CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: APPLIED LINGUISTICS AT THE JUNCTURE OF MILLENNIA

Abstract

I am personally delighted to have an opportunity to contribute ‘Concluding Thoughts’ to this volume, prepared as it is at the juncture of millennia, since it provides a similar opportunity for reflection and prediction, and since for one reason or another I have been an active participant in, and observer of, developments in the field of applied linguistics for more than three decades. Indeed my own career path reflects clearly the permeability of traditional departmental or disciplinary boundaries that has at once contributed to the sense of excitement and potential in the field and simultaneously to its lack of rootedness (e.g., I have at various times held academic appointments in departments of psychology, linguistics, and modern languages as well as worked for a private philanthropic foundation and a mission-oriented non-profit organization).