Since World War II, the political order that divided the world into nationstates has been remarkably stable. The balance of terror during the Cold War prevented major changes in the world system. With minor exceptions, such as the emergence of Singapore as an independent polity shortly after the foundation of Malaysia and the breakup of highly artificial geographically divided Pakistan into two separate states, even most of the countries that had come into existence as the result of decolonization did not change their borders. However, while the bi-polar system of the political and military stand-off of the two superpowers continued, a triangular world system developed on the economic plane. During the 1970s Japan became a major economic force, while the integration of the European Economic Community continued. Since the end of World War II, the United States has had close economic ties with both of the economic powers.

The past decade in language curriculum in Australia has been a time of exploration and innovation, and also a time of consolidation. During this period, curriculum planning reflected, first, a swing within the teaching profession to greater teacher responsibility in curriculum (a responsive curriculum), then a swing back to teacher accountability (an explicit curriculum) due to demands external to the teaching profession. In addition, language curriculum in Australia was strongly influenced by communicative language teaching theory (CLT) and the related developments of task-based learning (TBL), needs-based programming, and language as discourse theory.

I want to go beyond the narrower definition of applied linguistics as the application of theoretical linguistics to the acquisition of second, third, and fourth languages, to the broader notion proposed by Trudgill as "the application of linguistic research to the solution of practical, educational and social problems of all types" (Trudgill 1984:1, see also Kaplan 1980).

The scope of this brief review, and of the bibliographies which follow, has been restricted to England itself, and includes only passing reference to the Celtic languages in general (Durkacz 1983, Price 1984, Trudgill 1984), or to Scottish Gaelic and Welsh in particular (McKinnon 1977, Murray and Morrison 1984, Price and Dodson 1978). The decision to limit the scope in this way was made essentially because of the very extensive existing literature on the sociolinguistic situation of the Celtic languages in Britain, and on related educational questions. It also seemed more useful at the present time to use the limited space available to focus on the much less explored field of bilingualism and educational debate about bilingualism in England itself.

The major local (Austronesian) languages of the Philippines are Cebuano, Tagalog (the basis of pilipino), Ilocano, Hiligaynon, Bicol, Waray (Samber-Leyte), Kapampangan, and Pangasinan (rank ordered according to the number of first-language speakers). Earlier, any language which had at least 500,000 first-language speakers was considered a major language; with the growth in population, this number has been pushed to 1,000,000. All but Pangasinan, which has about 950,000 first-language speakers, have over a million first-language speakers based on the 1975 census. (A census was taken in 1980 and preliminary reports have been released; however, a breakdown according to language speakers is not yet available.)

Computers have become much more widely used in translation since the early 1980s but in unexpected ways. From the beginnings of machine translation research in the 1950s until recently, it was expected that computers would be in direct competition with human translators for the same work. Instead, it has turned out that most translation done by computers fills latent needs that do not reduce the amount of work available to professional translators. Computers have also turned out to be useful as productivity tools for human translators who still perform the central translation task. Today, the relationship between computers and human translators is often seen as synergistic rather than competitive.

Numerous people have helped shape each issue of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, but there is always one person who has been particularly generous in sharing his or her time and expertise. For this issue, I would like to thank Merrill Swain for her Skype calls about the issue and for, as always, her amazing breadth of knowledge. She not only knows about research in every area of applied linguistics but also, it seems, in every corner of the world. She contributed greatly to not only this, but every issue during my tenure as editor. As this is my last issue, I would like to thank the other editorial directors as well.

The major theoretical challenge for the sociology of language consists of the extent that it contributes to and, indeed, benefits from the sciences of society, on the one hand, and the sciences of language, on the other. Considering that the total enterprise only came into being in the early 70s (taking The SSRC's Summer Institute on Sociolinguistics at Indiana University, 1964, as a reasonable date of departure) some progress toward meeting this challenge is undeniable. Such progress is particularly great at the micro-level where variation theory, discourse analysis, speech act theory, pragmatics, and ethnomethodological concerns and sensitivities have pretty much become modern day orthodoxies that often neither recognize nor remember their sociolinguistic co-origins. Nevertheless, precisely here, where the links to linguistics are strongest, there is hardly any link to sociology or to sociocultural theory more generally (none at all, indeed, except for the ethnomethodological corner thereof). If we look for linkages between macro-sociolinguistic efforts and the parent disciplines, the situation is even less heartening, because not only are such links exceedingly few and far between, but nothing approaching schools of thought or elaborated points of view are discernible. That being the case the likelihood of productive theoretical linkages between micro- and macro-sociolinguistic endeavors is rather remote for the forseeable future.

The 1970s have ushered in a new phase in approaches to language planning; the preference for a less provocative term such as language policy is indicative of this. There is now a decline in the use of terms such as language planning and language engineering: this is as it should be. For almost tow decades, language planning was presented as a cure-all for culturally and lingustically pluralistic societies in the developing Asian, African, and other non-Western countries. The term was overused, and its applications exaggerated. But this enthusiasm was not shared by all; serious practitioners were conscious of the limitations of the claims and the complexities of the task. This changed attitude has naturally contributed to a reassessment and re-evaluation of these earlier claims. There is now a much better understanding of the linguistic, political, sociological, and attitudinal constraints on language policy formation. The availability of greater cross-linguistic empirical data makes comparative observations more meaningful. As a consequence, the term language planning is now used with caution, with restricted generalization, and with an appreciation of the complexity of each situation. It has rightly been recognized that the task is more complex than linguists can handle within the traditionally conceived boundaries of their discipline, for example, in the work of the venerable Einar Haugen, or more recently, in the work of Charles Ferguson, Joshua Fishman, and others.

