Bob,
   I think my full post makes more sense. If I remember right, you asked
whether gramamr would keep you from understanding physics or just the
lack of ideas.  I repeat my full reply here:

Your best chance of succeeding as a quantum physicist is to find a
quantum physicist who will mentor you into the field. That is, in fact,
what our curriculums are supposed to do, but don't always do well. What
you need to be able to do is join in on the quantum physics
conversation, which means a great deal of "shared knowledge" that you
don't already have. You will run into sentences deeply packed with
meaning and won't be able to process those meanings because you don't
know what they presuppose that you know.
   " Because non-restrictive post-nominal modifiers are intoned as a
separate intonation group, they are set off by commas." You understand
that right away because you can unpack the meaning in the noun phrases.
To a typcial student, it might as well be Greek.
   To the extent that linguistics is a technical discipline, you already
know what it takes to get up to speed in a technical discipline and
become part of the conversation. You won't look at a heavily
nominalized sentences and just assume that you are stupid. (Many
students will make a different judgement.)
   There are also attribution conventions (we don't do the work of a
discipline alone) that are learned over time. There's a different
grammar to a hypothesis than there is for an observation. We learn to
do a review of the literature precisely because we need to learn to add
our voice to an ongoing conversation. This differs by discipline,
though I believe there's quite a bgit of carry-over.
   We now have some interesting compilations of "the moves that matter in
academic writing." (They say.... I say.....)
   Physics is a language community like any other, and there's more than
just "ideas" involved in becoming part of it. The better we understand
what's involved, the easier it will be to mentor students along.

Craig>
>


 In a post several days ago, Craig wrote:
>
>  I expect Bob will react angrily to the suggestion, but I also recommend
> Schleppegrell's "The Language of Schooling." It also grows out of the
> beleif that literacy can be disdcipline specific, that it can and
> should be made more explicit, and that we have a mentoring role in the
> process.
>
> I have no idea what that means with regard to grammar. Craig wrote back
> offline the following:
>
> Of course, the following is right.
>>
>>>>> <[log in to unmask]> 02/07/09 10:51 AM >>>
>>    Your best chance of succeeding as a quantum physicist is to find a
>> quantum physicist who will mentor you into the field. That is, in fact,
>> what our curriculums are supposed to do, but don't always do well. What
>> you need to be able to do is join in on the quantum physics
>> conversation, which means a great deal of "shared knowledge" that you
>> don't already have. You will run into sentences deeply packed with
>> meaning and won't be able to process those meanings because you don't
>> know what they presuppose that you know.
>> ***
>>
> However, what does this have to do with grammar and, more specifically,
> grammar teaching?
>
>  Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>
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