>Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 15:14:02 -0500 (EST)
>From: Brandi Sidley <[log in to unmask]>

>Isn't there some value to teaching grammar for its own sake--learning the
>structure of our language or possibly just learning to analyze such
>structures?

Brandi:

In answer to your question, I'll quote from my chapter on "Grammar in the
Schools" in the second edition of my textbook, Discovering English Grammar
(Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1999):

        "To argue that a subject has an intrinsic value is a curious type of
argument, since it is not subject to outside proof.  It is impossible, for
example, to prove or disprove the merits of studying the fine arts or
higher mathematics.  Most students will not become artists or musicians nor
will many ever encounter practical applications for trigonometry or Boolean
algebra, and yet most of us believe in the value of these studies.  Our
arguments are based on notions of value that have nothing to do with
immediate utility, nothing to do with developing marketable skills or
increasing our incomes.  Instead we see these subjects as important areas
of knowledge, connected in important ways with the meaning of being human,
with beauty, and even with the nature of truth itself.  Our minds, we feel,
are more fully developed, our knowledge more richly completed, through our
contact with these studies.  It is an argument based on insight, subjective
experience, aesthetics, and certain philosophical assumptions, rather than
on practical consequences.  Nonetheless it is an argument that is not to be
dismissed out of hand.
        "The same arguments support the teaching of grammar.  I hope that, having
completed the study of this book, you now _know_ the value of grammar.  I
hope you have found a beauty and even a pleasure, perhaps a deeply
satisfying one, in understanding the remarkably elegant structure of our
language.  I hope you have found it a revelation as the operating
principles of the English language unfolded before you and as you were
struck by the clarity of what was at first quite unclear.  Many millions of
people have known these experiences and remain convinced of grammar's
importance.  They love the language, and their study of grammar has played
an important role in fostering that love.
        "Besides conferring aesthetic rewards, the study of grammar also provides
important knowledge about ourselves.  The use of language is the most
central of all the faculties of the human mind.  All mental activity that
makes us distinctly human presupposes language.  Human minds are uniquely
adapted to learning language, and the structures of language and of our
minds are attuned.  Because language is so complex and because such large
areas of our brains are devoted to language (as neurological studies show),
no other field of study can give us equivalent insight into the nature and
structure of our minds.  Like the study of philosophy, history, biology,
sociology, and psychology, the study of grammar teaches us important
lessons about ourselves.  Self-knowledge is the central concern of a
liberal and humanistic education.  It is its own reward.  We need look no
further to justify its existence."  [pp. 290-91]

I hope this helps.

Richard Veit
University of North Carolina at Wilmington

[Shameless plug addressed to fellow teachers of grammar: To learn more
about my book or to order an instructor's examination copy, see the book's
website: http://www.uncwil.edu/people/veit/DEG/  -RV]