|
Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 9650
Location: Mexico City
|
 Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 4:31 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
Didn't mean to touch off a storm, and certainly nothing personal Stephen but here goes.
| Quote: |
I demanded he came on time.
The teacher insisted she did the work over.
He requested I turned down the TV. |
If this is what you are teaching your students, then I suspect it is you who needs a refresher in English. I can suggest a few Mexican English teachers who might help you.
| Quote: |
| Here in Mexico, I routinely hear incorrect Spanish used by people for whom it is a first language, depsite the fact that they are taught good Spanish in school. |
I should have clarified. Not sure on your level of Spanish, but the importance of verb terminations in Spanish is what I'm referring to. I hear the odd mistake made by Spanish speakers on past tense/present tense, or subjunctive use. Yes, this is a result of social register.
| Quote: |
| but if you think that people's normal spoken language is the result of the instruction they receive in lessons, as opposed to the input they get on the playground, your linguistic education has indeed been sorely defective. |
I think you draw too far a conclusion from one sarcastic comment I made. shall I make one of you? If you think that a person's normal spoken language is solely the result of the input they get on the playground, your own education has been wasted.
Last edited by Guy Courchesne on Fri Feb 25, 2005 4:34 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
dyak
Joined: 25 Jun 2003
Posts: 630
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 4:32 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Guy wrote: |
| While I think we are preparing our students for the possibility of living abroad, I don't think we should prepare them with gutter English. Besides, think of the pride a foregin student would feel knowing they speak/use a better English than a good number of Brits |
This is the English they'll hear here, in shops, clubs, pubs, employment agencies... though it does sound like gutter English. Students always say to me, 'I learn English in my country for 5, 6, 7 years, i come here, i understand nothing, why teacher?' I don't have a definitive answer.
We didn't study English grammar when I was at school, and from what I hear around me I guess they still don't. There's still so much apathy here towards language learning in general, it's a shame.
| Guy wrote: |
| ...perhaps they could even become English teachers over there in the UK |
They already are! I've worked in schools where non-native teachers more than out-number native teachers, and good on them! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 5:49 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| If this is what you are teaching your students, then I suspect it is you who needs a refresher in English. I can suggest a few Mexican English teachers who might help you. |
It is what I am teaching my students and it is perfectly correct grammatical British English. The fact that it sounds strange in your dialect of English is irrelevant. If you think you have the right to inflict your particular interpretation of English on others all well and good; don't be surprised when others snigger at your comical megalomania though.
"Suggested she go" is almost universal in American English. Quirk and Greenbaum writing in 1975 state that where suggest is used as a volitional verb it should be used with the present subjunctive or with should. It is however clear that "suggested she went" is common in formal British English. Here are the three quotes from Google.
But to find out precisely which foods aggravated Alison's problems, I
suggested she went on a diet consisting of just 17 foods. ...
www.nutritionalmedicine.org.uk/phdi/ p1.nsf/supppages/franklin?opendocument&part=11 -
... Other Western travellers suggested she went north , and she spent some days in trains
and buses enjoying the sights and feeling comfortable with the people. ...
www.galwayadvertiser.ie/dws/story. tpl?inc=2005/02/10/galwaydiary/56184.html -
... However, she did have a passion for chocolate. 17.As Nina continued to be tearful
and upset, I suggested she went to see a General Practitioner (GP). ...
www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/ws/s229.pdf -
As far as I can tell the form "suggested she go" is about twenty times more common than either "suggested she went" or "suggested she should go". Much of that disparity can be explained by the preponderance of North American English on the web.
The fact that a correct form not in your dialect is uncommon may well explain you're not having come across it before. It does not give you the right to unilaterally declare it incorrect. British speakers who attack American spellings or American forms such as 'gotten' are rightly derided as ignorant head up their 'arse little Englanders, and there is no reason for Americans or Canadians who indulge in the same behaviour to be treated differently. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 9650
Location: Mexico City
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 6:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
While Google might be a great way to gauge social use of English, I truly believe one should aim for accuracy first when teaching the language.
Here's an example from the British Council. does a UK organization clear the matter up, so that my own nationality doesn't colour your opinion?
http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/grammar/archive/subjunctives.html
From that page, you'll find some other links following your own dialect of English, clearing up this question. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
High Plains Drifter
Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 127
Location: Way Out There
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 6:39 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Stephen Jones wrote: |
| Incidentally Guy, the examples dyak gave would normally be considered sub-standard. |
Wait a minute, Stephen! You just convinced me that anything that a lot of people say is correct, and now you're suggesting that the (very interesting, I might add) examples that dyak gave--no doubt typical of the speech of millions of Brits--are somehow "SUB-STANDARD"????
