Hello

My answer is simple. If you are going to legislate in a department in
relation to one form of research then, in fairness,  you need to
legislate in relation to all forms of research. I presume, from this
message, that no one in the department wishes to legislate in relation
to the impact of literary or other research on advanced and/or basic
courses. So why single out applied linguistics?

Having said that, the issue is of course very complex and touches
people's belief systems in many different ways. The reality, though,
is that we all need to produce proficient speakers of "foreign"
languages and we have to do so in the best and most informed ways.
Research into learning seems an appropriate way of contributing to
that. Remember too, that proficiency in a language inevitably involves
culture and is not limited to the production of grammatical sentences.
Maybe "basic" language and culture are closer than we give them credit
for.

I say all of this from the perspective of someone who is in critical
pedagogy rather than literary studies (with a strong basis in
postmodern thought), who is a department chair and who is in a
department where there is respect for all intellectual activity. A
department is a place which should be free from the shackles of
orthodoxy and which stimulates and nurtures intellectual inquiry.

I hope that helps a bit.
Andrew Lian

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