Applied linguistics applied

This paper will look at issues of practical relevance for the applied linguist. It will took, in a reflexive way, at some of the theoretical, methodological, practical and (re)presentational concerns that we have in applying insights to real world problems. The majority of such applications relate to education, but I will focus on discourse studies which are concerned with health and with the relationship that applied linguists have with health professionals, who come from rather different epistemological traditions. I shall argue that we have a lone way to travel f we are to be convincing and have an influence on a range of different institutions. applied linguistics research is to be practically relevant and to have some kind of intervention status, then the design and implementation of the research needs to be negotiated from the start with those who may be affected by it. And since with discourse-based research the insights are in the analytic writing rather than in results which can be implemented, how applied linguists and health professionals can present and write together is also an issue. Applied linguistics is a social linguistics but it is a social linguistics which is put to practical use. It is not easy to work out what difference our research has made to those outside our world, but at least we should be asking ourselves the question and contemplating the conditions which might produce a satisfying answer for both the professional groups we work with and ourselves.