You have shaken my faith to the core! Who are you to judge? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 9650
Location: Mexico City
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 7:27 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I took a quick google-style poll amongst a few of the teachers here in Mexico City. Here are my results
Q. Which is correct - They insisted that she go immediately or They insisted that she went immediately?
American teacher: go
Canadian teacher: went
Australian teacher: both are correct, but I would commonly use went
British teacher: go
Not that such a poll is any indication of correctness. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
matttheboy
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Posts: 854
Location: Valparaiso, Chile
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 7:39 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| dyak wrote: |
| Guy wrote: |
| While I think we are preparing our students for the possibility of living abroad, I don't think we should prepare them with gutter English. Besides, think of the pride a foregin student would feel knowing they speak/use a better English than a good number of Brits |
This is the English they'll hear here, in shops, clubs, pubs, employment agencies... though it does sound like gutter English. Students always say to me, 'I learn English in my country for 5, 6, 7 years, i come here, i understand nothing, why teacher?' I don't have a definitive answer.
|
I wouldn't call different english dialects 'gutter english', just regionalised english. The vast majority of people who speak in local dialect could, if we take the extreme example of having tea with Queenie, talk in the kind of 'standard' english that most foreigners assume they're going to learn when they go to england. However, in everyday life people speak in the same way as the people around them and with whom they've grown up. Some of my friends from the south-west are total yokels and says things like, 'Piddletrenthide? Where's that to?', yet when they come round my house and meet my family they quite happily chat away in a more 'standard' form of english. Same with me, i grew up in the midlands and had a fairly strong brummie accent until i went to boarding school, yet when i go back up to watch the footy the accent (or more specifically the intonation) mysteriously returns without me noticing. This despite the fact that i haven't lived there for years.
There are very few things i like about england but the massive variation in accents and dialects even between towns and villages just a couple of miles apart is one of them. I love being able to talk to someone and almost automatically know where they're from (and if they're northern, to be able to take the pi ss out of them  ) The UK is so small and everyone moves about the country so much that dialects, slang and accents get mixed up meaning that the language of our country is in a constant state of flux. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 9650
Location: Mexico City
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 7:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Ok, I'll retract the word gutter...it was too much. However...
| Quote: |
I see him yesterday.
I come home last week to find he wasn't (sometimes weren't) there.
I'm going London later.
I'm going Brighton next weekend.
I'd took him to the hospital.
She'd fell over outside. |
...is absoultely terrible. Colloquialisms, expressions, and slang are not what I'm talking about...just the examples cited above.
Using American versions of the same problem...
I done been at my gramma's house.
Where you be at?
I ain't done nothing wrong.
That might be common to a particular region, but it certainly doesn't make it teachable English. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
High Plains Drifter
Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 127
Location: Way Out There
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 7:53 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Guy Courchesne wrote: |
I done been at my gramma's house.
Where you be at?
I ain't done nothing wrong. |
Millions of Americans speak this way, and for that reason alone there ain't nothing wrong with these examples. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 9650
Location: Mexico City
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 7:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
 Good thing I had the sarcasm detector activated. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ls650
Joined: 10 May 2003
Posts: 3484
Location: British Columbia
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 9:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Stephen Jones wrote: |
Here are the three quotes from Google....
As far as I can tell the form "suggested she go" is about twenty times more common than either "suggested she went" or "suggested she should go". Much of that disparity can be explained by the preponderance of North American English on the web. |
Hold on a minute.
Often (most times?) when you want to make a point, you point at Google and say "See? I'm right."
Now you're pointing at Google and are saying "Well, Google says 20 times as many people do it the other way - but I'm still right."
Which is it? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 9:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
sub-standard is a technical term.
It means that a form would not be considered correct in the 'standard' form of the language which would be 'BBC English' for the UK and 'Network English' for the US. I am sure there is an equivalent for Australian English.
An example would be the phrase "I didn't do nothing" or the use of the third form instead of the second form in "I done it". Quoting Quirk and Greenbaum "In contrast with Standard English, forms that are especially associated with uneducated (rather than dialectical) use are often called 'substandard'.
Sub-standard"should be distinguished from colloquial which means unsuitable for formal use, infomal which means unmarked or suitable for all but the most formal uses, and formal which means unsuitable for colloquial use.
