I don't get the sense that this post is a response to any of the points
that I made, particularly. I suspect that, as in most
descriptivist/prescriptivist melees (how did I get here?), we are using
vocabulary differently. For instance, I use "prescriptivist" to mean
"someone who makes prescriptions for improving language use." I believe
that you mean "a prejudiced person who wields linguistic information to
'make people feel inadequate.'" I think that, by definition, all
prescriptivists make prescriptions for improving language use. Certainly
*some* do so in a way that is prejudicial or intimidating, but I don't
think it's a definitional characteristic. So when I say, I think you may
be to some degree a prescriptivist, I don't accuse you of being Cerberus
to the Tower of the Privileged, and no offense is intended.
And you don't care to "correct" writing but to "revise" it. Absolutely
okay by me. I don't think the shift removes the activity from the realm
of prescription, though. Revision is certainly not, as I understand it,
a descriptive activity. I think what you're advocating is a kind of
prescriptivism that (1) ignores a small subset of language "rules" that
you and many others find arbitrary/dysfunctional and (2) makes sure
students feel validated and respected. Do I misunderstand?
Best,
Kathryn
________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 9:27 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: using "before"
Herb, Kathryn,
You guys do a nice job of arguing for semi reluctant
adherence/resignation to the current status quo. I enjoy tilting at
windmills, so I'll keep at it a bit longer.
"Gatekeeper" has a different ring to me than it would to most people
because I work with non-traditional students and know the way it has
been used in the past. Shaughnessy calls it the first stage in her
taxonomy of maturation for developmental teachers. (She calls it
"Guarding the Tower"). A teacher decides he/she wants to protect the
academy from the barbarian hordes (in her case, open admissions
students) who would degrade it. Students are tested at entry and put
into "remedial" classes largely on the basis of surface error. They are
then grilled and drilled in the hopes of getting them to write correct
sentences, after which they will be taught how to write correct
paragraphs, correct short themes, and so on, with a terrible success
rate that the teacher chalks up to innate lack of ability. At any rate,
the academy is protected from the perceived assault on standards. A
much better approach is to simply assume their ability, take their
writing seriously, and watch the natural changes that occur as they
learn to shape their writing in meaningful and effective ways. Instead
of saying we will take them seriously when their language changes, we
can take them seriously from the start and achieve much more rapid
change as a result. This partly requires a serious listening to life
stories rather different from our own and recognizing enormously
valuable insights that come from differing perspectives.
Of course, these students suffer more than others from our failure to
teach seriously about language. They come to us with very little
metalanguage to work with. Their language has been "corrected", but not
explained.
If we resign ourselves to the inevitability that our student writers
will be held to dysfunctional standards, we are abdicating our
responsibility, which is to use our expertise wisely. I'm surprised at
the number of studies of "error" (such as the Connors-Lunsford) that
note that certain dialect "errors" are the most heavily stigmatized
without reaching the conclusion that we are prey to heavily racist
practices that spill over into language. All the burden seems to be
placed on the students to change to fit these kinds of reprehensible
prejudices. It certainly does make sense to prepare students to face an
unfriendly world, but we can tell the truth about it much more than we
do.
Two treatments of this that I find very sensible are in Ed
Schuster's Breaking the Rules... and "The Language Maven" chapter in
Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. Both talk about what Schuster
calls "mythrules" and their tendency to perpetuate themselves precisely
because we expect them to continue. "Most", according to Pinker, "make
no sense at any level... The rules conform neither to logic nor to
tradition, and if they were ever followed they would force writers into
fuzzy, clumsy, wordy, ambiguous, incomprehensible prose, in which
certain thoughts are not expressible at all" (385). Pinker criticizes
these self-proclaimed experts for two principal "blind spots" : "One is
a gross underestimation of the linguistic wherewithal of the common
person....The other...is their complete ignorance of the modern science
of language" (412-13).
Some of the studies of grammar instruction seem to show that they
impede the teaching of writing, and that may very well be best
understood in relation to the above. In order to write well, you have to
have some trust that the language you have available is up to the task.
Prescriptivists tend to make people feel inadequate. Tell them you are
a grammarian, and many people will become instantly uncomfortable, tell
you their grammar is terrible, and that they'll have to watch what they
say. In other words, they are likely to shut up. The other way that it
impedes is that it is an arbitrary obstacle. Instead of spending time
focused on whether the writing accomplishes more important goals, we get
distracted into attending to surface features. The writing gets
corrected rather than revised. This other grammar thing (prescriptive)
takes over. There are solid studies that show this.
