Grammar

Repensando o Ensino da Gramática

Maria Cândida Gramkow

A teacher of English should know all three approaches if he is to teach grammar well.

THREE APPROACHES:

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS

GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

BY WAYNE HARSH, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Traditional Grammar is the collection of grammatical

explanations and rules that, with innumerable variations and modifications, has been used by teachers of English for the past 200 years.

Criticism: I - Grammarians based their description of English based on inflected languages like Latin and Greek.

II - They failed to give a systematic and thorough description of the language as it is actually used.

Set up a classification of 7 to nine parts of speech, 8 of which are still listed.

1-Noun

2- Pronoun

3- Verb

4- Adjective

5- Adverb

6- Preposition

7- Conjunction

8- Interjection

Criticism: Arbitrarily designated and unsystematically defined.

Sentences - A group of words.....thought ....a subject and a predicate.

Contribution

The undeniable value and utility of TG: generation of teachers have had a method of explaining - at least in part - the patterns that the EL uses to convey meaning, and they have a terminology for discussing these patterns. TG tends to concern itself almost exclusively with the written language.

DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS

The work of historical grammarians prepared the way for the

American descriptive linguists: Leonard Bloomfield, Edward Sapir... who described language in general. C.C. Fries, who gave a systematic and detailed description of the E.L.

Language: a) Lexical meaning carried by the words

b) Grammatical, “structural” meaning carried by

the system.

EX.; BOYS - DOG - LIKED - Notional meaning

- Grammar meaning

I - Dictionary - Notional Meaning

II - Plural, singular, past tense - Grammar Meaning

EX: SENTENCE - a further grammar meaning

THE BOYS LIKED THE DOG. - word order

THE DOG LIKED THE BOYS.

Actor Action Goal - receiver of the action

Grammar: set of formal patterns in which the words of a language are arranged in order to convey larger meaning

They point out differences: Written x Spoken Language

Four (4) devices used in English to indicate meaning:

1) Word form: inflections / formal contrasts

2) Function words

3) Word order

4) Intonation patterns

CONTRIBUTION

They illustrated and accented the fact that present-day English uses its

relatively small number of inflected forms along with word order and

function words to convey meaning, and that it uses them in patterns unique to

English

Generative Grammar

Transformational grammar

It has its roots in the studies of the philosophical grammarians who date from 17 th century. It attempts to apply the rigor of math to the peculiarities of human language.

Noam Chomsky states that language because it is based on a system of rules makes infinite use of finite means.

The purpose of a grammar is to select the theory or system that best explains these rules.

Generate - a rule that exemplifies or provides a “rule of substitution” for all possible instances of sentences with a particular structural pattern.

Transformational - Rule that rearranges various elements in a sentence when that sentence is changed from its simple, active, declarative form to a more complicated sentence. (The girl bought the dress.)

The revolutionary feature of the approach is that part of the system that promises to tell us more than

we have previously known about how people learn a language and how they use it to produce the infinite variety the language offers to its speakers.

I - An underlying, or deep, structure - MIND

II - A phonological, or surface structure

The native speaker understands both.

S (sentence) - NP (Noun Phrase) + VP (Verb Phrase)

NP - Det N

Prop N

Pronoun

To indicate visually the structure of the sentence. (tree)

Chomsky points out that there is a difference between what a speaker knows intuitively about the system of his language (competence) and his actual ability in using language (performance).

A) He fed her dog biscuits.

B) The shooting of the hunters occurred at dawn.

What do people mean when they use the word “grammar”? Grammar 1 – a form of behavior Grammar 2 – a field of study, a

science Grammar 3 – a branch of etiquette Unproved assumption - teaching

grammar 2 will increase the student’s proficiency in Grammar 1 or improve his manners in Grammar 3.

Some and Any I like some pop music. I don’t like some pop music. I like any pop music. I don’t like any pop music. Someone in the office will be able

to help you. Anyone in the office will be able to

help you.

GRAMMAR COMMUNICATES MEANINGSVOCABULARY COMMUNICATES MEANINGS

1. EX. TICKETS – LEXICAL LEVEL

2. THE LANGUAGE OF EARLY CHILDHOOD (MUMMY SOCK)

3. ADULT LANGUAGE (OPERATING ON A LEXICAL LEVEL)

• COFFEE?

• PLEASE.

• MILK?

• JUST A DROP.

TICKETS – ON THE PHONE

EX: CAN YOU ASK MANDY TO SEND ME THE TICKETS THAT I BOOKED LAST WEEK?

Grammar is a process for making a speaker’s or writer’s meaning clear when contextual information is lacking. At first, learners have to do with a period of baby-like talk and rely on contextualized clues, untill they have enough grammar to express and understand a greater variety of meaning. Learner’s attention needs to be focused not only on the forms of the language but on the meanings these forms convey.

