Dear Johanna:
I am just a fallible human being expressing personal opinions on this
forum. I do not claim absolute knowlege or innerancy. I am sure that
many of my opinions will change with time, as I learn more about
language and linguistics. I regret that my opinions anger you. I has
not been my intention to "tout [my] expertise in linguistics," in the
discussions which are taking place here, but to share perspectives
and from a personal point of view. If you believe that I should
completely refrain from posting on this forum or expressing opinions
on the matters which are discussed here, please, let me know through
a forum or a private message. I will be more than pleased to listen
to your desire and cease participating on this forum rather than to
continue upsetting you.
Sincerely,
Eduard
On Thu, 20 Jul 2006, Craig Hancock wrote...
> This is forwarded from Johanna. My apologies if it also arrives
on its
>own.
>
>Craig
>
>
>---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------
-----
>Subject: Re: Scope and Sequence & Trad. grammar
>From: "Johanna Rubba" <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Thu, July 20, 2006 2:41 pm
>To: "New Public Grammar public grammar"
<[log in to unmask]>
> "Craig Hancock" <[log in to unmask]>
> "Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar"
><[log in to unmask]>
>Cc: "Johanna Rubba" <[log in to unmask]>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>
>Craig, I hope you will post this to the ATEG list if it doesn't make
it
>there. Thanks.
>
>I can't believe we are going around these points again. I think one
>problem is that there are several understandings of "traditional
>grammar". I've been reading a quite interesting old book by H. A.
>Gleason which traces two understandings of the term: one meaning the
>way grammar has been handled in schooling, and one referring to the
>school of grammatical analysis developed in _Europe_ in the late
>nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (e.g., by Jespersen, who,
>however, took a different tack from others in Europe, acc. to
Gleason).
>I think Eduard Hanganu may have the latter in mind more than the
>former, and vice versa for those on the list who oppose "traditional
>grammar". Surely, the two meanings mix, as some older school grammars
>mixed the two. Our aim with the Scope and Sequence project targets
>_today's_ methods, materials, and theory for teaching grammar.
However
>good European tr. gr. might have been, the current curriculum is
>seriously flawed.
>
>Two points are, I'm sorry, incontrovertible:
>
>1) 200+ years of the study of language according to widely accepted
>principles of study of human behavior (yes, they've changed over that
>time, but so has linguistics -- in fact, linguistics has made a large
>contribution to those changes) have led to a body of research results
>that is simply far richer than anything found in the mass-produced
>grammar teaching materials today, and than the content targeted in
>state-mandated tests. Whatever merit European "trad. gr." had (and
I'm
>sure it had plenty) has been so diluted that it is barely noticeable
in
>modern teaching materials (esp. those for native speakers, not ESL
>learners). It also has to compete with the other fatal flaws in the
>curriculum and methodology. These centuries of research have also
>revealed that some of the description of English and other languages
>according to the European and definitely according to the current
>materials is either inaccurate, vague, or incomplete. The persistence
>of the idea that pronouns replace nouns is a prime example. They do
not
>replace nouns. They replace nominals, noun phrases, noun groups,
>whatever you want to call them. I don't know whether European tr. gr.
>claimed this, but even if it did, that's beside the point, because
the
>materials and methods we aim to reform DO. If European tr. gr. can
>contribute to this reform, all the better! Another flawed point is
>insisting on a single word as the "subject" of a sentence. Although
>grammars also point to the "complete subject", students are still
urged
>to look for a single noun, because of the obsession with verb
>agreement. Students miss an important insight about constituent
>structure -- the fact that sentences are made of constituents of
>varying sizes, not of a string of unrelated single words. This is
>reinforced by also teaching that direct objects and so on are single
>nouns, not noun-based groups or nominalizations like noun clauses and
>gerund phrases. Hanganu quotes Chomsky, but if Chomsky found
>Jespersen's grammar so compelling, why did he invent his own theory,
>extremely different from many of the foregoing theories? I very, very
>seriously doubt that Chomsky approves of the approach to grammar
taken
>in today's schools. I don't have time to substantiate this claim by
>doing a search of his writings. I know I should do it, but I don't
have
>the time. I am projecting from his general approach to language.
>
>2) The attitudes about correctness over the centuries have been
mixed,
>but generally, the stance of a few standard-setters like Lindley
Murray
>has won out, and become less informed and more rigid over time. This
is
>a plain-and-simple discriminatory attitude, as linguistic science has
>_proven_. Again, I'm sorry if some people don't believe this, but
>denying it is on a par with insisting that the moon is made of green
>cheese. The discrimination is overtly stated in several writers of
the
>16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, including Puttenham, who proscribed
the
>use of the English of all except the "better-brought up sort" who
spoke
>like "the King" and resided in area about 60 mi. around London.
Samuel
>Johnson eschewed the vocabulary of carters and workmen and "others of
>the inferiour sort". Even Jespersen's famous book had a chapter on
>"The Woman" and the various ways "women's language" was inferior to
>that of men. Yes, this attitude was mixed with deserved praise of
great
>writing, such as that found in Shakespeare, but the element of social
>prejudice cannot be denied. That element has continued down to this
>day, and its effect is seen every year in the achievement gap in test
>scores. Numerous studies have shown that teachers and the general
>public are much more sensitive to differences between standard and
>nonstandard dialects than they are to differences between their own
>"educated" speech and the prescriptions of the grammar books (such as
>"misuse" of "whom", "between you and I", etc.). In other words, they
>find usages of other social classes far less acceptable than their
own
>bugaboos, most of which they are not even aware of.
