Cornelia:

Towards the end of your message, which I have found very interesting, 
and informative, you state: 

"A final request—there’s no need to badmouth linguists. We are 
professionally trained to understand the structure and functions
of language—just like biologists are trained to understand living
organisms."

I agree with you. I have two degrees in linguistics, and I am one of 
those people "professionally trained to understand the structure and 
functions of language." But this is a GRAMMAR forum, isn't it? When a 
discussion on grammar drifts into specialized topics in linguistics, 
then the purpose is lost. There are forums where those who want to 
discuss linguistics can meet their peers and discuss phonetics and 
phonology, semantics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, etc. What 
is the purpose of having such discussions on the ATEG forum when most 
of the people here are educated for elementary and secondary school 
teaching? As I mentioned before, I am a member of the LSA, and the 
Linguist List. I read messages and post there, but I come here for 
grammar.

When I spoke about "good old grammar" I meant traditional grammar. I 
believe the purpose of this forum is to bring back into education the 
grammar which has been for centuries the basis of language education 
in the public schools. When you state that “good old grammar” is not 
enough to give students the kinds of knowledge we want them to have" 
you don't explain how you define this "good old grammar." What is it?

Here I am getting rather confused, because people have been mixing in 
their messages *traditional grammar* and *English linguistics.* Now, 
what should public school teachers and college English Composition 
instructors teach in their classes: traditional grammar, or English 
Linguistics? With what should first grade teachers beging their work 
in grammar education: tree structures, tense deixis, the sense and 
meaning of words, the binding of anaphor? 

If there is a man who has the right to speak about language, grammar, 
and linguistics, I believe this man is Chomsky. Let me repeat what he 
stated about grammar teaching in public school and college:

"I don't see how any person can truly be called "educated' who 
doesn't know the elements of sentence structure, or who doesn't 
understand the nature of a relative clause, a passive construction, 
and so on.Furthermore, if one is going to discuss literature, 
including here what students write themselves, and to come to 
understanding, and to come to understand how it is written and why, 
there conceptual tools are indispensable.

For these purposes, I think traditional grammar so-called ( say, the 
grammar of Jespersen) remains today a very impressive and useful 
basis for such teaching. I can't see any reason for teaching 
structural grammars of English, or for teaching transformational 
grammar in the manner of some instructional books that I have seen."

Chomksy refers in the above quote to Jespersen's classic grammar 
entitled "Essentials of English Grammar"(1964) and describes it as a 
prototype of the grammars students should learn in public school and 
college composition classes. For Chomsky such grammar provides the 
foundation of the knowledge all students should have in order to be 
able to call themselves "educated." I call Jespersen's classic an 
example of the "good old grammar."

Let's leave English linguistics for those students who want to move 
up from the basics to a specialized knowledge of language and teach 
our students those grammar fundamentals which have been neglected for 
decades in the American education.

Eduard 



On Thu, 20 Jul 2006, Cornelia Paraskevas wrote...

>
>
>Ed and others concerned about the scope/sequence project:
>
> 
>
> I understand the
>concern about terminology, but I don’t share the fundamental belief 
that
>nothing about scope/sequence can be resolved until we resolve the 
issues with
>terminology.  Instead of starting from
>isolated examples that have not allowed us to move in our 
scope/sequence
>project, I believe it is more productive to first establish a 
general framework
>and then look at specifics.  
>
> 
>
>For the general framework, it is useful to look at state
>standards:  almost all states have fairly
>explicit guidelines regarding students’ knowledge of “grammar,” and 
these
>guidelines are fairly consistent across states. 
>These guidelines must be considered as we decide what to include in 
our
>project;  otherwise, each state will
>dismiss our project as being irrelevant to their own standards.  
>
> 
>
>In addition to state standards, information from the
>National Curriculum has been extremely useful; 
>that  document provides general
>guidelines regarding scope/sequence, leaving specific details to each
>school.  
>
> 
>
>The general framework includes what should students know
>generally about language, why should they know it and when should 
they know it.
>
> 
>
>First, the ‘what’: 
>they need to know basic structure and to understand how  structural 
choices affect meaning. Most
>current research dealing with the grammar/writing interface 
(including
>punctuation) considers clauses to be the fundamental unit—not 
sentences—and
>that is useful for a basic understanding of grammar, one that 
encourages
>students to see the general, underlying structure of any 
construction:  a clause, then, is any subject/verb pairing
>–finite or non finite.  A construction
>headed by an infinitive, then, is a clause if it has a subject—
explicit or
>implicit.  Now, one  might argue that all non-finite constructions
>are phrases and not clauses.  A quick
>look at established reference grammars like Huddleston’s newest book 
should
>solve that problem.  Our terms will
>follow from our current understanding of language structure in 
conjunction with
>traditional terminology;   where the two
>differ, an explanation should suffice to make the differences clear.
>
> 
>
>‘Why” should they know it? 
>Because –using the example with infinitives—understanding about
>finite/non-finite constructions can be useful in their writing, as 
they try to
>move from less fluent to more fluent syntactic constructions.
>
> 
>
>“When” should they know it? 
>Obviously, after they have mastered basic structure in writing;  the 
sequence of learning is becoming clearer
>in recent years through the work of scholars like Katharine  Perera 
who has been researching the
>development of writing abilities in young students.
>
> 
>
> I believe that any scope/sequence project
>should not be rigidly prescriptive; 
>rather, it should consider our current understanding about language
>structure, our knowledge about writing abilities and text 
development as well
>as general state requirements.   In other
>words, “good old grammar” is not enough to give students the kinds 
of knowledge
>we want them to have.  A final
>request—there’s no need to badmouth linguists. 
>We are professionally trained to understand the structure and 
functions
>of language—just like biologists are trained to understand living
>organisms.  
>
> 
>
>Cornelia Paraskevas
>
> 
>
>
>
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>

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