There are at least two kinds of meanings that grammatical forms convey

1st. REPRESENTATIONAL

It represents the world as we experience it;

2nd. INTERPERSONAL

To influence how things happen in the world, specifically in our relations with other people.

Representational role of language reflects the way we perceive the world.

• things happen in the world – verbs events and processes

• they are initiated by people or things – (nouns - subject)

• they have effect or other people or things – (nouns – object)

• they take place in particular circunstances:

• sometime/ some place/ some way – adverbials

• time conveyed by the use of tense

GRAMMAR AND FUNCTION

The meaning of a sentence is not just unpacking its words and its grammar.

Father: Do you drink?

Young man: No, thanks, I’m cool.

Father: I’m not offering, I’m asking IF you drink. Do you think I’d

offer alcohol to teenage drivers taking my daughter out?

He misunderstood the function of the question.

1st. Literal meaning – Are you a drinker of alcohol?

2nd. The meaning in certain context

Form X Function

SPOKEN GRAMMAR X WRITTEN GRAMMAR (p.7)

A: Great sausages, these, aren’t they?

B: Yes. The ingredients are guaranteed free of additives and artificial

colouring.

A: Had to laugh, though. The bloke that makes them, he was telling me,

he doesn’t eat them himself. Want a ciggie?

B: No, thanks. Patrons are requested to refrain from smoking while other

guests are dining…

Disadvantages: It may be off-putting for some students. Teacher explanation is often at the

expense of student involvement and interaction.

Explanation is seldom as memorable as other forms of presentation.

It encourages the belief that learning a language is a case of knowing the rules.

A deductive approach

A deductive approach Advantages: It gets straight to the point. It respects the intelligence and

maturity of many students and acknowledges the role of cognitive processes in language acquisition.

It confirms many students expectations about classroom learning.

A deductive approach It confirms many students’

expectations about classroom learning.

It allows the teacher to deal with language points as they come up.

An inductive approach Advantages: Rules learners discover by

themselves are more meaningful, memorable, and serviceable.

The mental effort involved ensures a greater degree of cognitive depth.

Students are more actively involved in the learning process.

An inductive approach It favors pattern-recognition and

problem solving abilities. Working things out by themselves

prepares students for greater self-reliance and is therefore conducive to learner autonomy.

An inductive approach Disadvantages: The time and energy spent in working

out rules may mislead students into believing that rules are the objective of language learning.

Students may hypothesise the wrong rule.

It can place heavy demands on teachers in planning a lesson.

An inductive approach However carefully organised the

data is, many languages areas such as aspect and modality resist easy rule formation.

It frustrates students who would prefer simply to be told the truth.

TODAY’S NEWS Escaped monkey shot dead The monkey that has been on the loose in

New Plymouth for five days has been shot dead.

The capuchin monkey was the last of 12 which escaped after vandals attacked an enclosure at Brooklands Children’s Zoo.

Zoo spokesman Anthony Joines says the monkey was spotted in nearby Pukekura Park and a bid was made to try to coax it

TODAY’S NEWS to take food laced with sedatives.

However he says it became clear the monkey had no intention of going near staff and it was decided to shoot it.

DICTOGLOSS “When I was a child we used to go

camping every summer. We’d choose a different place each year, and we’d drive around until we found a beach we liked. Then we’d pitch our tent, as near as possible to the beach. We’d usually spend most of the time on the beach or exploring the country round about. We never went to the same beach twice.”

Correct the eight collocation errors in this text. In the morning I made some work in the

garden, then I spent a rest for about an hour before going out to have some shopping in town. It was my sister’s birthday and I wanted to do a special effort to cook a nice meal for her. I gave a look at a new Thai cookery book in the bookshop and decided to buy it. It has some totally easy recipes and I managed to do a good impression with my very first Thai meal. I think my sister utterly enjoyed her birthday.

INTENSIFYING ADVERBS In this short text, the writer has often misused

the word strongly. Correct the wrong collocations using adverbs from the box. Use each adverb once only.

bitterly strictly deeply utterly Everyone was complaining strongly when they

heard about the new plan. People were strongly shocked to hear that children would be strongly forbidden to use the sports ground and most people were strongly opposed to the new rules. Even people who normally never expressed an opinion were strongly appalled by the proposals.

WORK Complete the sentences with work, job

or career. 1. I took on too much .... last month and

couldn’t finish it all. 2. At the peak of her... she was

managing a sales force of 200 people. 3. Daniel Robertson’s ..... in education

lasted almost four decades. 4. I have a very demanding ......, but I

enjoy it, nonetheless.

WORK 5. At the moment we are carrying out ...... on

the design of the new stadium. 6. The scandal ruined his ..... and he never

worked in the stock market again. 7. I’m going to apply for a .... in the

supermarket. 8. She had a long and brilliant .... in show

business. At 20, she got her first steady .... in a small regional theater, but it was in 1968 that her ..... really took off when she was offered a part in a TV series.