>
>That methods that include discussion of and respect for nonstandard
>dialects can close the achievement gap has been _proven_, and it
needs
>to be proven on a wider scale and brought to the attention of the
>powers who control curriculum and testing. Whatever we think of
>standardized tests, what they indicate is important (and anecdotes of
>teachers in such programs attest to it as well): these students do
>better in all subjects, enjoy their grammar and language arts
classes,
>feel accepted in the classroom, and form better relationships with
>their teachers. They are NOT so likely to drop out of school, never
>fulfill their potential, and wind up in gangs, on drugs, in prison,
or
>dead. How can we not accept this? How is it not our responsibility to
>prevent the waste of these lives? If this seems like hyperbole on a
>grammar list, it's not. More than grammar contributes to these kids'
>difficulties, but what, other than the change in the language-arts
>approach, caused the change in scores? Control groups with the
ordinary
>curriculum still showed the gap. The kids' other subjects were taught
>according to the regular curriculum.
>
>Gleason's quotations of several early grammarians are very revealing:
>words like "right" and "proper" are used with regard to "usage" and
>"grammar", but they can be interpreted as meaning "effective" as much
>as "correct, according to a privileged standard". Other statements
>reveal whether the intended interpretation was discriminatory, as
with
>Puttenham and with other statements by Murray. The picture of the
>evolution of attitudes, content, and methods from 1500 to the present
>is subtle and mixed, as I have learned in recent years from posters
to
>this list and from more reading into the history of grammar pedagogy.
>
>So if Eduard Hanganu and others feel persecuted, it is because they
>seem impervious to all of this science. It reminds me very much of a
>recent Senate hearing at which several Senators baldly stated that
>there is no scientific consensus either that global warming exists or
>that it is human caused. Whether you believe in human-caused global
>warming or not is not my point. My point is that there _is_
>_international_ consensus among scientists that the planet is warming
>and that it is probably human-caused. It's not 100%, but the beliefs
of
>scientists rarely, if ever, are. Look how long it took for plate
>tectonics to be accepted as a theory of how the earth's crust works.
>The Senators are just plain wrong in their claim. Mr. Hanganu
>continually touts his expertise in linguistics; so why has he not
>accepted the findings of the field he is expert in? How can he use
this
>training as a credential if his statements plainly disagree with
these
>findings? This isn't a straw-man or excessively personal attack. He
has
>put his views out there, he has claimed that they are correct, he has
>critiqued others' views, and someone has to point out that many of
his
>claims are not supported by linguistics research. Why is this more
>problematic here than with other sciences? Yes, particular analyses
on
>this list of a given construction differ. Some of the posted
>explanations are just plain wrong on the facts; others differ in such
>points as whether we will consider a participial modifier
like "Having
>paid the restaurant bill" a "clause" or not. We all know it is an
>ellipted version of a larger clause, but the relation of that larger
>clause to the participial in the grammar is what is at issue. In the
>course of working out a curriculum we will have to settle these
issues,
>especially for the earlier grades. But wrong explanations will, I
hope,
>not be accepted.
>
>I have often been wrong in my postings to this list. It hurts, but I
>have learned from the corrections and they have broadened my
>understanding _and_ my capability. Yes, my authority on English
grammar
>is diluted by these corrections, but it deserves to be! I have been
>more careful in my claims and have consulted sources like QUIGLS and
>Huddleston and Pullum more often before claiming anything. I have
been
>guilty of armchair linguistics, which is a very bad practice.
>
>As to the Scope and Sequence project itself, I strongly believe that
we
>have to come up with a fixed terminology. Textbook publishers, school
>administrators, parents, and teachers will not accept five different
>definitions of the "-ing" form of a verb, especially concerning
grades
>K-5 or 6. As the students advance in their understanding, an
>appreciation of varied terminology can be introduced. Most
linguistics
>professors I know teach a vastly oversimplified version of
linguistics
>in their intro courses. They aren't diving into multi-layered
phonology
>or Optimality Theory as it concerns relative clauses in Japanese (a
>made-up example). They get to the more-accurate subtleties later. I
>heard more than one of my own ling. profs say "what you have learned
>about language up to now is drastically oversimplified. Now we get
into
>the real nitty-gritty."
>
>A good while ago, I proposed a definition for "sentence" for the
>Scope-and-Sequence people to consider. Maybe it never made it to the
>list because of my subscription problems. But if it did, I got zero
>input on it. Several of us are writing or have written textbooks full
>of definitions. There is a pretty fixed terminology in the current K-
12
>materials. We have something to work with. And our aim should be
>accuracy, of course, but equally important is _saleability_. This
>might sound like pandering. But we have a very skeptical audience
with
>pretty much zero knowledge of how language really works, an extremely
>ingrained tradition, and a very hardened publishing industry (they
>will only publish what schools or states ask for, period). I have a
few
>guiding principles in mind for our approach to terminology. If anyone
>is interested, I would be glad to contribute. I don't have as much
time
>as I would like to devote to this project, but whatever
contributions I
>can make, I would like to make.
>
>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
>
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