I have to admit I'm a little worried about this 'Handmaiden of Thought' business. It evokes the old myths that used to surround the teaching of Latin -- that learning Latin would improve logical thought, lead to clearer self-expression, etc. Our society and school system is still so steeped in unscientific language attitudes (that double negatives are illogical, that nonstandard dialects indicate poor thought habits, etc.), that connecting explicit grammar teaching with improving thinking habits seems quite dangerous to me. There are two ways that I can see grammar as the handmaiden of thought: (1) This one is linguistically inspired. The purpose of grammar in language is to allow us to present our thoughts in an organized manner, so that a listener or reader can build, in their own mind, thoughts similar to the ones that inspired our message in the first place. Grammar is used to refer to objects and events and to organize information so that the concepts that come together in the speaker's head come together in similar ways in the listener's head. Topicality and focus, and what is shared knowledge and what is not, are all signalled by grammar. In that sense, grammar is the handmaiden of thought because it offers us stylistic choices -- alternative ways of building messages so that we can convey a very rich mental world of ideas, memories, perceptions, complex relationships, etc. Explicit teaching of grammar is not absolutely necessary to cultivating fluent use of language to express clear, logical thinking. What is necessary is lots of exposure to language that does so, and lots of training in clear, logical thinking through many educational activities in many subject areas. That brings me to the second way grammar is the handmaiden of thought -- (2) The explicit study of grammar -- as with the explicit study of any natural-science phenomenon -- requires the use of clear, logical, precise thinking. In other words, explicit study of grammar is one way to exercise high-level thinking skills that are useful in all reasoning, especially scientific reasoning. Of course, this role of handmaiden to thought is not exclusive to the study of grammar -- the scientific study of any phenomenon, such as life forms, the stars and space, geology, or the human sciences all also serve. The myths surrounding Latin that I mentioned above, and common misunderstandings of what grammar teaching is for in our schools, mistakenly assume that, without explicit grammar study, higher-level thinking skills will not develop. This is the false connection, and the one I fear. For I think it is much more useful in language arts to approach grammar from point of view #1 than #2. While I'm at it, I might as well chime in on the 'should linguists be involved in formulating grammar curricula for K-12' issue. Of course they should!! They are the ones who know how the language works. I'm not saying they should be the only ones involved, or even that they should directly write curricula. But curricula had better be based on linguistic science, or we'll remain in the flat-earth stage of thinking about language that currently characterizes most of our society, as evidenced recently in all the misinformation produced about official English legislation, Ebonics, and bilingual education. From what I see in current grammar textbooks, not very many linguists have been involved in their creation. Thus they rarely represent any step forward from the traditional approach that has failed the majority of students for literally centuries. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Johanna Rubba Assistant Professor, Linguistics ~ English Department, California Polytechnic State University ~ San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 ~ Tel. (805)-756-2184 E-mail: [log in to unmask] ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~