Many thanks, Craig, for the additional comments. Ron Sheen ----- Original Message ----- From: "Craig Hancock" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 10:34 AM Subject: Re: Construction grammar was: Transformational grammar was: Instruction versus learning > Ron, > I'll give you the five minute answer and not the two hour one. > I think we need to admit that any formal grammar won't translate all by > itself to reading or writing. If we want to teach formal grammar (and I am > not against it) we need to find ways to put that knowledge base to work or > else not complain when people tell us it isn't happening. Cognitive and > functional approaches don't have that linking problem because they are, by > their very nature, linked to deeper order concerns. If we look, for > example, at the huge role of metaphor in all language, we have erased the > boundary between language and literature. If we look at the meaningfulness > of constructions, we are already attending to applications. The whole > argument for or against grammar is something we can put into the past, as > relevant to prescriptive or formal grammars, but not to cognitive or > functional ones. > Of course, there is a huge gap between what's in the theory and what's > in general knowledge. Progress would come from those of us interested in > closing the gap. > > Craig > > Ronald Sheen wrote: >> Many thanks, Craig, for those informative comments. So, in terms of >> potential pedagogical applications, how do you see it happening? >> >> Ron Sheen >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Craig Hancock" <[log in to unmask]> >> To: <[log in to unmask]> >> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 7:20 AM >> Subject: Re: Transformational grammar was: Instruction versus learning >> >> >>> Ron, Martha, >>> Many of the comments I have been making over the past few months have >>> come from an immersion in cognitive linguistics. When I quote Langacker >>> in saying that his approach is "maximalist, non-reductive, and bottom >>> up", those are core principles of construction grammar. You can think of >>> it as in opposition to generative grammar (and to the theory that would >>> espouse sentence combining as a pedagogical approach) which is >>> minimalist, highly abstract, and top down. Grammar is not innate, but >>> learned, not fixed, but emergent. There isn't a sharp boundary between >>> the lexicon and the grammar. In a rough kind of way, you can say that >>> constructions themselves are meaningful. What we sometimes think of as >>> "rules' of grammar can be thought of as highly generalized patterns. >>> "Give" is di-transitive because giving is thought of as having giver, >>> entity given, and receiver of sorts. The concepts and constructions are >>> inextricably linked. >>> A good description of how language is acquired from a usage-based >>> (construction grammar's most current incarnation) approach is >>> Tomasello's /Constructing a Language, /which looks at language >>> acquisition from infancy onward/. /There's a useful collection of essays >>> edited by Barlow and Kemper called /Usage-Based Models of Language. /I >>> would highly recommend Croft and Cruse's /Cognitive Linguistics/, which >>> gives a nice overview of the field, including the history behind >>> construction grammar. Tomasello edits two collections of essays on the >>> /New Psychology of Language/, which are carefully selected to be of use >>> to psychologists. I would also recommend Adele Goldberg's /Constructions >>> at work. /Everything I read from Joan Bybee is impressive/. >>> /As a school, cognitive linguistics links language to cognition. It is >>> much more empirical than generative approaches. It includes the Lakoff >>> and Johnson branch, which explores the primacy of metaphor within >>> language. >>> / /As far as I can tell, no one has worked out pedagogical >>> applications. The possibilities and implications are enormous. >>> We do have capacity to learn language without direct instruction, and >>> much of language use is routinized to the point where it functions below >>> consciousness. But cognitive linguistics accounts for these truths in >>> very different ways,and in ways that would support far more direct >>> attention to language within the curriculum. >>> >>> Craig >>> >>> >>> Ronald Sheen wrote: >>>> Good question, Martha. It's new to me too. It's an approach to >>>> grammar derived from the more general cognitive linguistics >>>> >>>> It argues that a grammar and its compositional meanings derive from a >>>> store of constructions and that acquiring a language entails learning >>>> those constructions within which are couched what we normally think of >>>> as the building blocks of language. >>>> >>>> >>>> I can say no more than that as I understand no more than that. >>>> >>>> Ron Sheen >>>> >>>> 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/ 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/