Exploring Grammar Through Texts

Reading and Writing the Structure of English

Cornelia Paraskevas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000199925
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Grammatica e punteggiatura

This textbook provides an innovative introduction to core areas of grammar: a systematic guide to the structure of English, arranged hierarchically from the word to the sentence to the paragraph level. Using a linguistic framework, activities and exercises, and diverse authentic texts, the book connects grammar knowledge to writing development, strengthening student understanding of language as a tool for text construction. Students of linguistics and English language will develop foundational knowledge about grammar and texts, as will writing students. Aligning with state curricular standards around the world, the book will be particularly useful for students of English Education.

1 Foundational understandings about language and writing

This chapter lays the foundation for the remaining chapters: first, it provides some foundational knowledge about language—an eagle’s view of language that is shared by most linguists; second, it provides a more focused, ‘on the ground’ discussion on thinking like a language-scientist.

Eagle’s View of Language: Key Concepts

Grammar: Acquiring the Patterns of Language

To non-experts, the term ‘grammar’ means the rules of spelling, punctuation and ‘proper’ language. While these definitions of the term are not aligned with the experts’ definitions, they are part of the five different definitions of grammar that Patrick Hartwell postulated in 1985: the formal (internalized) patterns of language speakers unconsciously know; description of the patterns of language; linguistic etiquette (which is ‘usage’); common school grammar; stylistic grammar. These five meanings distribute along two groups: the first two are the meanings non-experts use while the three remaining meanings are the ones experts use. The term ‘grammar,’ then, for our purposes, will involve the unconscious knowledge of the language patterns as well as a description of this knowledge. These patterns, which describe what is possible in a language, involve the whole system of spoken language—from sounds to whole sentences—and are learned unconsciously, before the age of five. Any construction that conforms to these patterns is grammatical; grammaticality, in other words, is not a subjective judgement. For example, non-experts might judge the following sentences—both of which appear in conversation—as ungrammatical (which is frequently used as a synonym for ‘wrong’) or as uneducated:

It happens when he don’t get to eat on time.

(Davies)

The walls are paper thin but I didn’t hear nothing.

(Davies)

There is nothing ungrammatical or wrong about these sentences; though they definitely do not conform to the practices of standardized written English, they are fairly common in conversation and are examples of the social variation in language, a topic discussed later in this chapter.

The Nature of Rules: Prescriptive vs. Descriptive Approaches

Discussions about grammar, rules, and grammaticality inevitably bring forth another important issue—the nature of the rules themselves. For experts, rules simply refer to the patterns that are observed in spoken and written language and are acquired as we are immersed in language. For example, based on the following constructions,

I want my tapioca

I want some noodles

Two fine big ones

That bread

(https:/​/​childes.talkbank.org/​browser/​index.php?url=Eng-NA/​Brown/​Eve/​020200b.cha)

we can describe the pattern about the order of determiners (words like ‘my,’ ‘that’, ‘two’, or ‘some’) and nouns that Eve, a two-year-old has figured out: determiners (underlined) precede nouns:

my tapioca, some noodles, two fine big ones, that bread

In other words, we can create a descriptive rule that simply describes (states) what we observe in the language of Eve: determiners are followed by nouns.

Of course, descriptive rules acknowledge that language changes, and change accordingly. For example, until recently, some would frown upon the sentence ‘A writer should choose their tools for writing,’ because the word ‘their’ is plural whereas the noun it refers to (‘writer’) is singular. Currently, however, such a sentence is hardly worth a discussion.

Beyond descriptive rules, there is another set of rules—prescriptive rules—that aim at ‘regulating’ language by either opposing change or by ‘prescribing’ ways of improving it. Ann Curzan distinguishes four types of prescriptivism:

Standardizing prescriptivism … [where rules] promote ‘standard’ usage’; stylistic prescriptivism … [where rules promote fine points of style; restorative prescriptivism … [where rules] aim to restore earlier, but not relatively obsolete, usage and/or return to older forms to purify usage; politically responsive prescriptivism [where rules] promote inclusive, non-discriminatory, politically correct usage.

(Fixing English 24)

Standardizing prescriptivism has resulted in creating fairly uniform spelling and punctuation conventions across English but also in creating and maintaining a privileged dialect (the standard variety). The variety that has been chosen as ‘Standard English’ is not linguistically superior to other varieties: rather, the variety spoken by those who had political and economic power was the one that was chosen in the late 1400s as the standard variety, was codified (that is it was recorded in dictionaries and grammar books) and, finally, used in multiple literary, political and judicial domains. There is no doubt that standardization has been important for widespread literacy, which has been achieved primarily through mass production of texts; however, we need to remember that standardization suppresses variation and results in a ‘high-level idealization where uniformity or invariance [of a language] is valued above all things’ (Milroy 26). Standardizing prescriptive rules stigmatize a range of constructions used by some native speakers: pronunciations such as ‘acrossed’ (for ‘across’) or making the words ‘picture’ and ‘pitcher’ homophonous (i.e. pronounced the same way); words like ‘irregardless’; phrases such as ‘between you and I.’ These rules are ‘the traffic laws’ of language (Reaser et al. 115).

