Huddleston speaks!

[metal56]

Grammar is of use to native speakers in exactly the way that Larry said and that especially includes remoteness for modal verbs and the subjunctive, and retrospection for perfect tenses; indeed as native speakers we can go into the deep philosophical stuff that we shouldn't dream of discussing with our students except perhaps at proficiency level.

Mm? Not sure about the restrictive nature of that statement. On formulaic explanations:

Such analyses have resulted in second language learners being instructed to simply learn formulaic phrases to express polite requests, indirect commands, conditionality, etc. with little or no explanation for why the tense marking in the phrases they are asked to memorize does not correspond to temporal uses of tense.

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/vyv/Exper ... eaning.pdf

[metal56]

Does knowing about remoteness help you speak English?

I guess I must be the exception here, but knowing about remoteness absolutely helps me to speak English, in the sense that I believe I understand more precisely what I say now, or perhaps I should say I understand more precisely what I think now, based on what I say. My awareness of remoteness makes it possible for my brain to confirm many times every day the usefulness of the concept. I have the experience of mentally clicking off particular language events and sensing how they fit so comfortably into the theory. In addition to believing that I now speak more precisely, I also think I understand better what others say...even when they themselves may not be consciously aware of all the nuances of their choices of language. When I ask pertinent questions to clairify what they mean, their answers always confirm my suspicions.

Larry Latham

Extract from:

The relation between experience, conceptual structure and meaning: non-temporal uses of tense and language teaching

Andrea Tyler and Vyvyan Evans

Moreover, we will argue in detail that due to the way in which we actually experience the notions of intimacy, salience, actuality, and politeness,
namely in terms of proximal-distal spatial relations, and the fact that
time-reference is experienced in terms of analogous spatial relations,
in certain situations tense morphemes which canonically signal time reference can implicate a non-temporal relation.

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/vyv/Exper ... eaning.pdf

[JuanTwoThree]

My reaction to those people who are less than convinced by remoteness as a coherent explanation for the two main uses of the "past simple" is:

"YOU explain "I wish I spoke Russian"; "It's time we went"; "If I saw him tomorrow" and the rest."

You can leave politeness out of this because Woodcutter has a point when he/she points out that any old rubbish, and the more the better, seems to be the order of the day.

[Andrew Patterson]

Metal wrote:

Such analyses have resulted in second language learners being instructed to simply learn formulaic phrases to express polite requests, indirect commands, conditionality, etc. with little or no explanation for why the tense marking in the phrases they are asked to memorize does not correspond to temporal uses of tense.

Now you are putting words into my mouth. I said we should explain as much as is necessary and no more.

You think about the topic to be taught and how much explaination you think is necessary, you observe the student and check understanding and make a decision on how much is necessary.

Sometimes more explaination is necessary, sometimes less.

[LarryLatham]

The difficulty for language teachers, and one we have faced ourselves in classroom settings, is how to insightfully present the nontemporal uses associated with tense. The approach offered by received wisdom, as reflected in course books and pedagogical grammars, is to treat them as exceptions, or worse to ignore them altogether.

For instance, Westney (1994) has observed that in pedagogical grammars: "[T]ime reference is treated as dominant and other uses are simply appended" (ibid.: 79). Riddle (1986) notes that most pedagogical texts ignore the uses of tense to signal intimacy, salience, and attenuation.

The sad result is, all too often, I'm afraid, that many teachers themselves are either unaware of the non-temporal uses of verb tense, or choose to ignore them just as their coursebooks do, or, in their frustration, assume (also a pattern of received wisdom), like their students do, that English is just too difficult to really understand. Is it any wonder, then, that students feel that way?

Larry Latham

[LarryLatham]

A few minutes ago my buddy, Ralph, called. I had invited him to go up to Cal Tech with me on Sunday coming to hear a lecture by Richard Dawkins, the British evolutionary biologist and author of The Selfish Gene, and The Blind Watchmaker, as well as other books, and many articles.

Ralph called to tell me he was unable to reschedule a weekend with his 8 year-old daughter, Sofia, to be able to come with me to the lecture. As Dawkins is quite famous, and I expect the lecture to be excellent, I said to Ralph, "Oh, that's too bad, Ralph. I'm sure you would have enjoyed hearing Dawkins."

After I put the phone down, and thought for a minute about what I had said, I wondered how I could explain what I said to Ralph to a class of EFL students without invoking remoteness. Remoteness makes it so simple. But on the view that past forms indicate past time events, my sentence is likely to confuse and frustrate both the explainer and the explainees.

Larry Latham
P.S. I'm going to the lecture anyway!

[revel]

Hey all!

Long before I was made aware of this "distance theory" (which I have learned a lot about here on Dave's, not having much time myself to read the works cited, not having them readily available to me), I had learned distance theory, and that back in my high school French class.

