, the need to rethink orthodox ideas about the relationship between applied linguistics and English language teaching that have been promoted in the past and still prevail. I will do this by taking up issues in questions that I invited colleagues to send me in advance; issues that I have discussed e...

In this contribution, I argue for a radical reappraisal of accepted ideas about how English is taught and tested. I am not alone in questioning the validity of the current orthodoxy. Others have expressed views that correspond or are consistent with the points I make here. What I have sought to do is to synthesize them in the formulation of a conne...

In his interesting position paper, Robert Phillipson says many revealing things about his own deeply felt ideas and what inspires his personal belief in their validity, but I find it hard to identify what points he is making that are counter to my argument. What does seem clear, however, is his commitment to the very institutionally authorized conc...

Linguistics has always been taken as the authoritative frame of reference for how language is represented as a pedagogic subject, and as approaches to linguistic description have changed so accordingly have approaches to language teaching. But the purposes that determine what aspects of language are to be abstracted as relevant for linguistic descr...

There have been two particularly prominent areas of research into the significance of ELF, both of which are relevant to the themes of this book. One explores how the study of ELF raises theoretical issues in sociolinguistics and pragmatics about the nature of communication, issues that have to do with such concepts as culture, identity, and creati...

Braj Kachru consistently argued for the recognition of the literary creativity of writers from the Outer Circle. In this article, Professor Widdowson also raises the issue of creativity among Expanding Circle speakers and writers using English as a lingua franca (ELF). In this context, there is much evidence of the creativity of ‘common talk’ among...

What this chapter seeks to do is to prompt teachers and prospective teachers of English to reflect critically about the subject they teach, particularly about what implications the use of ELF might have for the way English is taught as a foreign language (EFL).

This chapter has fourteen sections: 1. General; 2. History of English Linguistics; 3. Phonetics and Phonology; 4. Morphology; 5. Syntax; 6. Semantics; 7. Lexicography, Lexicology, and Lexical Semantics; 8. Onomastics; 9. Dialectology and Sociolinguistics; 10. New Englishes and Creolistics; 11. Second Language Acquisition; 12. English as a Lingua Fr...

As is now widely recognised, the role and status of the English language have changed radically over recent years: as both a cause and consequence of globalization it has become appropriated world-wide as an international lingua franca. There is, however, little corresponding recognition that this state of affairs might have implications for how th...

It is a widespread assumption that the objective of second language teaching is to focus the learners’ attention exclusively on the particular features of the second language so as to get them to approximate to native speaker competence as closely as possible. In this way of thinking, translation, or any reference to the learners’ first language, i...

There are two particularly prominent areas of empirical enquiry that are claimed to fall within the scope of applied linguistics, and in particular to address issues that have to do with foreign language pedagogy. The first is concerned with descriptions of native speaker language usage, which has gathered considerable momentum in recent years with...

The purpose of this article is to put ELF in broader perspective and to speculate on how it raises general epistemological and practical issues in (socio)linguistics and language pedagogy. Such issues have not escaped the notice of ELF researchers, of course, and so this paper will have nothing to offer in the way of revelation. My intention is not...

Although it is acknowledged that English is now being appropriated as a lingua franca by users all over the world, and being put to effective communicative use without needing to conform to native speaker norms of ‘correctness’, there remains an entrenched reluctance to grant the same kind of legitimacy to this ‘Expanding Circle’ variation that is...

This paper takes up the problematic stylistic issue that Michael Stubbs addresses in his study of Conrad's Heart of Darkness of the relationship between the analysis of a literary work and its interpretation. Inspired by his example, and applying his 'quantitative stylistic methods', I go in search of textual patterns and connections in the text of...

Half TitleLanguage in SocietyTitleCopyrightDedicationContentsPreface

This feature provides a critical reappraisal of a well-known book that was published some time ago in order to asses how far it is still relevant to current thinking.

The current renewal of interest in language creativity raises a number of intriguing problems, as is evident from the stimulating papers in the recent special issue of Applied Linguistics . According to the editors of this issue, however, these papers are not concerned with creativity in a general pragmatic sense but more specifically with poetic c...

Books reviewed:Henry Widdowson, Response to Christopher Tribble's review of Text, Context, Pretext.

