British Association for Applied Linguistics facts for kids

The British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) is a group in the UK. It brings together people who are interested in language. They also study how language is used in real life. This is called applied linguistics.

BAAL holds regular meetings for its members. These meetings happen in different places across the UK. The group also publishes information from its conferences. It sends out a newsletter and helps students with scholarships. A group of elected members, called the Executive Committee, leads BAAL. Professor Zhu Hua is the current Chair.

BAAL has over 1200 members from many countries. It is a registered charity in the UK. Its charity number is 246800.

What BAAL Does

BAAL organizes many scientific meetings. It supports activities related to applied linguistics. It connects people who study language through its special email list, BAALmail. Members use this list to share news and discuss opportunities.

BAAL also has a representative on the board of a journal. This journal is called Applied Linguistics. It is published by Oxford University Press.

Yearly Conference

BAAL has held a big meeting every year since 1967. This meeting is called the annual conference. At the conference, three special awards are given out. These are the annual Book Prize and the Richard Pemberton prize. The Richard Pemberton prize is for the best paper by a postgraduate student. There is also a prize for the best poster presentation.

Here are some recent conferences:

• 52nd Conference – August 29–31, 2019, Manchester Metropolitan University. The theme was ‘Broadening the Horizons of Applied Linguistics’.
• 51st Conference – September 6–8, 2018, York St John University. The theme was ‘Taking risks in applied linguistics’.
• 50th Conference – August 31-September 2, 2017, University of Leeds. The theme was ‘Diversity in Applied Linguistics: Opportunities, challenges, questions’.

Recent Book Prize Winners

BAAL gives out a prize for the best book in applied linguistics. Here are some of the recent winners:

• 2023 – Ian Cushing (2022). Standards, Stigma, Surveillance: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and England's Schools. Palgrave.
• 2022 – Claire Krammsch (2021). Language as Symbolic Power. Cambridge University Press.
• 2021 – Alison Wray (2020). The Dynamics of Dementia Communication. Oxford University Press.
• 2020 - Gabrielle Hogan-Brun & Bernadette O’Rourke (2020). Palgrave Handbook of Minority Languages and Communities. Palgrave Macmillan
• 2019 - James W. Tollefson & Miguel Pérez-Milans (Eds.) (2018). Oxford Handbook of Language Policy and Planning. Oxford University Press.

Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

BAAL has several smaller groups called Special Interest Groups, or SIGs. These groups meet regularly. They help researchers share and develop their work. Each SIG focuses on a specific area of applied linguistics.

Some of the current SIGs include:

• Corpus Linguistics (studying language using large collections of text)
• English as an Additional Language (EAL) (learning English when it's not your first language)
• Health and Science Communication (how we talk about health and science)
• Intercultural Communication (how people from different cultures communicate)
• Language Learning and Teaching (how people learn and teach languages)
• Multilingualism (speaking more than one language)
• Testing, Evaluation and Assessment (how language skills are tested)

History of BAAL

BAAL was started in the 1960s. At that time, more people became interested in the science of language. They also wanted to know how language could be used in practical ways. For example, they looked at how to teach and learn languages better.

Peter Strevens suggested creating BAAL. He was a professor at the University of Essex. At first, the group thought about focusing only on language teaching and machine translation. But at their first big meeting in 1967, they decided to study a wider range of topics. BAAL became the UK partner of AILA, another international language group. Pit Corder was BAAL's first Chair.

In the early years, only certain people could join BAAL. But by the 1970s, they wanted to let more people in. In 1985, they removed the rule about needing special qualifications. Today, anyone who is interested can become a member.

The old records of BAAL are kept at the Centre for Applied Linguistics. This center is at the University of Warwick.

See also

• Language acquisition