Why do we teach prescriptive grammar?

Roger · Post by **Roger** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 2:17 am

Metamorfose wrote:I see some very passinate attacks on the 'wrong' use of language, 'natives commit a lot of mistakes and you can be better than them in English' is the stupid motto some teachers have here, as a José

Well, mate, it wasn't necesssary to elevate yourself above the rest of us by being churlish.
This rude comment shows you don't understand what is being discussed here, and why.

When I studied linguistics, we weren't talking about PRESCRIPTIVE grammar; grammar simply was part and parcel of the study of most languages, though not of all (I mean: what "grammar" does Chinese have?).
When you study a foreign language then you study DIFFERENCES between your own lingo and your target tongue. And grammar is an inalienable part of any Indo-European or semitic language.
We can discuss the methods employed in teaching it, and the weight given it, but we cannot discuss such hypothetic questions like "is it useful or not?"
Maybe you are a TV addict - as so many of my students are. In TV dialogues seem to be strings of utterances that you either understand or not, depending on whether your mother language coincides with the language spoken on TV or not. Until a few years ago, you would only hear those dialogues, not see them transcribed on the TV screen. Thus, a beginner would find himself in much the same situation a Latin beginner is when faced with early Latin texts which had no punctuation marks and no spaces between words.
Inotherwordsitwouldbemuchlikechineseeventodayhowdoyouknowwhenasentenceisfinishedorevenwherethebordersofawordare?

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 6:12 am

Roger wrote:
Metamorfose wrote:I see some very passinate attacks on the 'wrong' use of language, 'natives commit a lot of mistakes and you can be better than them in English' is the stupid motto some teachers have here, as a José
Well, mate, it wasn't necesssary to elevate yourself above the rest of us by being churlish.
This rude comment shows you don't understand what is being discussed here, and why.

Roger, I believe Jose was referring to Brazil, rather than this thread, when he said 'here', there.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 10:47 am

When I studied linguistics, we weren't talking about PRESCRIPTIVE grammar;

So, we've established you had a deficient education! Where do we go from there?

I suspect you missed out on the socio-linguistics course, but then so did most of us. But we're not elevating it into a virtue.

I actually agree with you when you say

We can discuss the methods employed in teaching it, and the weight given it, but we cannot discuss such hypothetic questions like "is it useful or not?"

and

When you study a foreign language then you study DIFFERENCES between your own lingo and your target tongue.

I find it strange though that you think Chinese doesn't have grammar. I fail to see how the Chinese could communicate with each other if it didn't. I tnink you are confusing the fact that Chinese possibly grammatiicalizes different elements than Indo-European or Semitic languages do with the absence of grammar per se.

In TV dialogues seem to be strings of utterances that you either understand or not, depending on whether your mother language coincides with the language spoken on TV or not. Until a few years ago, you would only hear those dialogues, not see them transcribed on the TV screen. Thus, a beginner would find himself in much the same situation a Latin beginner is when faced with early Latin texts which had no punctuation marks and no spaces between words.
Inotherwordsitwouldbemuchlikechineseeventodayhowdoyouknowwhenasentenceisfinishedorevenwherethebordersofawordare?

Actually your students are at the cutting edge of modern language learning. Google for "Lexical Approaches".

Metamorfose · Post by **Metamorfose** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 2:01 pm

Well, mate, it wasn't necesssary to elevate yourself above the rest of us by being churlish.
This rude comment shows you don't understand what is being discussed here, and why.

Wow, did I take one to the high of furiousness?

Roger, I believe Jose was referring to Brazil, rather than this thread, when he said 'here', there.

And that's what I meant (thanks fluffy), I can only talk about the place where I live and the people I deal with on a daily basis.

I haven't gone through formal education (I studied Geography),I haven't been to any English-speaking country, so who am I to elevate myself? I am a learner here and since from the very beginning I took part here I've been behaving as one.

José

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 6:05 pm

I only wanted to point out that Galician and Portuguese were one simple language in the past, they got apart, it wasn't like Latin which derivated the other Romance languages.

Don;t get this. Sure;y being "one simple language" and then "getting apart" is exactly what happened with Latin diverging into the Romance languages?

It's still debateable whether the difference between Galician and Continental Portuguese is one of two separate languages or two dialects of the same language. Arguments tend to be polemicized on political grounds, and possible also regional grounds with the 'lusitanos' as those linguists in favour of identity with Portuguese are called, tending to be from the regions bordering Portugal. Certainly there is the argument of mutual intelligibity, as evidenced by the fact that most Brazilian footballers in the Spanish League start off for Deportivo.

Around 650 AD the linguistic situation in the Iberian peninsular was one of gradual dialectic change from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, with no clear barrier between one language and another. The Arab/Berber invasion changed that, and the Reconquest even more so. The Reconquest started from the North of Spain and pushed a linguistic wedge based on Northern, or even basque forms , between Portugal on the West and Valencia on the East. As a result the phonology of Portuguese is closer to that of Catalan in many respects than either are to teh Peninsular Spanish which divides them.

Tara B · Post by **Tara B** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 1:07 am

Stephen Jones wrote:
instead of studying obscure tenses that they will never use.
As there are only two tenses in English, Present and Past, perhaps you would be so kind as to tell us which one you think they won't need.

