Becoming and Being an Applied Linguist contains narrative accounts of the lives of thirteen well-established applied linguists. Their professional autobiographies document the development of some of the key areas of applied linguistics - second, language acquisition, motivation, grammar, vocabulary, testing, second language writing, second language classroom research, practitioner research, English as a lingua franca, teacher cognition, and computer-assisted language learning. The book tells how these applied linguists grew into their areas of specialization. It will be of interest to any would-be applied linguist. The book also provides a readable overview of the whole field that will be of value to students of applied linguistics.