Just one correction. The construct should read by X (participle head), Y
(noun phrase) Z's or Z'd (finite verb phrase.)
Craig
Craig Hancock wrote:
> Jim,
> Bob just pointed out that my reply to him was off list. I'm copying
> it in here, along with the post to me that I was responding to
> (below.) I hope that makes sense.
> Craig
> Bob,
> Like you, I'm sure, I wouldn't respond to the sentence without
> looking at its context in the paper and without some sense of the
> student. Was it just a slip on their part? The two really's also don't
> work for me. But if it is worth paying attention to, it is worth
> playing with. The student owns the sentence.
> That aside, it seems to me to half way follow a common construct: By
> X (participle head), X (noun phrase) Y's (finite verb).
> By sleeping in class, you missed half the lecture.
> By getting angry, Charlie lost all chance for the job.
> Our expectations depend on the familiarity of the construct, not on
> some innate grammar that predated our interactions with the world.
> Since it's not an entirely fixed construction (it has variable slots),
> construction grammar would call it schematic.
> If the student seems to be comfortable with prescriptive grammar, I
> might point out that a "by" phrase isn't supposed to act as subject.
> But that is a different frame of reference.
> If the grammar is innate, shouldn't the student know it already? If
> it's not, then it helps to have someone mentor the student along.
> Either they are already comfortable with the construction (and just
> lapsed in attention), or we can take our time to model it out.
> Learning a language requires "a prodigious amount of learning", and
> this is one example.
>
> Craig
>
> Robert Yates wrote:
> Craig,
>
> I'm not dismissing your alternative view out of hand. I'm trying to
> figure out how it applies to REAL problems I confront as a writing
> teacher. I don't understand how this view provides any insights into
> what my students do, and more importantly, what I do.
>
> I provided you with a REAL example of a mixed construction from a REAL
> student text. (1) By taking time out of your day to get something for
> someone else
> just really shows that you really care about them.
>
> Why don't you want to share with the listserv how your perspective
> accounts for such a sentence?
>
> Because you haven't done that yet, I will try to figure out what it
> means. Consider the Langacker quote as a way to account for sentence
> (1).
>
> “The thrust of the content requirement is that the linguistic knowledge
> we ascribe to speakers should be limited to elements of form and meaning
> found in actually occurring expressions, or which derive from such
> elements via the basic psychological phenomena listed in 1.31:
> association, automatization, schematization, and categorization. By
> keeping our feet on the ground, this restriction assures both
> naturalness and theoretical austerity.”
> It seems to me that Langacker is saying the writer of (1) must have
> encountered such a construction in other contexts. Is that correct?
> The obvious implication is that we as teachers much find out what those
> contexts are and figure out ways for students to ignore such examples.
> Is that correct?
>
> Of course, as teachers, how do WE know there is something inappropriate
> with (1) if "the linguistic knowledge we ascribe to speakers [is]
> limited to elements of form and meaning found in actually occurring
> expressions"? I know I don't read texts that contain mixed
> constructions, except for my own student texts. So, where did my
> knowledge come from that these structures that I have only encountered
> in student writing are inappropriate if my knowledge is based on
> actually occurring expressions?
>
> Craig, you want teachers on the list to take an alternative theory of
> language that is based on actual language we are exposed to. From a
> teaching perspective, I'm trying to do that and I don't like the answer
> I come up with for students and the kinds of "innovative" sentences they
> write and my own judgments about those sentences. I must be wrong
> because you are an experienced writing teacher and you
> find the perspective useful. Please explain why it is useful for you.
>
> Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>
>
>
> Craig Hancock wrote:
>> Jim,
>>
>> That's a very polite and thoughtful post. I have responded to Bob's
>> post (after you sent this), and I hope it meets your objections. I
>> would be happy to clarify as best I can if you still have questions.
>> I'd like to say, also, that I don't want to pretend to be a principal
>> spokesperson for cognitive grammar. I have found it very interesting
>> and am trying to pass on a developing understanding. A delay in
>> responding may just be my concern with representing views that are
>> not only my own.
>> My original post was aimed more at the shape actual explorations of
>> language might take in a public school curriculum. I wasn't aiming at
>> responding to error, but am happy to include it.
