Applied linguistics research in Australia

Abstract The hundreds of articles published in the Australian Review of Applied Linguistics since its inception in 1977, as noted by Curnow and Kohler in their longitudinal study (2017), constitute a key resource for examining the nature of research in applied linguistics in Australia and its mutations over time. This study updates the findings of Curnow and Kohler, firstly by adding to the data analysis the articles that have appeared in ARAL since 2016, when John Benjamins became the journal’s publisher, and secondly by including a discussion of the data derived from a selected number of congresses of the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia (ALAA) over the decades since the association’s first gathering in 1976. The aim is threefold: to highlight the fields of interest that have remained a feature of applied linguistics research in Australia during ALAA’s history; to identify any changes of emphasis the data reveal over time; and to contextualize these shifts within the evolving intellectual, institutional, and societal contexts in which applied linguistics research in Australia is undertaken.