/w ɒ tsðəjusəvg ɹ amə/ Dick Hudson University of Bedfordshire, February 2015

What’s the use of grammar? Which do you prefer? /wɒtsðəjusəvgɹamə/ is correct But it doesn’t show any grammar. How it’s divided into words. That What’s sounds like one word, but is grammatically two. That of could be pronounced /ɒv/. That grammar is related to grammarian and grammatical. That the whole is a sentence. That the whole is a question. You do grammar whenever you write!

The three grammars Grammar = part of language E.g. a language consists of a grammar and a vocabulary. Every human does grammar. Cf. football/dancing – it exists as part of human life. Grammar-study = science of grammar E.g. I do grammar-study by exploring grammar and reporting the results. Grammarians do grammar-study. Cf. sports science, which studies football and dancing. Grammar-teaching = teaching about grammar-study E.g. I think grammar-teaching is important in schools. Some teachers do grammar-teaching. Cf. sports coaching, dancing lessons.

Plan 1. What’s the use of grammar? Why do languages have grammar? 2. What’s the use of grammar-study? Why do universities employ grammarians? What do grammarians actually do? 3. What’s the use of grammar-teaching? Why should schools do grammar-teaching? What about prescriptive grammar? What happened to grammar-teaching? What’s happening to grammar-teaching now?

1. What’s the use of grammar? Imagine English without grammar. Plenty of words Dog, bark, love, stop, hello, damn, eleven, ……. But no systematic way to Combine them Tweak the form or meaning Create new words I.e. no way to deal with: complex ideas (e.g. What’s the use of grammar?) new ideas (e.g. Dick Hudson’s lecture in Luton)

Grammar for flexibility With grammar we can go beyond the dictionary the phrase book. You can put almost any idea into words however complex however novel But sometimes it’s a struggle E.g. describing a smell or a feeling

Grammar for identity Grammar consists of Permissions – e.g. you may use an adjective to modify a noun: big book Bans – e.g. if you do, the adjective must not follow the noun: *book big Why the bans? Because it’s shared by the community Because hearers need it to avoid accidental misunderstandings Cf the Highway Code Grammar also acts as a membership badge of the community No-one rebels against the grammar of their community!! E.g. swear words follow ordinary grammar – Bloody linguists! But *Bloody!

2. What’s the use of grammar-study? Or, since grammarians do grammar-study, what’s the use of grammarians? Someone thinks they’re useful, because there are a lot of them in universities a lot of people buy their books. People have thought this for a long time E.g. scribes translating from Sumerian into Akkadian about 4,000 years ago

How to translate from Sumerian to Akkadian

1.1 The birth of grammar Panini ?5c BC Babylon 2K BC Greece 5c BC Alexandria 3c BC Rome 1c BC Ireland 6c AD Baghdad 8c AD 10

What’s the use of grammarians? Stemming = removal of affixes E.g. Google ‘stemmed’ > ‘stem’ Predictive texting E.g. my phone: ‘i.m’ > I’m > sorry > to > hear > that > you > have > received > this > > address Google guessing E.g. ‘hte in Amazon’ > ‘the animals in the Amazon’ Google translate E.g. ‘I love you’ > Σ’αγαπω

Holiday phrase books? E.g. my Italian app. I’m sorry = Mi dispiace I fancy you = Mi piaci Love etc I’d like to kiss you = Ho voglia di baciarti May I kiss you? = T i posso baciare? And the answer? I never want to see you again = No ti voglio più vedere. At least understand the grammar! Mi = I? ti = you Mi = me dispiace = it displeases piaci = you please

What do grammarians do? 1.They build tools for understanding grammar: theories representations 2.They apply these tools to languages to produce grammars. 3.They apply grammars to texts.