>>
>> Craig
>>
>> Kenkel, Jim wrote:
>>> I read this list but don't often post to it. However, this
>>> last contribution from Craig compels me to respond. Craig's
>>> response to Bob Yates's post seems to do two things: 1) it repeats
>>> the claims that prompted Bob's question in the first place about how
>>> the theoretical claims of Langacker and Biber provide teachers with
>>> insight into the language use of student writers; 2) it seems to
>>> seek to marginalize Bob's contribution to the discussion as being
>>> socially innappropriate. What it doesn't do is respond to Bob's
>>> carefully and clearly posed question, the answer/s to which would be
>>> certainly relevant to any teacher who has looked at his or her
>>> students' writing from a language perspective.
>>>
>>> It doesn't serve the list to characterize Bob's post as hostile.
>>> I suspect that anyone who asks clear questions and receives no
>>> answer to them would feel some frustration. Given Craig's prominence
>>> in discussions on this list, I was interested to see his response
>>> but was disappointed in the lack of response to the content of the
>>> post. I am interested in how the list generally might respond to
>>> Bob's question because the answers might prompt me to do more
>>> reading in cognitive grammar and usage-based grammar to learn what
>>> insights they might offer me as a language teacher and as a writing
>>> teacher. At this point, given my interests, I am no closer to
>>> knowing how they might help me than I was before.
>>>
>>> Given the complexity of the concepts of language, language use,
>>> and writing, it is very safe to assume that no one perspective can
>>> answer all the questions we have. I don't read Bob's post(s) as
>>> marginalizing any perspective. He has only asked if cognitive and
>>> usage-based grammars can help with issues of recognizing and
>>> responding to "error" in student writing. So far, the question has
>>> not received a response.
>>>
>>> Jim Kenkel, Eastern Kentucky University
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>>> [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
>>> [[log in to unmask]]
>>> Sent: Monday, December 08, 2008 10:08 AM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: Quick note on education and linguistic theory (was RE:
>>> Correct)
>>>
>>> Bob,
>>> I’m not sure why you react with so much hostility to an attempt
>>> to present an alternative point-of-view. You seem more interested in
>>> debunking it than you are in learning about it; perhaps I’m wrong.
>>> Other people on list may in fact be more interested in it than you
>>> are. And I’m not sure why you would characterize it as “Craig’s
>>> position” when I’m quoting others or simply assume you know my
>>> position when you have been exposed to only a small part of it.
>>> What I said, that you reacted to as a statement against
>>> intuition, is the following:
>>>
>>>
>>> Among other things, cognitive linguists don't find it particularly
>>> useful to look at manufactured sentences like "*Mary is someone that
>>> people like her as soon as they see" and then ask why they don't seem
>>> grammatical. They find it more productive to look at the sentences that
>>> actually occur.
>>> I didn’t say that we don’t have intuitions about language or
>>> that intuitions aren’t important. In a usage based system, the
>>> belief is that these grow out of use.
>>>
>>> Langacker calls the above constraint The Content Requirement:
>>> “The thrust of the content requirement is that the linguistic
>>> knowledge we ascribe to speakers should be limited to elements of
>>> form and meaning found in actually occurring expressions, or which
>>> derive from such elements via the basic psychological phenomena
>>> listed in 1.31: association, automatization, schematization, and
>>> categorization. By keeping our feet on the ground, this restriction
>>> assures both naturalness and theoretical austerity.” (Cognitive
>>> Grammar: a basic introduction p. 25).
>>>
>>> Here’s a quote from Biber, from the same anthology (Kemmer and
>>> Barlow) I cited yesterday.
>>> “Studies of use are concerned with actual practice, and the
>>> extent to which linguistic patterns are common or rare, rather than
>>> focusing exclusively on potential grammaticality. As such, adequate
>>> investigations of language use must be empirical, analyzing the
>>> functions and distribution of language features in natural discourse
>>> contexts.”
>>>
>>> Here he is again (et. Al.) in The Longman Student Grammar:
>>> “Traditionally, both in theory and in pedagogical practice, grammar
>>> has been separate from vocabulary, as if they were two totally
>>> independent aspects of language and language learning. This
>>> separation is artificial, as becomes evident to anyone who uses a
>>> large corpus for studying grammar. What becomes clear is that, when
>>> they use a language, people bring together their knowledge of word
>>> behavior (lexis) with their knowledge of grammatical patterns. These
>>> two aspects of language interact in lexico-grammatical patterns.”
