John,

Maybe a terminological split would be handy here. On the one hand, there's "the material about language we want to teach." On the other, there's "grammar." Because linguists have used the word "grammar" for so long in rather specific ways, linguists won't tend to think of phonology as grammar (although there certainly are positions that don't view the distinction as ironclad). As Craig has pointed out, a lot of the public is accustomed to thinking of "grammar" as "the stuff we're supposed to say in a different way, because the way we say it is Wrong" Neither the public nor (most) linguists would typically think of including a unit on deceptive advertising language in the category of "grammar," but I certainly think that kind of thing should be in all English curricula, and I suspect most, if not all,  people on this list would agree.

What would be the effect if, instead of "grammar," we think of the area as simply "language analysis"? Those linguists who firmly believe that "grammar" should refer only to morphosyntax, conceptualized as a separate component, probably won't object to "language analysis" being defined much more broadly, and certainly neither would functionalists; in effect, no one's staked out a claim on "language analysis." [1] Yes, it's vague -- and there would be a danger of someone thinking that talking about literary metaphors for ten minutes constitutes a language analysis unit -- but it's certainly as delimited as "social studies" or some of the other mainstays of public education.

I used to like the label "language structure awareness" for this, but I've come to think that that doesn't sufficiently foreground analytic reasoning.

--- Bill Spruiell

[1] Note -- please! -- that I'm not saying here that restricting "grammar" to morphosyntax is either a good or bad position, nor (more particularly) am I suggesting that that position is Bob's. It *is* the position of a number of linguists, but both they and linguists that firmly disagree with them (like me) would largely agree that a wide range of language phenomena should be discussed in English classrooms. To a certain extent, it's the terminology that's the hang-up, and that's partly because the terms have become rallying flags in position wars. I'd be happy to call the entire area something totally new, like Theeb or Floortst, if I thought people would go along with it. In fact, letting a classroom full of students decide what new term *they* want to call it would be a great opening activity for a unit on it.


On Aug 30, 2011, at 11:00 AM, John Dews-Alexander wrote:

Picking up on a point made by Paul, I want to ask the question, "What is the domain of grammar? What does grammar encompass? What does it NOT encompass? What aspects of grammar should/should not be incorporated into the language arts curriculum?" (I am referring to only the grammar of English.)

If we talk about language sounds (phonetics) and how we use them (phonology), are we talking about grammar? Do we need to concern ourselves in the classroom with breaking language down into it's basic units of meaning (morphology) to examine the construction of words? Are the rules for forming phrases, clauses, and sentences (syntax) the Sovereign of Grammar and how far do we take the teaching of these "rules"? Do we go beyond this level? Do we consider larger units of language (discourse) and its aspects of cohesion, coherence, clarity, information structuring? What about all of the context that informs our understanding of language (pragmatics) -- is that grammar? Do we even consider including stress, rhythm, and intonation (prosody) even if they have a huge impact on meaning?

What supports the teaching of grammar? Is it valuable/worth while to look at the history that informs/shapes the grammar (historical linguistics)? Is a unit on animal communication worthwhile in order to emphasize what makes human language/grammar so special? Where do we even start with all of the social/cultural implications of grammar (dialectology/sociolinguistics/anthropology/sociology)? Would we be doing a major disservice by failing to team up with our neighboring science teachers to discuss the cognitive/neural basis of grammar (cognitive/neurolinguistics) -- what we know about grammar and the brain/cognition is fascinating, but is it a part of grammar to English teachers?

We must teach literature as well, but do we bring grammar along to analyze these canonized writings? (stylistics/text analysis)

It's a big question, I know, and certainly one addressed before, but the composition of this list has changed quite a bit, and I think that it is a discussion worth revisiting for the benefit of all members. Of course, reality precludes us from using an ideal definition of grammar in many cases, but I'm more interested in what that ideal would look like to begin with.

I know this also brings into question the relationship between the English/Language Arts teacher and the linguist (or the role of those with a foot in both camps), but I'd like to believe that we all agree by now that no harm comes from a sharing, amicable relationship at a minimum.

I look forward to hearing what everyone thinks!

John


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