There is a serious problem with the following: 

>>> Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> 12/07/08 12:25 PM >>>
   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.
****

There are two serious problems with the view of language Craig presents above.  

First, it ignores the fact that ALL language users can make judgments about sentences they have never encountered. 

I have never encountered the following sentence, yet I know it is a possible sentence in English.

1) There is the woman whose daughter my daughter is prettier than.

If my view of language says it is only "productive" to consider sentences that actually occur, then (1) would never be a sentence I would have to account for.  That position would have me ignore what principles of English would account for (1) and ignore knowledge all native speakers have.

(A corollary of this observation is the problem a researcher has in determining what the relevant examples are in a given corpus of language.  Does a researcher committed to only studying "real language" have to account for any language that is encountered?  If not, without a knowledge of what is and is not possible in the language, how does a researcher ignore certain examples in the data?)

Second, and more seriously, the view of language above clearly cannot help us as writing teachers responding to what our students actually write.  

Here is an actual sentence written by a native speaker of English at a regional university.

(2) By taking time out of your day to get something for someone else just really shows that you really care about them. 

This is a mixed construction.  If we have a theory of language that says we must only consider language that actually occurs, does it mean the writer of this sentence has actually encountered this construction somewhere else?  If our knowledge of language is based ONLY on sentences we encounter, the answer to that question is obvious: the writer has clearly been exposed to a lot of mixed constructions.  

Further, if our knowledge of language is based only on the language we have encountered, how does any writing teacher make a judgment that there is something inappropriate with (2)? 

Even if you are talking about improving a student's writing to make her language choices better to meet her meaning, how does anyone judge these choices are not as good as they should be if our knowledge of language is ONLY based on what we have encountered?  The view of language above denies any underlying competence about language that is under-determined by production and not allow us to respond to creative structures our students might use.

****
Craig continues:

It might be more useful for you to respond to the substance of my post. Given your
belief that grammar is innate and acquired at any early age, what are
the benefits of teaching grammar is school? Is correctness the only
goal? 

I hope you realize Craig that the substance of your post makes what we do as writing teachers impossible.  If our knowledge of language is based upon the language we have encountered, then we have no basis to judge a particular string our students write is appropriate or inappropriate.  In other words, if Craig is right, we have no basis to judge that sentence (1) above is a possible sentence in English but sentence (2) isn't a possible sentence.

I have actually sent Craig papers that respond to his questions and why we need to teach grammar.  And, he knows I have an account for why a developing writer would write (2) based on a theory of language that is grounded on the competence/performance distinction.  I have set out a pedagogy based on that.  See the Kenkel and Yates (2003) paper in the Journal of Basic Writing for an accessible paper.

Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri

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