Abstract
‘We are remaining at the moment the prisoner of our own categorisations’ (Brumfit 1980 160) The enduring problem of co-ordinating theory with practice in applied linguistics and language teaching are surveyed in view of the symptomatic disconnections of theory from practice in theoretical linguistics, with the suggestion that how far a theory is applicable to practice is a good measure of how far the theory is valid as a theory The basic frameworks of ‘doing language science’ are explored in terms of their applicability, including Krashen's theory, and an alternative programme is proposed

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