Herb,
This is a very thoughtful position, and I certainly welcome the idea
that people who may disagree on theory can come together to jointly
lobby for increased attention to grammar. You're right; many of the
functionalists tend to present their views in contrast to the
generative position, and that seems a useful conversation.
One widespread notion, of course, is that grammar is primarily a set of
prescriptive rules that need to be followed to write "correctly". The
minimalist position seems to grow out of the idea that students need to
jump through those painful hoops, but might be able to do that with a
minimum of attention. That position seems shaky enough that most people
seem at least ready to embrace the need for more robust
understanding--to promote some comfort with standard English and some
fluency with punctuation. The most explicit of the core standards are
framed around punctuation--to set off introductory elements, for
example, or between coordinate adjectives, or to set off nonrestrictive
postnominal modifiers. By the ways these are phrased, it would seem at
least suggested that these would be made explicit, not simply intuited
through soft explanations.
Beyond that, the question then becomes how do we theorize (or describe)
a connection between knowledge about grammar and effective writing. The
common core standards don't make those connections as well as they
could, but maybe that's asking much at this early stage.
It would be useful, I think, to promote experiments with teaching
grammars that make connection between form and meaning, between grammar
and discourse, more routinely. It's probably a bit early to expect that
to be prescribed nationwide.
Craig
Craig,
>
> Sorry about the blank message. The debates, both between formalists and
> functionalists and between the pro and anti grammar folks in composition
> and language arts, are far from over. The former debate is a very
> productive one, stimulating scholarship on both sides, just what we want
> in an academic debate. The latter debate, unfortunately, is between
> informed understanding and ideology, to put it starkly, and that sort of
> debate is much more perilous. I'm not sure I'd call the widespread
> acceptance of the claim that we don't have to teach grammar to native
> speakers politically correct so much as received wisdom based on ignorance
> and misconception. The idea that we have innate knowledge of language,
> however we might choose to formulate that, is a far cry from the idea that
> we have innate knowledge of our own language or that our unexpressable
> intuitions as native speakers are sufficient for skilled, compelling
> writing. That is the point that we need to keep hammering away at, that
> explicit knowledge of how English works has clear yield for learning to
> write well.
>
> Herb
>
>
> Herb,
> One problem, as I see it, is that those educators who are opposed to
> teaching about language are NOT agnostic on this issue. They have a
> view (maybe "theory" would imply that they have paid more attention)
> that grammar is formal and that the study of formal grammar does not
> carry over to writing. The point I am trying to make--I'm not trying
> to open up the theory debate--is that those conclusions have never
> taken into account the views about language being developed in the
> functional camps. In other words, if grammar is not thought of as a
> formal system, perhaps it can carry over to writing in a very dramatic
> way.
> If you say "you don't need to teach grammar to a native speaker" at a
> writing conference, many people will nod their heads, though they have
> never seriously explored the issue. It is a politically correct
> position and has been for some time.
> Can we at least agree that the case isn't closed? If our understanding
> of grammar shifts, then the value of learning about it (not just
> acquiring it) might shift as well?
>
> Craig
>>
>
>
> Bob and Craig,
>>
>> I find myself increasingly ambivalent in the debate between theories of
>> language. I cut my linguistic teeth on Aspects, got involved in a minor
>> way with the Generative Semantics vs. Autonomous Syntax debate of the
>> early 70s, and in the end decided I liked field work and phonology
>> better-not surprisingly, I suppose, since that's what I did my
>> dissertation on. I find both broad categories of theory glaringly
>> underdetermined by data. In other words, there is no way to clearly
>> falsify either approach. Cognitive learning theory has for a long time
>> made allowance for the production and comprehension of structures that
>> go
>> beyond input data, so I don't see that as a serious flaw in what's
>> broadly
>> called functionalism. There is no question that formal syntactic
>> theories
>> make powerful predictions about the structure of sentences and the
>> nature
>> of syntactic systems. That they don't deal with discourse structure is
>> not a flaw as much as a definition of the scope of syntactic theory.
>> I've
>> used both formal syntactic and functional explanations in the classroom,
>> and they've both added clarity-and sometimes subtracted clarity. A work
>> like Mark Baker's _The Atoms of Language_ is a fascinating and seductive
>> exposition of Universal Grammar, and Geoffrey Sampson's Educating Eve is
>> a
>> trenchant critique of Universal Grammar and the Language Acquisition
>> Device.
>>
>> I would say that, in contemporary usage, I'm agnostic as to the debate,
>> but I'm definitely not. I suppose it would be more accurate to say that
>> I'm indifferent and that I draw from both as I need them and find them
>> useful and interesting.
>>
>> Herb
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Geoffrey Layton
>> Sent: Friday, June 11, 2010 11:51 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: common core standards
>>
>> Bob
>>
>> Would your analysis explain my contention that because a native speaker
>> would never say, "I put the pen the table" or "I put the pen on" (but
>> would say, "I put my clothes on" ), then we really don't have to spend
>> too
>> much time (no time?) teaching prepositions or their direct objects? Or,
>> similarly, the latest revision (by Colomb and Williams) of Turabian's
>> "Student's Guide to Writing College Papers" defines prepositions as
>> simply, "Easier to list (in, on, up, over, of, at, by, etc." And
>> regarding your innovative structures (and I love the way you describe
>> them
>> so positively - not as "error" but "innovation"!), are these examples of
>> writers struggling to find ways to use innate grammar to create meaning
>> that they're in the process of discovering? And does this imply that
>> grammar should be taught in a way that helps students create meaning and
>> that "innovative structures" are simply part of that process?
>>
>> Geoff Layton
>>
>> PS: I still remember fondly your enthusiastic guided tour of Kansas City
>> -
>> my first ATEG experience!
>>
>>
>>
>>> Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 10:23:13 -0500
>>> From: [log in to unmask]
>>> SubjeTo join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
>>> interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select
>>> "Join or leave the list"
>> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>>
>> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
>> interface
>> at:
>> http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
>> and select "Join or leave the list"
>>
>> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>>
>
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface
> at:
> http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
> and select "Join or leave the list"
>
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface
> at:
> http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
> and select "Join or leave the list"
>
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
|
