Eduard,
These leaves me with some questions. 1) Are you ONLY interested in what makes something Standard, or does your interest in grammar go beyond that? In other words, once something is determined as Standard English, are there other things we can observe about its grammar that are useful and beneficial? Is our only concern making sure language conforms to norms or should we also think about ways in which grammar contributes to rhetorical effect or to meaning? 2) Are you at all troubled by the fact that many of the rules of prescriptive grammar seem rather arbitrary? One example might be the “due to” versus “because of” distinction in a recent post that many of us felt was on shaky ground. How do we determine whether something is standard or not? 3) Does that mean that literary texts that use dialect in one way or another should be expunged from the canon? I’m thinking of books like “Huckleberry Finn” or “The color Purple”, much of the poetry of Robert Burns and Langston Hughes, the plays of August Wilson (so many of our plays, for that matter), and so on? How do we deal with the fact that a great deal of highly valued literature is built on creative use of the vernacular?
The final question, I guess, might be how we stimulate widespread acquisition of the standard. Is disparaging dialect a necessary step in that direction? I don’t think many of would disagree that knowing Standard English is a central goal. How do we accommodate other goals as well, including encouraging fluency?
Craig
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eduard Hanganu
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 6:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The "Anti-Grammar Forum"
Well,
Maybe the difference in perspective between the two of us is that you consider different "grammars" that govern different "varieties" of the English language, while I recognize only ONE GRAMMAR, the Standard English Grammar. Of course we all speak our own idiolects, and use various registers depending on the linguistic context, but if those idiolects and registers do not follow the rules of the Standard English Grammar I cannot call those "varieties" or "registers" good English, but to the degree to which they differ from the Standard English I call them "illiterate English." Anecdotally, someone mentioned to me that "Ebonics" as a "language variety" does not differ much from the broken English that some poor, illiterate people speak in the Appalachians. What is the common denominator between these two "varieties" of the English language? Illiteracy.
Eduard
________________________________
From: "Dick Veit" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 5:18:07 PM
Subject: Re: The "Anti-Grammar Forum"
The assumption in several posts that there can only be one variety of English for every occasion flabbergasts me. Aren't we all masters of many registers? In an earlier post I wrote that one language phrase "bugs the hell out of me." I deemed that informal expression to be appropriate in this forum, just as I would consider it inappropriate in many others. I know the difference. You do too. Your language in writing journal papers is identifiably different from your language in an email to colleagues and different from your speech in conversing with friends while watching a football game or in talking on the phone with your insurance agent. You have no trouble making the adjustments. That is what being a sophisticated user of language is all about.
I taught writing for forty years, and my goal was always for students to master the principles of formal written English. There are accepted conventions that educated people need to learn. Another goal was for them to understand different registers and to know which is appropriate to use in different situations. And yes, students can master that too.
When someone in this forum observes that an informal expression is grammatical in a certain register or dialect, they are simply describing what they observe and not making a moral judgment. Such an observatrion doesn't mean that (1) they do not believe in teaching formal written English, (2) they favor teaching students to write Ebonics, or (3) the world is coming to an end.
Dick
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