I must have had an excellent teacher. Madame Lane explained to us that the use of the second person plural form "distanced" us from the other person and thus marked a "don't stand so close to me" formality that for the French represented respect and politeness.

Then, upon learning Spanish, becoming proficient in Spanish, I experience the same using usted, which conjugates the verb as a third person, either singular or plural, depending on how many people you are speaking to. At first, I learned this as simply "formal speech", but once I made Spanish my principle language, I began to realize, to feel, that by speaking to a person as if they were not there (generally, third person is used to speak about someone who is not present, and if that person is present it is at times considered impolite: "Don't talk about me as if I weren't here!") I was maintaining a "distance" that functioned just as the difference in English between asking "Do you want a cup of tea" vs "Would you like a cup of tea?"

At least for Spanish speakers, who are not usually conscious of third person being farther away than second but use it anyway in distancing the listener, when I extend my arm and tell them that "Would you" distances them from the listener, makes the communication less intimate and more formal, they accept the concept even if they don't always use it, it not being as clearly, structurally, grammatically obvious as thier own usted might be for them.

peace,
revel.

[revel]

Continuing....

Add to this discussion that the verb in English has so few forms and yet so many uses. The verb is structurally simple in English, having a root, an infinitive, a present and past participle. It has simple, continuous, perfect constructions, as well as modal, conditional and even idiomatic ones. And yet, despite the seemingly simple construction of the verb in English, we English speakers still want to demonstrate distance, formality, conditionality, qualities, subjectivity. Thus we have to use what we have to communicate these different aspects, thus a past participle is also an adjective, thus a past tense is also a conditional, thus a present participle is also a noun. During the "laying on of rules" we may very well begin by saying the simple past marks a finished action in the before now, or the present perfect marks an indefinite past that still applies to the present now, but at some point we must also teach that that verb form is used to communicate these other aspects. Why is it like that? Well, who's going to change the rules? English functions in that manner, that's why it is English and not Greek or Japanese. If the student want's to sound polite then the student will have to learn and use what the English speaker considers polite language, despite the grammatical form the verb may take on. Soooo,

When my students begin a role-play in a restaurant and I hear them saying "I want the steak and peas", I gently correct them, saying that to the native ear "I'd like the steak and peas" is perhaps more socially accepted, just as the waiter would probably say "Would you like a table near the window" instead of "Do you want the table next to the window". I don't mention the word conditional (I try to avoid that word at all costs), I do mention the word "distance" as well as the word "formal" as well as the word "intimate" as well as the word "politeness". These concepts are there, exist in L1, and should be understood when learning to use L2.

peace,
revel.

[LarryLatham]

And so...it appears that remoteness (I prefer that term to distance so as to remind myself that it is a user's personal perception--a feeling--that is at issue rather than any actual physical or temporal quantity that may, or may not be involved in a particular usage occasion) is, at least as a theoretical concept, no stranger to speakers of French and Spanish as well as English. Maybe also to speakers of most languages, but I'm not a polyglot so I don't know that from personal experience.

That being the case, it would seem, then, that remoteness will not be so difficult for many students to grasp, at least in broad terms. It may be that some adjustment will be required if English uses the concept differently than the students' L1, but at least it will not be incomprehensible.

All that seems to correspond with what I found in my classes. Students did not balk at the idea. Of course, I did not so much explain it as demonstrate it. A language teacher explains only so much as he has to, hopefully. Lectures usually don't work well in the language classroom, right?

Larry Latham
Nevertheless, a teacher ought to understand the concepts involved well enough to lecture on them, if only to give himself confidence in what he (she) is doing in class. And there is sometimes that one student or two who press for detail.

[metal56]

Nevertheless, a teacher ought to understand the concepts involved well enough to lecture on them, if only to give himself confidence in what he (she) is doing in class. And there is sometimes that one student or two who press for detail.

Absolutely ditto, Larry. I meet so many teachers who tell me that it is not necessary to read linguistics in order to teach English. I always reply "Not necessary for who?".

For me, reading deeper than one's average pedagogical grammar book, for example, puts me where I want to be in class, ie. on much firmer ground.

And there are students in my classes who have taken: Communication Studies, Semiotics, English Philology, or similar. There are students who think about the more detail reasons for a certain usage.

[metal56]

Ralph called to tell me he was unable to reschedule a weekend with his 8 year-old daughter, Sofia, to be able to come with me to the lecture. As Dawkins is quite famous, and I expect the lecture to be excellent, I said to Ralph, "Oh, that's too bad, Ralph. I'm sure you would have enjoyed hearing Dawkins."

After I put the phone down, and thought for a minute about what I had said, I wondered how I could explain what I said to Ralph to a class of EFL students without invoking remoteness. Remoteness makes it so simple. But on the view that past forms indicate past time events, my sentence is likely to confuse and frustrate both the explainer and the explainees.