One theory: Word Grammar Theory: The main units of grammar are words. But words may be very general (e.g. ‘word’) or very specific (e.g. dogs). Words are organised in a network. The network is a mental network – i.e. in our minds. Representation: A network of nodes connected by arrows and other lines. The nodes are: words sounds meanings people and situations

For example Luton /lu:tən/ here meaning realisation noun in areWe

So what do grammarians do? Write grammars for English, Italian, etc for less familiar languages, e.g. Beja Study particular constructions in different languages E.g. ‘pied-piping’: the book in which I read it. The mother of the wife of which pop star was born exactly 100 years ago today? Build theories about grammar Including theories about grammar in the mind Worry about school grammar

3. What’s the use of grammar-teaching? 1.Why should schools do grammar-teaching? What about prescriptive grammar? 2.What happened to grammar-teaching? 3.What’s happening to grammar-teaching now?

3.1. Why should schools teach about grammar? A bad reason: To get rid of non-standard grammar e.g. we was, them books i.e. the native grammar of 90% of the English-speaking population! This is prescriptive grammar, which prescribes standard forms proscribes non-standard forms as well as some standard ones e.g. This is the book I’m going to really work hard on. Let’s teach children standard English But without trying to teach them not to use non-standard English.

Some good reasons for grammar- teaching For better understanding of our most important tool: how grammar works what grammatical options we have 1.the book I’m working on now 2.the book that I’m working on now 3.the book which I’m working on now 4.the book on which I’m working now 5.the book on which I am working now how sentences work e.g. how jokes work

Time flies like an arrow but fruit flies like a banana. A famous example with its own entry in Wikipedia! What is going on? Grammatical ambiguity!! a ‘garden path’ sentence Time flies like an arrow – about flying Fruit flies like a banana – about liking

A sentence diagram like fliesTime arrowan like fliesFruit bananaa

More good reasons for teaching grammar It helps in teaching foreign languages i.e. teach L1 grammar first as a basis for teaching L2 grammar It helps in teaching L1 writing significant ongoing research by Debrah Myhill in Exeter It helps in teaching L1 reading It helps in teaching thinking skills no supporting research but widely believed

3.2. What happened to grammar- teaching? Middle ages to 19 th century: grammar-teaching was BIG 19 th -20 th centuries: it died mid 20 th century: it was reborn in universities and now flourishes late 20 th century: it was reborn in schools

Medieval education School Latin! Via grammar-translation method So new schools were called ‘grammar schools’ University Trivium – grammar, logic, rhetoric Quadrivium – maths, music, geometry, astronomy 24

1542 Henry VIII and grammar Henry the VIII... to all schoolemaisters and teachers of grammer within his realm greetynge.... we will and commaunde... as you intende to auoyde our displeasure... to teache and learne your scholars this englysshe introduction... and none other... 25

Lily’s English grammar of Latin Lily’s grammar involved some of the best brains of the time including Erasmus of Rotterdam It had the royal monopoly for 350 years So it was the grammar learned, at age 7, by Shakespeare Newton Wordsworth 26

The death of grammar : grammar research died in the UK “[it is] impossible at the present juncture to teach English grammar in the schools for the simple reason that no-one knows exactly what it is” 1960+: end of optional grammar question in O-level English 1960s-70s: research evidence that grammar teaching has no effect. 1921: The teaching of English in England (The Newbolt Report) 27

Meanwhile, at school... New English teachers had never learned grammar. so they didn’t teach it. So foreign-language teachers couldn’t use grammatical terminology so they opted for grammar-free methods So by 2009 school-leavers knew even less terminology than in

The language crisis Evening Standard 2011 Telegraph

3.3. What’s happening to grammar- teaching now? Politicians like it. It’s prominent in the new National Curriculum It’s tested in the KS2 Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar tests Pupils like it when taught sensibly Primary schools accept it Influenced by new SPaG tests Most teachers accept it but are deeply anxious but some teach brilliantly

The UK Literacy Association grammar: Jim Crinson with Year 3 31

For a healthy future, grammar-teaching should be... Research-based trainee teachers learn about grammatical research school terminology should be based on research terminology. Shared by English and foreign languages especially important when FL grammar is different from L1 but English and FL must collaborate better than at present. Promoted for two reasons: understanding fun! 32