Johanna is as always mostly right, but I will quibble with a few
statements, mostly peripheral.

Johanna writes, "...since speech is the primary and natural way language
manifests itself, the bulk of linguistics research has been devoted to
speech data somewhat to the neglect of written language."

This is certainly true of all work on non-written languages and on
phonological and morphological work on written languages as well, but
syntactic research as well as much discourse research has, intentionally
or otherwise, been focused on written language.  Particularly in syntax,
the sorts of very complex sentences that are studied and manipulated
would occur only in writing.  Spoken language is generally rather
simpler in terms of multiclause sentences.  So, for example, the kind of
linguistic grammar that has influenced pedagogical grammar, for good or
ill, has been largely writing-based.

Johanna also writes, "... people in oral-only cultures master their
languages perfectly."

This is a widely assumed notion, but one that is full of flaws.
Particularly in preliterate societies with high morphosyntactic
complexity it takes children well into adolescence, and considerable
specific training by elders and other experienced adults, to attain full
mastery of the language, to use the language correctly as the culture
recognizes correctness, and this is not a matter of non-prestige
dialects.  John McWhorter has some very interesting material on this in
his The Power of Babel:  A Natural History of Language.  Especially as a
language comes into close contact with a lingua franca, children
learning both will tend to learn the native language differently and in
a way that older native speakers would consider incorrect.  He present
interesting data from what has happened to the gender/noun class system
of Dyirbal.

But I second her major arguments with enthusiasm.

Herb

Subject: Re: Article Recommendations--Anything recent about learning
vocabulary, grammar, or syntax

I believe Craig's and others' postings on linguists' positions on 
grammar learning need a bit of clarification. Linguists' pronouncements 
have been made based on the discovery of how much children learn of 
their native language before age 5; my personal opinion is that another 
factor in these pronouncements is the anti-prescriptive position of 
most linguists. There is a further factor -- since speech is the 
primary and natural way language manifests itself, the bulk of 
linguistics research has been devoted to speech data somewhat to the 
neglect of written language. Add to this the clear problems with 
"traditional grammar" teaching, and it isn't surprising that linguists 
would support an anti-grammar-instruction stance.

It is very important to understand that no child needs instruction to 
become completely proficient in the spoken language of his/her home 
environment/community. This includes a person's entire life span -- 
people in oral-only cultures master their languages perfectly. Often, 
of course, their native language is not the dialect preferred by the 
gatekeeping institutions of society. Such children's linguistic 
capabilities are therefore misunderstood and they suffer disadvantage 
in education for this reason. I have made numerous presentations at 
ATEG conferences on this subject, and have also noted that the new 
British grammar curriculum is not particularly advanced in this regard, 
in a review published in Syntax in the Schools.

Only in societies in which literacy is extremely important is there 
this concern about how people learn grammar; what is really meant, of 
course, is how people learn the grammar of sophisticated _written_ 
language and the grammar of the standard dialect of that society. I 
certainly believe very strongly that this knowledge is essential to 
success in our society, but teachers need to realize that this is a 
special kind of language which children can learn starting from the 
base of their oral capabilities (see work by Pam Dykstra on this 
subject).

I also believe that the mental capacity that allows children to acquire 
grammar subconsciously is a powerful force in the learning of 
written-language grammar. I don't know of studies to support this, but 
I suspect that generous reading of age-appropriate formal grammar in 
texts allows children to naturally absorb complex sentence structures 
and formal rules that have all but disappeared from the spoken language 
(such as "whom" rules). I really am not sure to what extent explicit 
grammar instruction is needed as a supplement to this automatic 
learning. I do believe that conscious knowledge of grammar is essential 
in giving people a vocabulary and set of concepts they can use to _talk 
about_ writing and language in general. It may also help with improving 
students' writing. But have there been studies of school programs which 
produce very good writers without explicit grammar instruction, but 
which also include a rigorous reading program? My hunch would be that 
schools with great reading programs probably also teach grammar, making 
the likely causes difficult to separate. But again, I am not very 
well-acquainted with research in this area. If anyone is, I'd 
appreciate references.

All this is not to say that I oppose explicit grammar instruction, as 
listers familiar with me know well. But we can only understand the 
learning process and formulate good teaching methods by (a) 
appreciating the strong base in oral grammar that children bring to the 
classroom and (b) exploiting to the greatest extent possible children's 
innate grammar-learning capacity. I also strongly believe that teaching 
approaches which combine grammar with rhetoric and function are 
absolutely necessary. The program I've seen that does this well is the 
Australian program (or at least one execution of it I saw presented at 
a linguistics conference). 1st-graders were working fluently with 
grammatical terms, analyzing and composing prose.

Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Department
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 805.756.2184
Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba

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