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fluffyhamster · Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 9:30 pm Post subject:

Well, you need to get back to your student at some point, and sooner rather than later is usually better. What precisely are you going to tell him/her (it?). Laughing

Sashadroogie · Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 9:34 pm Post subject:

Again, if you read the thread properly, you'll see that the student has been answered already. It was the dissatisfaction which I had with my own explanation that led to this thread.

I thought you were into grammar. Why all this discord?

fluffyhamster · Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 9:41 pm Post subject:

Ah right, in your first post, I take it? I did read that, but it can't have seemed a very clear explanation. (Not saying mine is either, though). I just wasn't sure enough of the thread was directly answering the student's question "Why can't I say this instead, appropriate (borrow) on the basis of this usage:...?". ("Because what you're suggesting will have this effect: ... . Compare that with the usages you do know and are borrowing from, and indeed, try performing reverse substitutions. Are the differences clearer now?").

Sashadroogie · Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 9:43 pm Post subject:

Hmmmm...

fluffyhamster · Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 9:56 pm Post subject:

Hmmm indeed. Still, perhaps you're right, and I should pick which threads I contribute to more carefully in future. Or, only come back to you with a grammar that's managed to anticipate every notion a student could possibly entertain. (Something Generative, perhaps? Laughing

).

johntpartee · Joined: 02 Mar 2010 Posts: 3258

HLJHLJ · Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 1218 Location: Ecuador

fluffyhamster · Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 6:34 am Post subject:

Hi HLJHLJ. In your post on the previous page you seemed to be saying that your gender-neutral pronoun preferences were: in 1st place 'its', 2nd 'their', then 3rd 'his or her'. But only the latter two choices will work in the two examples I quoted (i.e. not all examples have nice clear simple human anaphors), so I'm not sure why you'd make 'its' your apparent default choice.

HLJHLJ · Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 1218 Location: Ecuador

Sashadroogie · Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 7:48 am Post subject:

fluffyhamster · Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 3:39 pm Post subject:

Sasha, it pains me and gives me little satisfaction to tell a student they are wrong, but I think in this case they are, and no amount of handwringing or tactical evasion can alter that fact. Trying to formulate some rules for a usage they already know (but are misapplying) is of course part of the answer, but it may not be the whole answer, and my musings, regardless of how curtly they seemed to be delivered in this particular case, might well form part of a wider and more effective reply. You are welcome however to return to considerations of 'the artificial construct of gender neutral language in EAP' or whatever else this "explosive" thread has thrown up into the air, and to waste as much classtime as you like dealing with all sorts of theories and clever wishful thinking about how English could work but in fact doesn't.

I recall testing~"contesting" something called the ba 把 construction when I was learning Chinese. I can't remember exactly what question I had (=had written in my homework exercises, not imposed in class), but I do remember that all that my tutor wrote in reply was 'Your question doesn't make any sense. You have to use ba here'. Was I a little disappointed at the time? Probably. But my tutor knew I had several grammars to explain the reasoning behind the usage generally, and he simply did not have time to entertain my valiant attempts to make the Chinese language more interesting or "logical" (to myself, at any rate). And the truth is that ultimately, I didn't really expect my rephrasings to actually be acceptable usage.

Anyway, since becoming an English teacher, getting into empirical approaches, and answering no end of "Why isn't it or can't it be Y instead of X? Would Y really be so wrong?"-style questions, especially on Dave's, I have come to the conclusion that the main way to make progress in any real and consistent sense is just to stick to observable facts, with any theories or grand conclusions remaining mostly just tacit, tied to and dealing in examples and to some extent counterexamples ("negative evidence") rather than rules (rules are quite hard to express just so), and I have indicated which examples in this thread might be usefully contrasted (and at its simplest, there is something about "wrong ownership" in both (*)The baby enjoys splashing in their bath and *She kept her head and kicked her shoes off, as anybody ought to do who falls into deep water in its clothes. With just a pronoun and no noun following it, it is simply "wrong/apparent change of referent", as in examples such as *The baby was trying to climb the stairs when they fell or *Somebody is climbing that tree. Oh no, it has fallen!. Saying what has gone wrong in exhaustive formal terms is the next tentative step, but a student who's thought up this problem in the first place should be able to take that next step by themselves, especially with a somewhat larger array of examples and counterexamples to now refer back to).

HLJHLJ · Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 1218 Location: Ecuador

Fluffy, you need a snickers.

fluffyhamster · Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 4:00 pm Post subject:

LOL! I feel a link to Englishdroid's "Diva Method" coming on. Very Happy

Sashadroogie · Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 4:05 pm Post subject:

Fluffy, you seem fixated on rounding on the student's question. The student asked a perfectly reasonable question about grammar. Quite civilly too. Surely they could expect a similar reply? Surely I could also? If you do not wish to enter into discussions about the grammar point in question, then you are perfectly welcome not to. But these snippy comments are not really in the spirit of things at all. Please refrain from them.

fluffyhamster · Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 4:34 pm Post subject:

Sasha, I didn't completely dismiss the question out of hand, and have attempted to answer it. (Give me some credit). I just have reservations about the amount of time that is or might become devoted to (having to disprove) theories or fancies, and it doesn't take working in Japan for neurotic JTEs (who'll pose question-begging demands, and then refuse every attempt at an answer) to arrive at such a policy LOL.

That is, I suspect there are any number of teachers the world over who have opened or will open this thread only to promptly close it, thinking "I honestly can't be bothered!". Maybe they are bad teachers for doing so, but they are probably having to get back to teaching Future perfect progressive passive or something equally horrific, all while their book quite possibly avoids actively endorsing or even mentioning gender-ambiguating 'their' and the like, let alone some supposed reference-ambiguating 'their' ROFL.