Judy,

We're kind of getting away from grammar here, but I guess in the end all
discourse uses grammar and in turn is at least partially defined by the
grammar it uses.

I agree, first of all, that "grammar is responsive to all of these:
purpose, mode, and media." That's what I said.

I also agree that discourse has "(at least) 2 dimensions." However, I don't
agree with your sidewise arrangement of aim, mode, and arts/media. We never
(well, almost never) decide that "I am going to write a narrative;
therefore, I will be writing literature." We say, "I am going to write
literature, and I have decided to do it as a narrative" (since narrative is
the most common form in which literature is written). Since aim limits both
the choice of mode and the grammar used in the mode, that's why I put aim
above mode in a hierarchy. (Actually, "I" didn't think this up. The theory
comes from someone else.) I would also point out that matters even higher
in the hierarchy such as situational and cultural context also can control
the choice of mode.

If you want to put something on the other dimension, why not put the types
of each aim and mode across the page? They are of equal importance in the
world, if not in the English department. Like this:


Rhetorical aims
    Persuasive, Literary, Expressive, Expository (informative, etc.)

Rhetorical modes
    Narrative, descriptive, classificatory, evaluative

Arts/media
    Arts: writing, speaking, graphics
    Media: mass, large group, small group, one-to-one

Finally, I agree that "what is tricky, when you bring 'discourse' into
questions of grammar, is how we can look sideways through all the different
windows while we focus on the level of grammar." I don't agree that it's
sidewise, but I do agree that it's tricky to try to ignore other windows to
focus on grammar. In one sense, we always must do that. That's how science
and education are done--by focusing on one way of looking at reality while
agreeing to temporarily ignore the other ways. That's your typical grammar
course, as a matter of fact.

However, that brings us back to one of the issues we have been discussing
on this list--how to make grammar more interesting and learnable for our
students. Some argue that the way to do these things is to provide more
context--not just grammar but the grammar of literary style or the grammar
of dialects, for example.

I'm just saying that if you want context for grammar, you can find it at
every level of the hierarchy.

Bill



William J. McCleary
Livonia, NY

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