Janet,
You ask the $64 question about mixed constructions.
"While a discussion of theories of why this happens is interesting, are
there ideas about how to help students get past this?"
First, we teachers need to think about WHY might students be writing such sentences? In other words, what is the purpose of such sentences in their writing? [I'm using the term "sentence" here because these strings begin with a capital letter and end with a period. As you will note, from the writer perspective these punctuated strings are not really sentences as accomplished writers understand that term.)
Both Jim Kenkel and I have noticed that none of the essays our students (we both teach at public regional universities) have essays without appropriately punctuated academic sentences. So, we need to think why some sentences are so inappropriate.
Here is where context in the essay, as Craig has noted, is important. It is our experience that such sentences are announcing a topic and making a comment about them. Notice the citing of the text in the beginning of the string, and the tensed verb makes a comment. The point is that from the writer's perspective these punctuated strings are principled.
We know that heavy subject noun phrases are very rare in the spoken language and are almost completely restricted to the written language. Jim Kenkel is probably right that using a prepositional phrase to mark the "topic" makes the two propositions -- the topic and the comment, the tensed verb predicate -- easier to process.
If we are right, then a pedagogy which says these constructions are wrong is not particularly useful (and this goes for the standard handbooks which identify them as mixed constructions. If our students know what mixed constructions are, they wouldn't write them.)
Now what I am about to write is not particularly innovative. I recommend two types of lessons.
(1) Present model texts that appropriately announce a topic based on citing a text and draw your students attention to how the writer provides all that information in an appropriately punctuated sentence. These should have heavy subject noun phrases.
(2) Present actual student writing that has such mixed constructions and have students provide a more appropriate way to present the same information. For this kind of teaching I make explicit what the purpose of the mixed construction is for the writer who produced it and how we can "improve" it. In other words, how can we announce a new topic which cites the text in which that idea occurs and then make a comment about it?
Notice I'm suggesting metalanguage which refers to the textual purpose of the construction.
The disposition we teachers must have is that our students' writing is principled. This, of course, is what Mina Shaughnessy argued for in her Errors and Expectations.
Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>>> "Castilleja, Janet" <[log in to unmask]> 12/09/08 5:32 PM >>>
I spend a lot of time reading placement and course-exit essays at our
small university. Almost daily, I see problem sentences of the sort
mentioned at some point in this thread. Below are some examples from
yesterday:
'In the first passage by Elizabeth Wong talks about her childhood being
taken from her and replaced by schooling.'
'In the article, "A Dangerous Fat and Its Risky Alternatives" by Michael
Mason, talks about the chances we take when eating at a restaurant.'
'In the article "A Dangerous Fat and Its Risky Alternatives," by Michael
Mason, gives us information about restaurants and their hazards, but
says they don't compare to the danger of trans fats in partially
hydrogenated vegetable oils.'
'As the article entitled "Don't Judge Me by My Tights" written by Sascha
Radetsky emphasizes importance of stepping outside your comfort zone.'
It's probably obvious that we are trying to teach them to write
attribution sentences. These sentences sound so clearly wrong to my ear
(as well as violating rules of traditional grammar - but that wouldn't
matter to me if it worked), but I see this type of error so frequently,
even after extensive teaching, that it seems to me that there must be
something about it that seems correct. Or is it simply a matter of
students who have not yet mastered a structure being in a transitional
learning stage?
Janet Castilleja
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robert Yates
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 9:35 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Quick note on education and linguistic theory (was RE:
Correct)
Craig,
You write statements about theories of grammar that you really haven't
examined yourself.
More seriously, you write things like the following:
Cognitive grammar may be easy to disdain if you try to reduce it to
some sort of shallow position. You should learn about it first and then
measure it later. It is not very likely that will happen because you
clearly are satisfied with a formal approach and not at all open to
other possibilities, which you seem poised to attack, not curious about
understanding. My main concern about that is that it will shut off talk
on list and deny us the chance to explore alternative approaches.
People have taken the time to privately tell me they want me to
continue. If that's not a widespread view, I'll stop.
You have no idea what I have read and haven't read. My concern, and I
assume the concern of everyone on this list,
is trying to understand the development of writing.
I have tried to share how my understanding of language helps me to
understand how developing writers do what they do.
As best as I remember, your claims about cognitive grammar rest on the
claim it is an alternative to formal approaches. I would expect someday
to read how assumptions of cognitive grammar help teachers understand
why their students do what they do. So far, your contributions here
rest at such a high level of generality I have no idea what insights
cognitive grammar provides to teachers.
Of course, we agree on the following:
Where you and I agree, I think, (we should do that more, by the way),
is that language users will use structures awkwardly when they are
first using them.
But I go further. Developing writers, either for lack of knowledge or
constraints on cognitive capacity, not only use "structures awkwardly"
but create innovative structures. Mixed constructions, from the
writer's perspective, are not a "performance error" but the result of
various principles. Jim Kenkel and I have several papers describing
what those principles are to explain various innovative structures in
developing writer texts. As I noted in my last post, you teach where
the student is and not where you think this student should be.
Complex noun phrases in the SUBJECT position show up late for a variety
of reasons and anything you cite from a cognitive or functional
perspective would be the same as from an innate perspective. Jim Kenkel
and I have tried to use this fact for understanding why a writer
produces mixed constructions.
The fact that complex noun phrases don't show up until 11 or 12 may
be
easier to explain from a cognitive or functional position than it would
from an innatist view. Functional grammar, in fact, makes a great deal
of that. They are certainly far more prevalent in writing than they are
in speech, very important in the technical disciplines, and they make
large cognitive demands on the language user.
. . .
Cognitive grammar is not going to go away, even if I explain it
awkwardly or if you explain why you have reservations about it.
****
Again, please understand my comments here. If cognitive grammar must
be considered, then provide us with specifics on how it is useful in
understanding what developing writers do. It is the lack of specificity
in your claims (and this post is one more example), that leads me to
write what I do.
Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
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