Eduard,
If you had to estimate a percentage of linguists worldwide who share the
views you describe in your recent emails, what would that percentage be? I
am not attempting to be coy at all. I am seriously interested. I ask because
everything I've ever learned about linguistics and language arts education
conflicts with about 75% of what you say. I'm not faulting or attacking your
point of view. Have I just read the wrong books and had the wrong
professors? Or would you consider your views "non-mainstream"? Who are the
linguists I should read to get more information on the type of linguistics
you describe?
John
On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 3:25 PM, Eduard Hanganu <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> Craig,
>
>
>
> I am a LINGUIST, not a GRAMMARIAN. I am not a grammar school teacher or a
> high school teacher. In my undergraduate and graduate studies I have studied
> phonetics and phonology, morphology and syntax, semantics, pragmatics,
> discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics, etc. From my
> perspective, the concept of "grammar" as discussed on this forum seems to be
> limited, narrow, and incomplete, and the distinction between "descriptive"
> and "prescriptive" in language is nonsensical. Someone said, "We describe in
> order to prescribe." Most examples of "prescriptive" English are so pathetic
> that they make me weep, and those who insist on the distinction don't seem
> to understand the ultimate purpose of language - communication.
>
>
>
> The whole purpose of English language education is to "prescribe" how
> people should speak and write in order to produce a consesus language. The
> alternative would be for each one of us or for groups of people of various
> sizes in this country to coin words that have a meaning only for individuals
> or for grouns, and to build an unlimited number of individual or group
> grammars. If we followed this course of action we would soon loose the
> ability to communicate between individuals and groups. We would witness a
> modern Tower of Babel.
>
>
>
> Why is the American education paying every year English language teachers
> and other educators? In order to "prescribe" behavior in language, arts, and
> science. This is called "socialization," and without socialization creatures
> born to humans are will not become human.
>
>
>
> Instead of speaking about "grammar" I would rather speak about language
> structure and its communicative, rhetorical purpose. If we cannot
> communicate in language, the production of sounds, words, and strings of
> words is irational and useless. It is necessary for humans, in order to
> communicate through language, to "prescribe" what words and strings of words
> mean so that they could all use those words and word strings to mean the
> same thing. We don't live in Alice's wonderland, and we are rabbbits,
> ascribing personal and arbitrary meanings to words if we want to communicate
> because if we did so we would loose very rapidly the ability to communicate
> with each other and one another.
>
>
>
> Language use has a DIRECT and SPECIFIC purpose: TO COMMUNICATE. If we
> forget its purpose, then we are lost.
>
>
>
> Eduard
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *From: *"Craig G Hancock" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> *To: *[log in to unmask]
> *Sent: *Friday, September 23, 2011 11:18:12 AM
>
> *Subject: *Re: The "Anti-Grammar Forum"
>
> Eduard,
>
> These leaves me with some questions. 1) Are you ONLY interested in what
> makes something Standard, or does your interest in grammar go beyond that?
> In other words, once something is determined as Standard English, are there
> other things we can observe about its grammar that are useful and
> beneficial? Is our only concern making sure language conforms to norms or
> should we also think about ways in which grammar contributes to rhetorical
> effect or to meaning? 2) Are you at all troubled by the fact that many of
> the rules of prescriptive grammar seem rather arbitrary? One example might
> be the “due to” versus “because of” distinction in a recent post that many
> of us felt was on shaky ground. How do we determine whether something is
> standard or not? 3) Does that mean that literary texts that use dialect in
> one way or another should be expunged from the canon? I’m thinking of books
> like “Huckleberry Finn” or “The color Purple”, much of the poetry of Robert
> Burns and Langston Hughes, the plays of August Wilson (so many of our plays,
> for that matter), and so on? How do we deal with the fact that a great deal
> of highly valued literature is built on creative use of the vernacular?
>
> The final question, I guess, might be how we stimulate widespread
> acquisition of the standard. Is disparaging dialect a necessary step in that
> direction? I don’t think many of would disagree that knowing Standard
> English is a central goal. How do we accommodate other goals as well,
> including encouraging fluency?
>
>
>
> Craig
>
>
>
> *From:* Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:
> [log in to unmask]] *On Behalf Of *Eduard Hanganu
> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 21, 2011 6:52 PM
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* Re: The "Anti-Grammar Forum"
>
>
>
> Well,
>
>
>
> Maybe the difference in perspective between the two of us is that you
> consider different "grammars" that govern different "varieties" of the
> English language, while I recognize only ONE GRAMMAR, the Standard English
> Grammar. Of course we all speak our own idiolects, and use various registers
> depending on the linguistic context, but if those idiolects and registers do
> not follow the rules of the Standard English Grammar I cannot call those
> "varieties" or "registers" good English, but to the degree to which they
> differ from the Standard English I call them "illiterate English."
> Anecdotally, someone mentioned to me that "Ebonics" as a "language variety"
> does not differ much from the broken English that some poor, illiterate
> people speak in the Appalachians. What is the common denominator between
> these two "varieties" of the English language? Illiteracy.
>
>
>
> Eduard
> ------------------------------
>
> *From: *"Dick Veit" <[log in to unmask]>
> *To: *[log in to unmask]
> *Sent: *Wednesday, September 21, 2011 5:18:07 PM
> *Subject: *Re: The "Anti-Grammar Forum"
>
> The assumption in several posts that there can only be one variety of
> English for every occasion flabbergasts me. Aren't we all masters of many
> registers? In an earlier post I wrote that one language phrase "bugs the
> hell out of me." I deemed that informal expression to be appropriate in this
> forum, just as I would consider it inappropriate in many others. I know the
> difference. You do too. Your language in writing journal papers is
> identifiably different from your language in an email to colleagues and
> different from your speech in conversing with friends while watching a
> football game or in talking on the phone with your insurance agent. You have
> no trouble making the adjustments. That is what being a sophisticated user
> of language is all about.
>
> I taught writing for forty years, and my goal was always for students to
> master the principles of formal written English. There are accepted
> conventions that educated people need to learn. Another goal was for them to
> understand different registers and to know which is appropriate to use in
> different situations. And yes, students can master that too.
>
> When someone in this forum observes that an informal expression is
> grammatical in a certain register or dialect, they are simply describing
> what they observe and not making a moral judgment. Such an observatrion
> doesn't mean that (1) they do not believe in teaching formal written
> English, (2) they favor teaching students to write Ebonics, or (3) the world
> is coming to an end.
>
> Dick
>
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