How I became an Applied Linguist with a China focus

Applied linguistics is the study of language-based problems in the world, or as Brumfit (1997) puts it, “the theoretical and empirical investigation of real-world problems in which language is a central issue” (p. 93). These language-based issues include language teaching and learning, workplace communication, media discourse, translation, language policy and planning, and language and technology. Applied linguists approach such issues from different backgrounds and different conceptual starting points but have in common a desire to understand how language is implicated in people’s lives and their activities...