摘要：This issue of ARAL, while not a special thematic issue, has a broad theme that runs through most of the papers, namely the state of the field of Applied Linguistics in Australia. In a field as diverse as ours, with the multitude of other disciplines we draw on, we often ponder where we might locate ourselves. This question was recently brought to the fore in Australia by the government's research assessment exercise, which requireddisciplinary groupings. Several of the papers in this issue reflect on the nature of Applied Linguistics in Australia from a variety of perspectives. Tony Liddicoat examines the concept of ‘discipline’ and the disciplinary status of Applied Linguistics, and highlights the problem of fitting a field with multiple disciplinary alignments in a system like the ERA. Neil Murray and Jonathan Crichton survey degree programs in Applied Linguisticsthroughout Australia, and find that in many cases, TESOL remains at the heart of Applied Linguistics taught at the university level. Alastair Pennycook and Antonia Rubino discussin detail two important areas of research interest in the field, critical Applied Linguistics and multilingualism. Pennycook first delineates what ‘critical’ means in Applied Linguisticsbefore outlining some shifts in the field that indicate a greater integration of critical directions. Rubino traces the long history of research into immigrant languages in Australian Applied Linguistics, and argues for the need to update this research direction in a rapidly changing environment. The final paper in this issue is an empirical study unrelated to the other papers. Wei Cai and Benny Lee investigate the use of contextual clues by ESL learners when processing unfamiliar words during listening comprehension tasks. Five book reviews complete the issue.