Stylistic prescriptivism provides users with a set of options within the standard variety; these rules, then, are about ‘stylistic niceties … [similar to] table manners’ (Curzan, Fixing English 36). This particular type of prescriptivism is based on personal likes and dislikes and is the one students refer to as ‘rules of English.’ Stylistic prescriptivism rules include statements against beginning sentences with ‘there,’ ‘but’ or ‘and’ (often extended to stigmatizing the use of ‘because’ in the beginning of a sentence), using adverbials or passive voice (both of which, by the way, are typical in academic texts).

Restorative prescriptivism rules reinforce the misguided idea that language change is language decay so they ‘[honor] past usage’ (Curzan, Fixing English 36). The current use of the word ‘dilemma’ is an example of restorative prescriptivism. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the original meaning of the word ‘dilemma’ is ‘a form of argument involving an adversary in the choice of two (or, loosely, more) alternatives, either of which is (or appears) equally unfavourable to him.’ (The Greek affix ‘di-’ which means ‘two’ explains the original meaning involving a choice of two options.) As the American Heritage Dictionary notes, however, ‘[the term can be used] for choices among three or more options.’ Similarly, the controversy surrounding the expressions ‘could care less’ is an example of restorative prescriptivism; speakers who condemn this usage look at the meaning of each word and claim that if ‘caring less’ means that there is still ‘care’—just at a lesser degree. Current usage, however, shows that ‘could care less’ is gaining acceptance, being used with the same meaning as the original expression ‘couldn’t care less.’

Politically responsive prescriptivism ‘[aims at promoting] inclusive, nondiscriminatory, and /or politically correct or expedient usage’ (Curzan, Fixing English 38). It is this type of prescriptivism that established the plural pronoun ‘they’ as the gender-neutral singular pronoun and the one that replaced gendered terms like ‘policeman’ or ‘chairman’ with ‘police officer’ and ‘chair,’ respectively.

Most language experts reject any attempt at regulating language through prescriptive rules; however, most agree on the value of politically responsive prescriptivism since it encourages ‘political sensitivity’ (Curzan, Fixing English 39) instead of correctness.

Spoken and Written Language

We often think that written language is simply the ‘transcribed’ version of spoken language; in other words, we think that we can write the way we talk. This thinking, however, is inaccurate: there are significant differences between spoken and written language due to their mode of production. Understanding these differences can help strengthen our writing.

The most important difference between speech and writing involves their production: in spoken language, speaker and hearer share time, space and background knowledge. As a result of this shared context, their conversation is co-constructed, with both participants contributing to the development of the text. In addition, because speech is produced in real time, it is characterized by false starts, interruptions, pauses, repetition, redundancy, backchannelling markers and incomplete constructions such as fragments. Writing, on the other hand, is carefully produced and can be revised to eliminate false starts, redundancy and fragments. Of course, fragments can appear in writing—but they need to be a deliberate choice, used because the writer wants to emphasize a particular point.

The following excerpt shows some of the typical features of speech:

Kelly: Where did they go.

Dana: They went out to dinner with Arianna’s parents.

[Question/Answer pair develops text]

Kelly: Arianna’s parents. Yeah. That was her grandma on the phone.

[Repetition and confirmation through the backchanneling marker ‘yeah’]

Dana: They left at like quarter of eight

[Use of discourse marker ‘like]

Kelly: Mm. Maybe they went shopping first and then went to dinner.

Dana: I think they’re hanging out with the Callahans. Gotta have some of my sister’s bread. It is so good.

[Shared knowledge—‘Callahans’; switch of topic—‘have bread’]

Kelly: What is it like regular bread—or is it

[Incomplete construction—‘is it’; use of ‘like’]

Dana: No. Molasses. [Fragment]

(DuBois et al.)

In addition, speech is characterized by the use of paralinguistic markers (such as body language and tone) to complement and clarify the meaning; in writing, on the other hand, meaning is conveyed through the arrangement of words and punctuation. As a result, writers need to be much more detailed and explicit in their texts than speakers.

Variation in Language

Language is an abstract system realized through its variation. Some variation is based on groups of speakers; this is the variation we refer to as dialects—regional and social. All speakers of a language use a variety of the language—because every speaker belongs to a particular region and social group; the dialect used is part of the speaker’s identity. In addition to variation due to the speakers (regional, social), there is another type of variation due to globalization: this variation is labelled Global Englishes, with the plural form indicating that there are multiple varieties based on historical reasons. Finally, there is yet another type of variation which is due to context or situation; this type of variation is called register.

Regional Variation

All languages show regional variation, which is most evident in pronunciation, word choice, or order of words. For example, in the Northwest, the words ‘cot’ and ‘caught’ are homophones (i.e. they sound the same), whereas in the Midwest there is a clear pronunciation difference between these two words. In some parts of the United States, food is fried in skillets—in the Northwest, it is fried in pans. And, finally, in some areas of the country speakers use the construction ‘might could’:

They might could tell why he is biting and what to do about it.

(Davies)

However, this is not typically heard in the Northwest.

Social Variation

While regional variation evokes in most language users feelings of ‘quaintness,’ social variation frequently generate heated (albeit invalid) discussion about language. Social dialects—which are mainly evident in speech rather ...