To respond to one of Ed's charges, many of us linguists certainly are
interested in teaching our students (so that they can teach theirs) how
to find subjects, how to identify verbs and clauses. I do so in several
of my courses.
It is true that many college linguistics courses required of teachers
are more about linguistic theory than about explicitly showing where
linguistic theory and traditional grammar overlap, linguistic versions
of traditional grammar, or ways grammar needs to be taught. I decry
this. Courses intended solely to teach how to do linguistic analysis
should be reserved for linguistics minors or majors. Courses aimed at
future teachers should use theory to aid them in learning about language
structure. In fact, I have a review coming out soon in SIS in which I
complain about this very thing--the book is more of a course in
linguistic theory than in English grammar. So, while this problem is
widespread, it is not universal, and I think it is unfair to criticize
members of ATEG and accuse them of being solely in the
teachers-be-damned group. After all, they have joined an organization
about TEACHING grammar. If there are any linguists who seek to address
the needs of schoolteachers, they are likely to be the ones in ATEG.
They may not always go far enough in achieving the goal, but the aim is there.
I am working right now on a book proposal which intends to address the
needs of teachers in terms of both content and method. Many ATEGers have
often referred to the usefulness of tricks for finding subjects and
verbs like those in Rei Noguchi's book on grammar. ATEG's _Grammar
Alive_ states as one of its three goals for grammar education: "Every
student will complete school with the ability to analyze the grammatical
structure of sentences within English texts ... " In the text below, we
find "This goal emphasizes the the value of understanding the basic
components of ... sentences" (p.6). I know both of these statements are
general, but I am quite sure the intention was that students would be
able to find subjects, verbs, and clauses, and know whether the clauses
are independent or not.
This book also promotes using authentic texts, including student
writing, in grammar classes. This needs to be done with great caution,
however: Even primary-school children will use complex grammar in their
own writing. Older students will use complex grammar generously. Often,
structures in their writing are beyond their level of competence in
analysis at the grade level, and beyond the analytic competence of the
teacher. I have found that, in attempting to use authentic texts, I
often have to adapt them to de-complicate the intended exercise. It's
easy to say we should use authentic texts, but in practice it can be
quite challenging. There are, of course, ways to focus an exercise on
specific constructions that are simple within a given text, but it is
not so easy to find texts that lend themselves to this. (Or maybe many
of you have had more success with this than I have.)
Linguistics courses aren't always totally useless, either. Anyone who
has learned to tree-diagram a sentence (something taught in many, many
college linguistics courses) has to be able to identify the subject (NP
immediately dominated by S) and verb (head of VP immediately dominated
by S) and clause (any structure of the form S --> NP VP). A lot of
instructors leave this implicit, which is unfortunate. And of course
they don't address the question of how to convey this information to
schoolchildren, who don't need to be taught linguistic theory. We could
debate the usefulness of tree diagrams for various grade levels.
So, don't be so absolute in your judgments, Ed! There are degrees ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184 • Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone. 756-2596
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] • Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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