The initial high expectations of applied linguistic work did not endure. Applied linguistics is divided between adopting either a modernist or a postmodernist approach. Despite their relevant critique of modernism, the relativism promoted by postmodernist perspectives is an inadequate response to the challenges of the field. A non-reductionist methodology, however, allows us to generate a theory of applied linguistics to give each tradition of developing designs to solve language problems its rightful due. Defining applied linguistics as a discipline of design connects the technical watermark of such designs with other dimensions of our experience, yielding a number of useful design principles. [For the complete volume, "A Theory of Applied Linguistics: ?magining and Disclosing the Meaning of Design. Educational Linguistics. Volume 65," see ED672528.]