!

Check out Lucy Black's post in the relative pronoun thread:

"I wonder if I might ask a question?"

For me, Lucy distances too much there. She not only uses the remote form to be polite and tentative, but she also feels the need to add a smiley and a button interrogative.

Now, what could be happening there?

Either Lucy has been taught to be extremely polite in all encounters with strangers (distant relationship) or we here are somewhat unapproachable demons ( ).

What I'm saying is that applying the so called "polite request form" to all situations is not always a good thing (see also Revel's recent post on this in Spanish). This forum is clearly a place where on asks questions and, hopefully, gets answers. So, in my opinion, there is no need for such extreme distancing as in the case of Lucy's request.

We should let our students know that the remote form can also be seen as stand-offish, too tentative, or overly polite. In fact, unsuitable in certain contexts.

[LarryLatham]

For me, reading deeper than one's average pedagogical grammar book, for example, puts me where I want to be in class, ie. on much firmer ground.

I have always felt this way too, M56. Truth be told, however, (since you are all my friends, aren't you, and they say confession is good for the soul), I suspect that there has always, for me, been a component of this feeling that I like being in control of the classroom situation in the sense that I want to be the most knowledgable one there as far as English goes. I like the feeling of being on firmer ground than others in the room. I'd guess this is a common fault amongst teachers, and probably doesn't do much harm unless we abuse it. That is easy to do, and I've seen teachers do it. I hope I haven't too much. I've always also bought into the idea that good classrooms are not places where teacher is the dispenser of knowledge to adoring, but naïve, students. We do not open doors in their heads and pour the knowledge in. Good classrooms, for me, have always been places of exploration, where teachers as well as students go to learn. For no matter how much you know, there is always more to be learned, and quite often students (at least adult students) have rather a lot to teach you.

Larry Latham

[LarryLatham]

What I'm saying is that applying the so called "polite request form" to all situations is not always a good thing (see also Revel's recent post on this in Spanish). This forum is clearly a place where on asks questions and, hopefully, gets answers. So, in my opinion, there is no need for such extreme distancing as in the case of Lucy's request.

Again, I agree, M56, as surely most teachers here must. Indeed, although it is most common in coursebooks and other pedagogical materials, politeness is fairly rare in everyday language. Most of the time we do not talk with strangers, but rather with people we know well enough not to be polite with, at least not to the extreme degree you are referring to here. There ought to be a certain measured kindness, I suppose, implicit in our manners in dealing with our friends, but politeness as features in EFL coursebooks is not often needed in ordinary life. This is not to say we shouldn't make our students aware of it, however.

Larry Latham

[metal56]

For me, reading deeper than one's average pedagogical grammar book, for example, puts me where I want to be in class, ie. on much firmer ground.

I have always felt this way too, M56. Truth be told, however, (since you are all my friends, aren't you, and they say confession is good for the soul), I suspect that there has always, for me, been a component of this feeling that I like being in control of the classroom situation in the sense that I want to be the most knowledgable one there as far as English goes. I like the feeling of being on firmer ground than others in the room. I'd guess this is a common fault amongst teachers, and probably doesn't do much harm unless we abuse it. That is easy to do, and I've seen teachers do it. I hope I haven't too much. I've always also bought into the idea that good classrooms are not places where teacher is the dispenser of knowledge to adoring, but naïve, students. We do not open doors in their heads and pour the knowledge in. Good classrooms, for me, have always been places of exploration, where teachers as well as students go to learn. For no matter how much you know, there is always more to be learned, and quite often students (at least adult students) have rather a lot to teach you.

Larry Latham

I like the feeling of being on firmer ground than others in the room. I'd guess this is a common fault amongst teachers, and probably doesn't do much harm unless we abuse it.

I recognise that need and think that most students would also expect the teacher to be more knowledgeable - esp. if a native speaker. I was referring more to being on firmer ground as opposed to many teachers who just spout exactly what they read in pedagogical grammars (even in each other's company).

I teach NNEs and also train new teachers. Many of those people need to use pedagogical grammars as a prop in the first couple of years. After that, I would expect them to move on and become more interested in how the language really works.


<Good classrooms, for me, have always been places of exploration, where teachers as well as students go to learn.>

I agree. Whatever happened to Paulo Freire?

http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-freir.htm

Five aspects of Paulo Freire's work have a particular significance for our purposes here. First, his emphasis on dialogue has struck a very strong chord with those concerned with popular and informal education. Given that informal education is a dialogical (or conversational) rather than a curricula form this is hardly surprising. However, Paulo Freire was able to take the discussion on several steps with his insistence that dialogue involves respect. It should not involve one person acting on another, but rather people working with each other. Too much education, Paulo Freire argues, involves 'banking' - the educator making 'deposits' in the educatee.

[LarryLatham]

Yup!

Larry Latham