Applied Linguistics: Sound Production Difficulties

A lisp (OE wlisp, stammering) is a speech impediment, historically also known as sigmatism. Stereotypically, people with a lisp are unable to pronounce sibilants (like the sound [s]), and replace them with interdentals (like the sound [θ]), though there are actually several kinds of lisp. The result is that the speech is unclear.


"Interdental" lisping is produced when the tip of the tongue protrudes between the front teeth and "dentalised" lisping is produced when the tip of the tongue just touches the front teeth.


The "lateral" lisp, where the /s/ and /z/ sounds are produced with air escaping over the sides of the tongue, is also called 'slushy ess' or a 'slushy lisp' due to the wet, spitty sound. The symbols for these lateralized sounds are in the Extended International Phonetic Alphabet for speech disorders, [ʪ] and [ʫ]. Notably the former mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, has this type of lisp.


Finally, there is the "palatal lisp," where the speaker attempts to make the sounds with the tongue in contact with the palate.


The cause of a lisp can vary. In some instances, the cause is physiological, and the patient has some sort of deformity or medical condition which causes a lisp. For example, a child with swollen adenoids may tend to lisp, as will people who have recurring stuffy noses. Also, a lisp can be formed when the tongue is bruised or swollen.


Treating lisps in children usually involves speech therapy treatments and is generally successful. Speech therapy sessions include a wide variety of activities and speech drills, though what specifically happens in any given session will depend upon many variables. The length of the therapy session (usually between a half hour and one hour), the location of the therapy session (whether at home, school or a private facility), the age of the child involved, whether the therapy session is private or involves a group, and the type of lisp that is being treated will all affect the content of these sessions.


One popular method of correcting articulation or lisp disorders is to isolate sounds and work on correcting the sound in isolation. The basic sound, or phoneme, is selected as a target for treatment. Typically the position of the sound within a word is considered and targeted. The sound appears in the beginning of the word, middle, or end of the word (initial, medial, or final).


Take for example, correction of an “S” sound (lisp). Most likely, a speech-language pathologist (SLP) would employ exercises to work on “Sssssss.” Starting practice words would most likely consist of “S-initial” words such as “say, sun, soap, sip, sick, said, sail.” According to this protocol, the SLP slowly increases the complexity of tasks (context of pronunciations) as the production of the sound improves. Examples of increased complexity could include saying words in phrases and sentences, saying longer multi-syllabic words, or increasing the tempo of pronunciation.

Applied Linguistics: Methodology

Methodology can properly refer to the theoretical analysis of the methods appropriate to a field of study or to the body of methods and principles particular to a branch of knowledge. Method can be defined as a systematic and orderly procedure or process for attaining some objective.

Methodology doesn't describe specific methods; nevertheless it does specify several processes that need to be followed. These processes constitute a generic framework. They may be broken down in sub-processes, they may be combined, or their sequence may change. However any task exercise must carry out these processes in one form or another.

In principle, methodology may be a description of process, or may be expanded to include a philosophically coherent collection of theories, concepts or ideas as they relate to a particular discipline or field of inquiry.

Applied Linguistics: Instructional Theories

Instructional theory is a discipline that focuses on how to structure material for promoting the education of human beings, particularly youth. This is categorized into two aspects, cognitive and behaviorist school of thought.

This theory originated in the US in 1950s and was formally known as the Taxonomy of Education Objectives –the first codification of the learning process.

In later years, instructional theories progressed into more detailed principles that influenced American instructors and mechanically instructed students. This promulgated the principle of ‘students as containers.’ Based on the theory, it is the responsibility of the teachers as ‘fillers’ to completely fill the empty receptacles. In this way he explains that in this since the educator creates an act of depositing knowledge in a student. The student thus becomes a repository of knowledge. The consequence then, was the system lacked creativity and the recipient suffered.

On the contrary, Paolo Freire, linguist –theorist, proposed another principle stating that "in the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence. The students, alienated like the slave in the Hegelian dialectic, accept their ignorance as justifying the teacher’s existence — but, unlike the slave, they never discover that they educate the teacher. The raison d'etre of libertarian education, on the other hand, lies in its drive towards reconciliation. Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students."

Applied Linguistics: Pedagogy

Pedagogy refers to the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction. Pedagogy is also occasionally referred to as the correct use of instructive strategies. For adult humans, the methodology of teaching is called 'critical pedagogy' because of the complexity of the process and with the usage of analyses. This was later termed as andragody which incorporated the ‘art’ and ‘science’ of teaching adults.

Pedagogy can be categorized into theoretical and methodological. The first refers to the process of imparting knowledge in reference to principles and the latter refers to the method of giving instruction for the purpose of acquiring skills.

Etymologically, the term came from the Greek that means "to lead the child.

The Latin-derived word for pedagogy: child-instruction, is in modern use in English to refer to the whole context of instruction, learning, and the actual operation involved therein, although both words have roughly the same original meaning. In English the term pedagogy is used to refer to instructive theory; trainee teachers learn their subject and also the pedagogy appropriate for teaching that subject. The introduction of information technology into schools has necessitated changes in pedagogy; teachers are adopting new methods of teaching facilitated by the new technology.

Applied Linguistics: Language Education Overview

Language Education is a branch of Linguistics that deals with the teaching and learning of a language.

Since First Language (FL) is learned naturally without any assistance of instruction, generally, Language Education pertains learning the Second Language (SL) or foreign language.

With the changing world in terms of communication, the need for Language Education is evident as influenced by globalization. Since connecting with other nations cannot be avoided, the call for multilingualism is inevitable.

Therefore, many countries such as Japan (Kubota, 1998) and China (Kirkpatrick & Zhichang, 2002) create education policies to teach at least one foreign language at primary and secondary school level. However, some countries such as India, Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines use a second official language in their governing system. According to GAO (2010) many Chinese people are giving enormous importance to foreign language learning, especially learning English Language.

This subject encompasses description of teaching, processes, techniques and analyses of learning and teaching the language.