Normally anything produced by a significant number of native speakers is correct. The question however is which form or register it is correct in. In general when people are talking about what is 'incorrect' they are talking about forms that are perfectly correct in the dialect of the person uttering them but not considered correct in the standard form or what they consider to be the standard form. Who decides what is correct or not is a distinct, and controversial matter. In general the consensus often changes accoriding to social dynamics.
| Quote: |
| Here's an example from the British Council. does a UK organization clear the matter up, so that my own nationality doesn't colour your opinion? |
I am afraid the link does not clear anything up. I have never suggested that the present subjiunctive would be incorrect in this case, merely that it would be unusual, and considered stilted, which is actually what the site states We do not have to use the subjunctive, and in fact we commonly avoid it (especially in British English)
Moreover the sites you quote actually contradict one another The American Heritage Site states It has a present and past form. whilst the British Council site expresses the unusual view It takes the same form whether we are referring to the present, future or past. which actually explains the American usage in "He suggested we go" accurately. Of the other two sites linked to one has the heading "Grammer"sic and its knowledge of English syntax appears to be on a par with its command of English spelling, and the second is a book by a Canadian lady called Mary Ansell, who not only surprises us all by announcing that there are eight different subjunctive tenses, but to add to the fun gets the Present subjunctive quite wrong by sayin it takes the auxiliary verb do, when one of its distinguishing features is that it doesn't take an auxiliary verb, but forms the subjunctive by adding not directly before the verb. Also the British Council links you give are hints for learners of English, and not meant to be a formal descriptive grammar for linguists and English teachers.
Moreover you are still missing the point that she suggested I went ican well be considered a subjunctive form, since the past subjunctive is equivalent to the past indicative for all verbs but the verb to be. Indeed Quirk and Greenbaum imply the samw when they say "She suggested she went to the doctor" is ambiguous as it can be reported speech for "I suggest she went to the doctor", meaning that is my suggestion as to why she wasn't in the office for example ('suggest as a factual reporting verb) and for "I suggest you/she go/should go to the doctor" meaning that is what I want you to do (volitional suggest).
To summarize.
"She suggested I went to the doctor" is correct Standard British English.
"She suggested I should go to the doctor" is also correct standard British English.
"She suggested I go to the doctor" appears to be the only form used in American English, and is also used in British English.
The difference between "She suggested I go" and "She suggested I went" is not one of Subjunctive versus indicative but of Present versus past, and the point is that British English will often backshift here, whilst American English appears not to.
Of the links you give, only the American Heritage Link could remotely be considered authoritative (or indeed even competent) and that only covers American English anyway. And Quirk and Greenbaum, whose series of grammars are generally considered, together with the recent "Cambridge Grammar of English" to be the standard works of reference, implies that the form is correct.
Moreover any authority must be based on a corpus, whether an infomal one such as that created by a Google search for a collication, or a more formal one such as the British or American National corpus, or the corpora used by the COBUIILD or the Quirk and Greenbaum series of grammars. It is clear from a quck Google search that the construction 'suggested + past simple' is current in present day educated British written English. The fact that two educated British speakers on this forum have said the same, and that the original example came from an EFL textbook, should also alert you to the fact.
Finally I wish to say Guy, that I am as much in favour as you are of prescriptive grammar, but you must get the prescription right, and in this case both the diagnosis and the doctors are way out. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 9:20 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
Hold on a minute.
Often (most times?) when you want to make a point, you point at Google and say "See? I'm right."
Now you're pointing at Google and are saying "Well, Google says 20 times as many people do it the other way - but I'm still right."
Which is it? |
You're not being logical. If the question was "which is more common?" than obviously Google would prove me wrong.
But what I am claiming is that the form is used in educated British English (not even that it is the most common form in educated British Engish which would probably be "she suggested I should go"). So even if the form was the only form to British English there would be seven or eight times as many examples of the other on the web (possibly more if automatic translation software into American English were taken into account). As far as I can tell if you went through a reasonable statistical example of the British English usages on the web you would get about an even number of the three alternatives "go/went/should go".
Tnink of it like this. If the someon said there were some trout in the lake, adn somebody else said that there were only pike, who would be vindicated when the proportion of fish in the net was twenty pike to one trout? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ls650
Joined: 10 May 2003
Posts: 3484
Location: British Columbia
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 10:00 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Stephen Jones wrote: |
| that the form is used in educated British English (not even that it is the most common form in educated British Engish which would probably be "she suggested I should go"). |
Fair enough - but shouldn't you teach your students the form of British English that is most commonly used? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 10:24 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The form of British English that is most commonly used is probably "should go".
Anyway, I would simply teach the form given in the book :)
The particular example we have here of the volitional verbs being used as reporting verbs, is fairly uncommon.
Incidentally I had not realized how widespread the form "suggest(ed) she go" is. I have read and heard many people who say the subjunctive doesn't even warrant five minutes time because it has disappeared from spoken English. I have always argued that that is not true of American English, but had not realized to what extent it is prevalent in American English.
The basic point I am suggesting here though is that we should accept as correct all forms that are likely to be met in any of the standard national Englishes. And be very wary of considering a form from another national standard to be incorrect or colloquial. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
This page is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling.
Contact Dave's ESL Cafe
Copyright © 2018 Dave Sperling. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