This study proposes and tests a comprehensive model (with demographics, informal digital learning of English, ideal/ought-to L2 self, L2 enjoyment, and self-perceived communication competence) of face-to-face and digital communication anxiety's relationship to willingness to communicate in a second language (L2 WTC) within in-class, out-of-class, and digital contexts. A structural equation model of survey responses from 1,269 Koreans learning English as a foreign language (746 secondary and 523 university students) showed that in all three settings, students with lower anxiety showed greater L2 WTC. Within in-class and out-of-class contexts, students with higher self-perceived English ability had lower face-to-face anxiety, which in turn yielded higher L2 WTC. In digital settings, students with a higher ideal L2 self (i.e., a more positive evaluation of their ability to attain the ideal L2 self) showed less overall anxiety (comprising face-to-face and digital anxieties), which yielded greater L2 WTC. These results suggest that future studies can test whether interventions to lower anxiety can increase L2 WTC across communication venues.

The terms discourse analysis and stylistic analysis mean different thing to different people. Most narrowly defined, discourse analysis has only to do with the structure of spoken discourse. Such a definition separates discourse analysis from literany stylistics and pragmatics—the study of how people understand language in context. At the other end of the spectrum, discourse analysis can be carried out on spoken and written texts, and can include matters like textual coherence and cohesion, and the inferencing of meaning by readers or listeners. In this case, it includes pragmatics and much of stylistics within its bounds. Similarly, stylistics can apply just to literary texts or not, and be restricted to the study of style or, on the other hand, include the study of meaning. For the purposes of this review, relatively wide definitions of both areas have been assumed in order to make what follows reasonably comprehensive. The main restriction assumed is that the works discussed will be relevant to the examination of literature in some way. The section on literature instruction will include matters relevant to both native and non-native learners of English, and will also make reference to the integration of literary and language study.

The development of a literature on language policy, plannaing, and politics in the U.S. is taking place quickly. Possibly the most difficult job for a researcher is placing the legal and official statements about language within a social, bureaucratic, and jurisdictional context that allows reasonable interpretation. There is as yet no comprehensive framework, compendium of law and other policies, or general research work on the topic. There is much more available and accessible data and research today, however, that could provide the basis for such work in the near future In the next three years, the federal government will consider reauthorizing the Bilingual Education Act, the Language Minority Provision of the Voting Rights Act, and the Court Interpreters Act. These legislative debates, and others, will surely fan the fires of language policy considerations, continue the polemics over the cultural bases of the country, including the role of language minorities, and stimulate greater language policy and planning research and interest in the U.S.

In this paper, Southeast Asia is defined as the region made up of: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. It is a region of great diversity. Each country has its own characteristic heterogeneity in ethnicity, culture, and language. There is also marked contrast in size; compare tiny Singapore (area: 618 sq. km.; population: 2.5 million) with Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago (area: 2 million sq. km. [actually 3,000 islands having that total area]; population: 146.7 million). Nonetheless, the identity of the region is recognizable, for it has certain common diagnostic features of multilingualism which distinguish it from other bilingual communities such as those in Europe and America.

Teaching English [or any language] as a medium for science and technologymust involve us in the teaching of how scientists and technologistsuse the system of language to communicate, and not just what linguistic elements are most commonly used (1979:12–23).

In this comment, he implies the definition of the problem underlying any discussion of “language and science.” Such a discussion must deal with the language(s) used to communicate science, with the varieties scientists use to communicate with each other, and with the ways in which those varieties (as differentiated from the “general variety” of the language) may be taught to someone else. These different issues assume quite different underlying questions. This brief review will try to address some of the complex questions involved.

As the opening quotation suggests, a shift in the practice of literacy such as is suggested by the term, literacy online, has epochal significance: The death of one world (that of print) and its replacement by something else (the online world) signals not just a change in communication or technology but a change in civilization itself. Just what is this new world of literacy online that seems to await us, and how should we approach it—with open arms or poised for battle? Behind such questions lies a host of definitional difficulties. Surely the temptation is here for a kind of simplicity: “Online literacy” means reading and writing with a computer. But reading and writing what and how? In theory, we can read a dense, complex novel like Henry James' Golden Bowl—a work created in and designed for the privacy, solitude, and deep interiority of print culture—sitting in front of a computer terminal. Of central importance, however, is not the theoretical possibility of being able to read anything from a computer screen but whether or not readers and writers fully acclimated to the computer screen as the primary source of literacy would ever think to read, much less produce, such a work in the first place.

Language syllabus or curriculum design is a constantly changing and continuously expanding sub-field of applied linguistics, as pointed out by Yalden (1987). In its historical development it has drawn, on the one hand, upon general syllabus design, and on the other hand upon relevant fields in applid linguistics such as: language teaching methodology, second language acquisition research, and language planning and policy making. The interaction with these fields of specialization has enriched the process of curriculum design and made it senstive and responsive to needs on the one hand and to research and evaluation on the other.

Research within the domain of applied linguistics is at the moment lively and vigorous. Exciting work is being conducted in many settings by scholars trained in diverse areas of specialization. Certainly the inclusion of separate strands in (at least) psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics is now obligatory in most graduate programs in linguistics, bilingual education, foreign language education, or English as a second or foreign language, whereas the subjects were just beginning to be introduced two decades ago. The vitality of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and other organizations bodes well for the strength of our discipline. Annual or semi-annual meetings of each of these groups are well attended and offer broad, stimulating programs for participants. These organizations directly or indirectly sponsor a range of scholarly publications widely distributed to a broad membership.