Bob,
     I don't remember dismissing formal approaches. I was trying to make 
descriptive commentary about them. I was hoping to promote the idea of a 
big tent, under which different perspectives could be offered.
     I have read your work and Jim's. It is written very much out of the 
assumptions you describe. You can certainly describe the language as a 
formal system, apart from cognition and discourse, but that means that 
attention to discourse requires another kind of attention.  That is the 
point I was trying to make, and one that I don't think you disagree 
with.  Functional approaches don't see this as separate.
     You and I have discussed the competence and performance distinction 
in the past, and we have also discussed different ways of dealing with 
the obvious fact that meaning is sometimes very hard to predict outside 
of context.
I think it would be accurate to say that you and I don't share the same 
assumptions, but functionalists have never said (in all my reading) that 
meaning can be fully predicted by form.
     I think you give me more credit than I deserve for influencing 
opinion. You have never said anything to promote my book or praise the 
articles I have written, but I am not at all surprised by that. We 
should both be able to present views to the list and let them stand on 
their own merits.

Craig

On 8/31/2011 9:06 AM, Robert Yates wrote:
> Craig,
>
> Although you have claimed to have read some of the work Jim and I have done, the passage I quoted in your post was a dismissal of the fundamental assumptions we make about language for our analysis of writing, and especially developmental writing.
>
> The assumption of formal linguistics, which you dismiss, makes an important distinction about our knowledge of language.  That is the distinction between competence (what is possible in the language) and performance (what language users actually do).
>
> If you are interested in competence, consideration of the formal properties of the language is important.
>
> Another crucial assumption of formal linguistics is that meaning of an utterance cannot be strictly related to linguistic form.  Let me give an example.
>
> The underlying meaning (the technical term is implicature)  in the following string "I wish I could stay up later" is completely different because of the context.
>
> Little boy in his bed at 9 PM: "I wish I could stay up later."
>
> An old man in his bed at 9 PM: "I wish I could stay up later."
>
> This is predicted by separation of competence and performance and by the notion that there FORMAL properties of grammar that have nothing to do with meaning and meaning cannot necessarily be related to a choice of grammatical form.
>
> If these assumptions of language are correct, then we as language teachers have to figure out the implications for how we understand what we read, why we make the choices we do when we write, and how our writing develops.
>
> Of course, it may be difficult to do (the work Jim and I have done tries to apply those assumptions to developmental writing), but if those assumptions about language are correct, then we as teachers of writing and grammar should try to make those connections.
>
> To dismiss what may be correct about the nature of language because it is difficult to apply to our concerns about how language is used will not advance the field at all.
>
> Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>
>>>> Craig Hancock<[log in to unmask]>  08/31/11 7:45 AM>>>
> Bob,
>       I'm perplexed by the reply. I don't recall saying anything about
> your work or Jim's work in the post. I don't recall addressing
> "developmental writing" directly.
>       My apologies if I have somehow insulted you without trying to. I
> have no idea where your anger is coming from, but I can sense that it is
> real.
>      I would like to think that the ATEG list is a place where differing
> views can be presented collegially. I would certainly look with interest
> at your direct response to John's question.
>
> Craig
>
>
> On 8/30/2011 1:07 PM, Robert Yates wrote:
>> Really?
>>
>>>>> Craig Hancock<[log in to unmask]>   08/30/11 10:56 AM>>>
>>    Much of twentieth century linguistics has done exactly that, dealing with grammar as separate from
>> the lexicon and from pragmatics and from cognition. Of course, if you
>> study grammar as an isolated formal system, it will be difficult to
>> apply that to--for example--writing. You need to devise a whole other
>> set of "rules" before that knowledge can be put to use.
>>
>> Thanks Craig for once again writing in this public forum that the work Jim Kenkel and I have done over the last decade has absolutely nothing to say about developmental writing.
>>
>> For an example of what Craig dismisses, you might want to read:
>>
>> Kenkel, J.&   Yates, R. (2009).  The interlanguage grammar of information in L1 and L2 developmental writing.  Written Communication, 26/4, 392-416.
>>
>> Someday you might actually read that work, Craig, and explain how that paper is seriously flawed and your perspective is more insightful.
>>
>> Let me make the following challenge so you can stop writing the above: Let's  propose a presentation at a conference and you can tell me to my face why my work has nothing to say about the teaching of writing to developmental writers.
>>
>> In the meantime, I'm more than willing to tell you why Systemic Functional Linguistics can't explain (at least the papers I know) why developmental writers do what they do.
>>
>> Of course, it could be we are interested in two different things: you want to describe developmental writing as how it deviates from some standard while Jim and I have been interested in understanding what the underlying principles are that result in such deviations.
>>
>> In the meantime, your last post is incredibly offensive to the work Jim Kenkel and I have done. and you know this because i have written this before. Please educate yourself and stop it or tell me how our work is useless and you assumptions are to be preferred.
>>
>> Bob Yates
>>
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