What about perfect and progressive forms? What do you call them? Constructions? (Really, let me know so I don't embarrass myself again

)

Maybe this is a discussion for a different forum, but, honestly, haven't you ever had doubts about the future perfect progressive? (I guess technically the future is a mode. . . (?)) Whatever it is, I think my students can get along in English just fine without it. (I know I do.) Or at least, there are better uses for their time.

Tara, do you think I should be teaching your local slang, or my local slang (and regional dialect), in the classes I have here in Korea? Since I don't, does that mean I think FORMAL = GOOD?

So you don't? Are there different degrees of prescriptivism then? Because there are those who do. . .

Obviously my definition of prescriptivism touched a nerve. And if we don't agree on a definition then we are just talking past eachother. Would you like to offer your own? Those of you who call yourselves prescriptivists are the experts; its silly for the rest of us to be telling you what you believe. I think I've proved that (above).

stephen · Post by **stephen** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 2:54 pm

There are only two tenses in English Past and Present. Both of these can have progressive or perfect aspects. In fact, there are four elements that are important when considering tense usage: time, tense, aspect and mood. It is certainly easy to confuse time and tense; for example, "I was wondering what your plans were?" definately uses the past tense to refer to the future. I am currently reading "The English verb" by Michael Lewis, which has some very interesting things to say about the role of all four (time, tense, aspect, mood) and would strongly recommend it to anyone who has not already read it.

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 2:02 am

"There are only two tenses" is holy writ in linguistics, but let's face it, most of us hand our students textbooks which contain many more "tenses". So it won't do to be snooty about it - the present perfect is obviously a "tense" in some sense of the word.

Also, as I have tried to claim before, aspect is perhaps not a very helpful concept. The present perfect lies somewhere between past and present, it is not really an "aspect" of either.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 8:04 am

The present perfect lies somewhere between past and present, it is not really an "aspect" of either.

This is an exceptionally confusing way of looking at things.

The Present Perfect is a present tense. That is to say actions in the present perfect are placed in a time frame that includes the present. The Perfect aspect suggests completion in that time frame.

The temporal difference between the present and the past tenses is not whether the action takes place in the present or past or in some limbo inbetween. It is whether the subjective time frame is past or non-past.

To suggest that the present perfect is half-way goes nowhere near explaining why we can use the past simple for events that are temporarily much closer to the present than events we use the Past Simple for.
You went to Paris yesterday? Indeed I've been there many times over the years

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 12:44 am

Read back over that last sentence! Exceptionally confusing?

I am not offering "somewhere inbetween" as an attempt at a clear explanation. It is not the case, however, that all conceptual difficulties with the present perfect are magically resolved by viewing it as an "aspect" of presentness. Things are messier. Retreating into mere subjectivity is the easy way out - I'm not sure that it is enough though.

I am reminded of old Shuntang and his observation that we cannot really refer to that impossibly fleeting thing, the present moment, so on that note, let's not go down this road!

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 12:51 am

woodcutter wrote:I am reminded of old Shuntang and his observation that we cannot really refer to that impossibly fleeting thing, the present moment, so on that note, let's not go down this road!

Yes we can - we are referring to ourselves, our "experience", rather than "the" experience(s) itself (themselves) (in terms of exact times/dates etc). This is obviously a ("subjective") choice on the speaker's part, made for discoursal reasons that most people at least seem able to grasp without insurmountable difficulty.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 8:34 am

Retreating into mere subjectivity is the easy way out - I'm not sure that it is enough though.

This observation is as facile as it is wrong. A speaker's choice of time frame must necessarily be subjective. The individual speaker is deciding which time frame to put events into, and although his subjective view might be based on objective criteria it is still his view that determines his choice of tense. The difference between the two time frames in I've finished it and I finsihed it is entirely subjective. In both cases the event occurred at exaclty the same time.

Additonally, we want our explanations to account for as many variations of language use as possible. The construction "I've done it yesterday" is pretty uncommon, though I have been told it is not unknown in Australian English. If we say the time frame is decided objectively, then we have problems because 'yesterday' is obvioulsy finished. If we accept that the present perfect is used for time schemes subjectively considered to be still recent then we only have to accept that the speaker considers yesterday to be near enough to today to still be current. (and as a bonus our scheme will also apply to Spanish and Catalan).

To say that the Perfective is an aspect is not a universal explanation. Indeed you could reasonably argue that it doesn't help explanation at all. But to accept this allows us to point out that the Present Perfect is a Present Tense, and that does simplify explanations extraordinarily. Moreover it allows us to have a simple and elegant structure for the English verb forms. We have two tenses, past and non-past, and these can be marked for the Perfective or the continuous aspect. Modal verbs are followed by the infiintive, and that is can be marked only for aspect, not for tense. so modal verb forms are outside the tense system.

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 11:55 pm

If SJ says "I have testily been expounding my views non-stop for 3 hours", and the time is 5 p.m, then due to the "present" sentence he has uttered, I can tell a third party exactly what he was doing 2 hours ago, at 3p.m, in the past, in objective reality.

We cannot refer to the present moment though, in objective reality. The present simple is an abstract, such as a caption, or something which refers to both past and future.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 12:02 am

So what?

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 12:35 am

Did you go sit in a cave with Xui/Shuntang for a few weeks, woody?