>>>
>>> These are not trivial perspectives, and I don’t think it serves
>>> the list to try to dismiss them summarily.
>>>
>>> Craig
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Robert Yates wrote:
>>>
>>> This is a list about the role of grammar in the classroom. Whatever
>>> we mean by grammar must be grounded in some theory of language.
>>> Therefore, there is something fundamentally wrong in the following
>>> formulation.
>>>
>>> Craig writes:
>>>
>>> I don't think it is useful to the list to have an argument for
>>> different approaches, especially since a more articulate presentation
>>> of these views is available within the literature.
>>>
>>> ****
>>> Let's consider what Craig says is a view of language that must be
>>> taken seriously.
>>> Craig quotes Kemmer and Barlow:
>>>
>>> "Because the linguistic system is so closely tied to usage, it
>>> follows
>>> that theories of language should be grounded in an observation of data
>>> from actual uses of language....Intuitions about constructed data
>>> cannot be treated as the sole, or even primary, source of evidence as
>>> to the nature and properties of the linguistic system." (Kemmer and
>>> Barlow, from the introduction to the same text.)
>>> ***
>>>
>>> Even corpus linguists have to use intuitions to decide what relevant
>>> examples are from their corpus.
>>>
>>> [An example from Biber et al.'s Grammar of Spoken and Written
>>> Language, a corpus based grammar of English.
>>>
>>> The identifying pattern
>>> Clauses following the identifying pattern answer the question 'Which
>>> one is/was X?' The copular verb is invariably be. . . .
>>>
>>> My headmistress was the president of the Shakespeare league.
>>> (conversation)
>>> The only reliable source of work is the water industry.
>>> (newspaper) (page 146)
>>> **
>>> My observation: Only intuitions about those example sentences allow
>>> Biber et al. to say such a pattern answers the question. NOTHING in
>>> actual sentences says they answer such questions. On almost every
>>> page in Biber et al. are descriptions of the structures that are
>>> based strictly on intuitions.]
>>>
>>> Let's take seriously the notion that "constructed data cannot be
>>> treated as the sole, or even primary, source of evidence as to the
>>> nature and properties of the linguistic system" FOR PEDAGOGICAL
>>> PURPOSES.
>>>
>>> Consider the sentence from a real essay a student wrote.
>>>
>>> (1) By taking time out of your day to get something for someone
>>> else just really shows that you really care about them.
>>>
>>> If the source of knowledge about the language system is from actual
>>> language use, what language sources was the writer of sentence (1)
>>> exposed to for her to produce such a sentence? I sure would like to
>>> know how an approach to language which claims our knowledge of
>>> language comes from "real language" answers that question.
>>>
>>> More importantly, as writing teachers, how do we KNOW that sentence
>>> (1) is problematic. What kinds of language were WE exposed to that
>>> accounts for our judgment about sentence (1)? If we have never been
>>> exposed to mixed constructions and were never explicitly taught they
>>> are problematic (as writing teachers, were we?), how do we recognize
>>> them? Under the approach Craig says we should consider, our
>>> intuitions are based on the language we have been exposed to.
>>>
>>> As teachers of grammar and writing, we encounter strings written by
>>> our students that are not in the texts they read. And, just as
>>> importantly, those strings our students write are not in the texts
>>> WE read. Yet, we are able to make judgments about those strings all
>>> the time. If usage is so fundamental to our knowledge of language,
>>> what is the nature of the language we are exposed to that accounts
>>> for our judgments. (Does anyone regularly note that sentences like
>>> (1) don't occur in writing? How do you note the absence of
>>> something if your only knowledge is based on what you are exposed to?)
>>>
>>> Of course, it is always possible that we possess no innate knowledge
>>> about language, as Herb points out. And, it possible that there is
>>> no competence/performance distinction. However, Jim Kenkel and I
>>> have proposed, assuming innateness and difference between competence
>>> and performance, that some of the "innovative" structures student
>>> write, like sentence (1), can be explained.
>>>
>>> A theory of language is fundamental for what we as teachers of
>>> grammar and writing do. What Craig is proposing as a theory of
>>> language can't explain what our students do and, more importantly,
>>> what we as their teachers do when we respond to their writing.
>>>
>>> Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri.
>>>
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>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
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