Johanna:

I learned traditional grammar in school, but the notion of *parts of 
speech* was something I never understood because it did not make any 
sense to me. On the other hand *word classes* is quite intuitive and 
simple to understand even in the primary grades if teachers explain 
students that words can be divided into classes or groups, just like 
many other things. Division and classification are part of life, and 
I don't see any problem for the students to understand the concept.
Besides, the term *world classes* is quite common and established in 
Linguistics, which makes it easier for teachers and instructors to 
introduce it to high school and college students.

Eduard 


On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Bruce Despain wrote...

>The following from Johanna Rubba:
> 
>The phrase "word classes" sounds odd to Phil, and probably to many 
who 
>are steeped in the "traditional" approaches to grammar. But "parts 
of 
>speech" sounds much stranger to people who have little to no 
background 
>in that tradition. I think it is safe to say that the vast majority 
of 
>people working in the schools today, meaning schoolchildren and 
younger 
>teachers, and probably most parents as well, have no deeply-
ingrained 
>associations with the phrase "parts of speech". I'm sure they've 
heard 
>it, just like they have heard "direct object" and "verb", but 
everyone 
>is attesting to their students' inability to find either of these in 
a 
>sentence.
> 
>We'll have a battle with the _powers_ that currently dictate content 
>for grammar-teaching materials. "Word classes" will no doubt be much 
>more understandable to newbies, since it means exactly what is says. 
>"Parts of speech" could be phonemes, syllables, words, affixes, 
clauses 
>... basically anything which is used in building language. "Part" is 
a 
>very vague term.
> 
>Writing is also not just "speech written down". It started out that 
way 
>in some cultures (writing down speech was apparently not its 
original 
>motivation in the Near East civilizations where our alphabet's 
>ancestors were invented; commerce was). But writing has been with us 
>for so long, now, that it has had time to develop its own structural 
>and lexical characteristics. The difference in _mode_ is crucial: 
>speech puts severe memory and time limits on planning, production, 
and 
>comprehension which are not present in the read/write mode. Also, 
the 
>association of writing with "high" pursuits such as religion, law, 
and 
>scholarship has encouraged a higher formality level and richer and 
more 
>varied word choice. Written language has greater syntactic 
complexity, 
>longer sentences, more-varied vocabulary, and controlled ways of 
>handling repetition, such as use of synonyms and careful attention 
to 
>pronoun-antecedent relations. If we actually wrote as we spoke 
>(especially ordinary, everyday talk as opposed to intellectual 
>commentary), the writing would be nearly incomprehensible most of 
the 
>time.
> 
>Various medical theories, e.g. of humors and so on, were also 
accepted 
>for thousands of years. That doesn't mean they were accurate.
> 
>Phil has yet to respond to any of my posts on either grammar terms 
or 
>on my statements regarding the definition of prescriptivism and the 
>harm current practices do to large segments of the school 
population. 
>He has, however, spent plenty of words telling us that we're "not 
>playing with a full deck". Is it his wish to engage in an open, 
>scientifically-informed discussion, or to play the naysayer, and not 
>back up his claims with anything more than "it has been an accepted 
>tradition for over a thousand years"? He is certainly altogether 
>correct in saying that grammarians didn't invent the structure of 
>language -- they discovered it. But discoveries about much of the 
>natural world, ourselves included, have taken thousands of years to 
get 
>anywhere near predictive accuracy. Past scholars of language have 
come 
>up with only partially correct descriptions of it. Perhaps the most 
>accomplished ancient grammarian was Panini, whose work on Sanskrit 
>matched the sophistication of modern linguistics. The medieval Arab 
>grammarians also had significant insights. I don't believe Europeans 
>came up with anything that matches Panini until the late 19th-, 
>early-20th centuries.
> 
>Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
>Linguistics Minor Advisor
>English Department
>California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
>E-mail: [log in to unmask] 
>Tel.: 805.756.2184
>Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
>Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
>URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba 
>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
---------
>
> 
>NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the
> intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and
> privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use,
> disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the
> intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email
> and destroy all copies of the original message.
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
---------
>
>To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web 
interface at:
>     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
>and select "Join or leave the list"
>
>Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/