Johanna Rubba wrote:

> Here's a good source on functional and cognitive approaches to language.
> It's designed for the non-linguist:

> > Tomasello, Michael. 1998. The new psychology of language:
> > cognitive and functional approaches to language structure. Mahwah,
> > NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

And, may I suggest a book (I have just begun) that compares a formalist
approach to understanding the nature of language and a functionalist
approach.

Newmeyer, Frederick. 1998. Language form and language function.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Newmeyer reaches a very different conclusion than Tomasello about how to
understand the nature of language.

Here is the heart of the controversy about these approaches for those of
interested in how to teach nature speakers about language.

[Can and should] language be described as an autonomous `self-contained
system [?] . . .  generative linguistics [above I have used the term
formalist] posits such a system, while functional linguistics rejects
it.  (Newmeyer, p 23)

To bring us back to the issue of scope and sequence, this raises
important questions about what is being sequenced.  Is it a question of
how this "self-contained system" matures or how the ability/need(?) to
express certain ideas which requires the appropriate forms matures?

It also raises important issues about what is to be taught.  Is it a
question of many forms are possible to express the same thoughts or to
express certain thoughts requires certain forms?  (Sorry, I am not a
functionalist so I may have difficulty in stating their position in a
fair way.)

For those of us who are involved in teacher education, this controversy
has important implications for how we understand what our pre-service
teachers need to understand about the nature of language and how we, and
ultimately they, will teach about language.

Bob Yates