Of course, the more knowledgeable ALL of us are about grammar, the
less likely it is that this sort of thing will happen. This should
include a healthy respect for the linguistic sophistication of the
everyday language user and a healthy distrust of the self-proclaimed
experts. It should also include a serious, sustained look at how meaning
happens within the grammar of the language. Sentences are very flexible
in the information they contain and in the way that information is
organized. In an effective text, they work in harmony with other
sentences and in harmony with a writer's evolving purposes. We can
develop an understanding of grammar that attends to this and helps us
accomplish the real work of writing.
Instead of testing how people behave, we should test what they KNOW.
You can certainly make a case that it's not TEACHING of grammar, but
IGNORANCE about grammar that does the most harm.
I didn't respond directly to Gretchen's thoughtful post, so I'll add
a point here. We need to do something to empower teachers like her, who
want to do what's sensible but feel caught up within a dysfunctional
system. I know what it's like to feel that every error a student makes
for another teacher reflects back on the writing teacher who let them
through the gate. Even when our focus is mostly on the student (as it
seems to be for Gretchen) we can feel that our hands are tied, that we
need to get them ready to jump through hoops we never would have
invented on our own. We need to speak up at the highest levels if we
hope to free up dedicated teachers and influence thoughtful change.
Craig
Stahlke, Herbert F.W. wrote:
Kathryn and Craig,
What we seem to be talking about here is Formal Standard Written
English, a register that college students are required to master and
that high school students intending to go to college need to be well on
the way towards mastering. It is the great gate-keeper in American
society. My college students see this immediately when I ask them to
think back to high school classmates who didn't succeed at English and
where they were now. We talk about this, and it's clear to all that
there are notable exceptions to the rule, but that overwhelmingly
success at FSWE is a prerequisite to other socio-economic success.
The problem with this is that FSWE is constructed in different ways by
different people, be they teachers, editors, employers, school board
members, or parents. Not everyone's FSWE is the same but frequently
each person believes firmly that his or her FSWE is correct and widely
accepted. We can't teach to all of the which/that, stranded
preposition, passive voice, ... preferences, so we have to make sure our
students know that these preferences exist and that they may have to be
sensitive to them.
And, by the way, they aren't all old. As we've discussed before, the
ban on possessive antecedents, which it the news a few years ago, shows
up for the first time in the 1940s and than spreads to nearly all the
standard grammar books, even though even the writers who tout it violate
it often in the same work. Sentence-initially "hopefully" isn't much
older. These are more matters of fashion and of societal myth as
matters of grammar.
Herb
Hey, Craig,
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I think I'll try pasting in some of
your points and replying to them individually--
Craig: " . . . the function of case has been
shifting toward the pragmatic. Is that a weakening of the language,
something we should fight against? . . . At any rate, we
might be taking arms against the sea if we oppose it."
Kathryn: I 100% agree with you about the folly of fighting language
change--both because it would be a lost cause and because often language
changes specifically to meet users' changing communicative needs. But as
long as many language users (especially cultural gatekeepers) still
value the "old" conventions and follow them, it's helpful to know what
those old conventions are, how to follow them, and when it is wise to do
so (or when the conventions will improve clarity, communication,
richness, etc.). That's not a matter of fighting change; it's a matter
of understanding/navigating it.
Craig: "I have a great deal of difficulty with the notion of "standard
English." We tend to talk about it as if it were set in stone and was
actually existing somewhere to be studied and emulated."
Kathryn: I don't know anyone who is savvy about language who thinks that
standard English is static. One can study and emulate a set of
conventions without having to have them set in stone. After all, one can
study art or emulate the work of particular artists even as what our
culture regards as valuable art changes constantly.
But again, I didn't raise the issue of "standard English" as a
call to pedantic arms (a call to red pens?) but to wonder whether
employing a standard or working to improve student writing doesn't
necessarily *mean* to some degree being a prescriptivist and/or a
proponent of standard English. It doesn't mean that you employ every
prescription of Fowler's or that you fall into lockstep with the,
whatever, 2-5% of conventions of standard English that strike you as
arbitrary and undemocratic. But any time we accept that writing can be
improved or that some usages are "better" (clearer, more
"natural"-sounding, whatever) than others, we venture out of the bounds
of pure descriptivism, no?
Craig: "But that's a far cry from saying that a dialect is inherently
incorrect."
Kathryn: I agree that it doesn't make sense to talk about dialects or
registers being "inherently" correct (or "inherently" aesthetically
pleasing or appropriate). Language use is clearly contextual.
"I suspect we get to the same place from opposite directions, but I
also think the direction you come from has enormous repercussions.
Craig"
Likewise.
Best to you,
Kathryn
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
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/