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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