Applying linguistics in making professional practice re-visible

Editorial: In their introduction to the first issue of the relaunched Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice ( JALPP), Sarangi and Candlin (2010) give two readings to the conjunction of 'applied linguistics' and 'professional practice' in the title, signalling two complementary agendas in applied linguistics research. The first agenda is to extend the study of language and communication to a wider range of professional contexts, i.e. to respecify the field of applied linguistics; the second is to contribute to the transformation and recontextualization of the professional practices of applied linguists in advancing knowledge and providing professional judgement. Following this lead, this special issue presents six papers which draw inspiration from Hallidayan scholarship in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to analyse, interpret and make sense of professional practices across a range of sites and from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, and in this introduction we set out and reflect on the appliability (Halliday 2007) of SFL as a mediational means in such research settings.