Written by a leading researcher in the field, this fascinating examination of the relations between grammar, text, and discourse is designed to provoke critical discussion on key issues in discourse analysis which are not always clearly identified and examined. Written by a leading researcher in the field. Continues the enquiry into discourse analy...

A formalist model of language is said to be inappropriate for applied linguistics in that it deals with idealized abstractions and does not come to terms with the real language as actually experienced by its users. Two current areas of linguistic enquiry, corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis, claim to redress this deficiency by reveal...

This paper by Henry G. Widdowson was originally presented at a conference in Senegal in December 1995. The author submitted it to WE for consideration for publication with a note saying that ‘I wanted to raise a number of questions for discussion, so the paper is provocative. ... You might indeed want to consider it as a possible contribution to Wo...

This volume explores the defining element in the work of language teacher educators: language itself. The book is in two parts. The first part holds up to scrutiny concepts of language that underlie much practice in language teacher education yet too frequently remain under-examined. These include language as social institution, language as verbal...

Linguistics has changed a good deal over the 20 years since this journal was founded, and this raises questions as to what implications this has for applied linguistics as, in some degree at least, a dependent area of enquiry. One obvious change is that linguistic analysis appears to have got closer to language experience in that it has broadened i...

As linguistics has extended its scope over the past thirty years from an exclusive concern with knowledge of the abstract code, what Chomsky referred to as Internalized (I) language, to a consideration of the way this knowledge is actualized in Externalized (E) language (Chomsky 1988), so it has inevitably gained in face validity as an area of inqu...

This paper is the account of an experiment in collaboration. Its authors (henceforth MR and HW) are colleagues in the Institut fur Anglistik at the University of Vienna, one from the linguistic and the other from the literary 'side of things.' Each, from these different perspectives, is interested in literature and how it might be most effectively...

The contributions in this volume provide a comprehensive survey of recent research and pedagogic practice in what is described as ‘the four basic language skills.’ My brief, and my original intention, seemed straightforward enough: to provide a short overview which would comment on general trends in a relatively impartial manner. Impartiality is ne...

This paper1 is meant to be a contribution to the current debate on the scope and accountability of grammatical description by a critical examination of features of the systemic-functional model. As to scope, I consider to what extent this grammar can actually account for language use in text. I argue that the semantic functions which are specified...

Discourse analysis is in vogue as a field of enquiry, particularly in the guise of critical discourse analysis, which employs procedures not essentially different from literary criticism to identify ideological bias in texts. This article argues that, perhaps as a consequence, there is a good deal of conceptual confusion in the field. One example i...

This contribution derives from a lecture given by Professor H. G. Widdowson in Oxford in October 1992. The occasion was the first Oxford/BBC Lecture at Rhodes House, University of Oxford. The talk addresses a number of current and contentious issues in English language education concerning 'linguistic property' and 'linguistic propriety'. ELT Journ...

Preamble. These comments were originally made at the concluding session of the ELT Journal 45th Anniversary Symposium (October 1991) which was entitled 'The changing roles and nature of ELT'. I made the point on that occasion that in concluding the proceedings I did not wish to be conclusive but on the contrary to indicate issues which seemed to be...

All of the issues dealt with in the preceding sections of this volume clearly carry with them implications for language teaching and call for a reconsideration of the teacher role, the nature of pedagogic competence which such a role requires, and how people might be most effectively prepared to enact it. In the case of national curricula, as discu...

Among the features characterizing human language is creativity, the ability to produce an infinite number of sentences with a finite number of rules. What is expected of creativity is non-conformity, violation of rules, and challenges to accepted convention. Words may be used to activate possible contexts. Most textbook sentence examples do not exc...

This paper seeks to clarify the notion of competence in language and to draw on its relevance to language teaching practices. It is suggested that Hymes's account of communicative competence as incorporating language beyond grammar and ability as well as knowledge raises problematic issues concerning the analysability and accessibility of knowledge...

This article is a reply to the two articles entitled ‘A critical look at the Communicative Approach’ by Michael Swan, which appeared in the two issues that preceded this one (39/1 and 39/2). It is argued that Swan misrepresents the ideas which have gone to make up what is now known as the ‘communicative approach’, and that Swan's arguments...

This article makes a plea for greater attention to the development of a spirit of enquiry among teachers. It is suggested that fostering dependence on technique alone, without at the same time developing awareness of how technique relates to theoretical principles, militates against healthy development in the ELT profession. Furthermore, it is argu...