Recently Mike Maxwell (on the LINGUIST list) posted a message about his frustration with the way grammar is being taught to his son in the seventh grade. Our ATEG colleague Marilyn Silva replied, and I thought you all would enjoy her response. Carolyn Kirkpatrick [log in to unmask] ---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------ 1) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 1996 11:40:09 PDT From: [log in to unmask] (Marilyn Silva) Subject: Re: 7.624, Qs: English Textbooks, Conjunction, Agency In his post dated Apr 25, Mike Maxwell reports: "The following is from my son's seventh grade English textbook ("Houghton Mifflin English", 1990): A phrase is a group of words that is used as a single word in a sentence. A prepositional phrase begins with a preposition, ends with the object of the preposition, and includes any words that modify the object. [p. 447] Adjective Phrases. You have learned that prepositional phrases are used as single words. A prepositional phrase that functions as an adjective is called an adjective phrase... [Example:] "Wallpaper was a cheap substtute {for woven wall hangings}." ... [p. 451] Adverb Phrases. A prepositional phrase that functions as an adverb is called an adverb phrase... [Examples:] "We will travel {with a tour.}." ... "This tour is famous {for its careful planning}." ... "Have you ever traveled far {from home}?" [p. 453]" Indeed I share Mike Maxwell's sense that his son's textbook is "out in left field." But perhaps it won't ruin the boy forever. Given that there has been almost no grammar instruction in the K-12 level for the last twenty years, we should applaud his school and teacher in exposing him to any ideas in grammar. Having said that, let me add what I know about the texts that are out there. Unfortunately, most of the folks who put together grammar books and other products for the K-12 level know next to nothing about modern grammar (and sometimes little about grammar, period). Last summer, for example, I was called in as a consultant by "Creative Wonders," a subsidiary of ABC that had acquired the rights to "Conjunction Junction" and other educational snippets previously televised on Saturday morning during the 70s. Creative Wonders was in the process of producing an interactive CD-ROM called "Grammar Rock" and the fellow who called me was rightfully concerned about the educational quality of the product. Anyway, when I took a look at the data going into this product, I was appalled: Whoever wrote the material had no idea what was what in grammar. I spent days trying to fix the stuff, but there were constraints, partly because I had been called in at the end of the project rather than at the beginning, and partly because the explanations I was forced to work with were driven by the lyrics of the songs from the "Schoolhouse Rock" series (e.g., "Any person that you know, and anything that you can show, and any place that you can go --you know they're nouns, you know they're nouns.") I fixed the stuff as much as I could. For example, I made the programmers change all the stuff on the conjunctions, which, according to the original program, was the connection of two unequal elements, such that "John and Mary went to the store" was analyzed as a connection of a noun [John] and a clause [Mary went to the store]! Furthermore, compound nouns like "ceiling fan" were analyzed as adjective plus noun! Once again, I had to work within the confines of the material already produced (pictures, music, etc.). Considering all these problems, the final product looks pretty good, even if it is, well, a bit schoolmarmish and traditional. My 8-year-old was my guinea pig, and she loves it, and has learned enough from it to be able to determine word class membership for particular lexical items. Of course, given that she is the daughter of two linguists, all of that may be due to genetic predisposition to love language analysis, but, anyway there it is. "Grammar Rock" may not be the last word in up-to-date analysis, but it does encourage learning and interest in grammar. Let me add that I am beginning to think that the very concrete approach to grammar given in "Grammar Rock" may turn out to be the right one for the 6-to-10-year-old targeted by this product. So much for our sophistication. Linguist List subscribers may want to take a look at it; as I said, kids really love it--even older ones, as it turns out--and it is inexpensive (I think $29.95, but I'm not certain). But back to Mike's original comment. What we have is an example of the enslavement of most grammar authors to the eight traditional parts of speech, the notion of the word as the ruler of grammar, and the idea that a phrase must consist of more than one word (I stuck to that in part for "Grammar Rock." I had to, given the constraints I mentioned, but I do suspect that kids have a heck of time thinking about a single word as a "phrase"). Thus, a phrase "acts as a word"! In fact those PPs Mike describes are adjectivals (as are a host of other post-noun modifiers) and adverbials,but the author may have been dissuaded by an editor or reviewer from distinguishing between an adjective phrase and an adjectival one, and between an adverb and an adverbial on the grounds that teachers wouldn't select the book because children might become confused. Publishers of texts are always concerned about the bottom line, and the textbook market can be tricky. There is hope here, however. I have a contract for a new book aimed at the lower-division college/high school market. This one teaches students to think of phrases rather than individual lexical items, shows subjects to be entire phrases rather than words, and presents adverbial movement as rhetorical choice. BTW, my publisher wants me to work on a CD-ROM product that picks up where Grammar Rock leaves off. Once I'm done with the latest book, I may give it a go! I've already written a college-level text that is text-based (i.e., the focus is on written rather than spoken English) and surface structure oriented (_Grammar in Many Voices_ NTC Publishing Group, Lincolnwood IL, 1995). Since the primary audience for this text is the group of students planning to teach, I hope to influence the curriculum designers. Marilyn Silva California State University, Hayward [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ LINGUIST List: Vol-7-632.