There were many studies of usage in America between the 1900 and 20th century. During the 20th century, the U.S. saw an increased division between adherents to the traditional prescriptive approach and proponents of more descriptive, relativistic studies. There were studies of grammar usage in the following areas: Modern English, Current English Usage, American English Grammar, and The English Language Arts. Each Study has its own proponents.
Modern English
One of the earliest studies of usage in America was done by George Phillip Krapp in 1909. The study was entitled Modern English. Its growth and Present Use. These studies had many flaws according to another author Edward Finnegan and his book "Attitudes towards English". Finnegan identifies four different areas where Krapp broke ground.
Current English Usage
This is another important usage study during the 20th century that had begun by Sterling Leonard. This study was significant because its based on its findings on a usage survey. This survey was sent to seven respondents, linguistic experts, leading businessmen, authors, editors of influential publications,NCTE members, members of the Modern Language Association and speech teachers. The respondents were asked to classify items according to their observations about actual usage by placing them into 3 categories: Literary English, Standard English and Naive English.
American English Grammar
Another important piece of work fro grammar usage was done by Charles C.Fries, which was American English Grammar. Fries method of collecting data was quite different from Sterling Leonard in many ways.
Frie based his study on actual letters written by Americans who were corresponding with the government;he examined 3000 letters or excerpts in all. Fries' began by using independent grounds to classfify the writers into 3 social groupings: Speakers of Standard English, Speakers of Common English and Speakers of Vulgar English.
His method was important because he inferred the linguistic traits of each group only after examining the groups educational and professional traits. Fries' work had also become contradicted by Finnegan, as well as all of the other studies.
The English Language Arts
This work was published by NCTE in 1952. It represents an official endorsement of the principle established by Krapp, Leonard, Fries and other descriptive linguists. It explained constant language changes, change is normal, spoken language is the language, correctness rest upon usage and all usage is relative.
However, even though this work was also examined by Finnegan, others promoting the doctrine of usage has continued into the second half of the 20th century.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
STRUCTURALISM (1900-1950)
Structuralism (Chapter 4: The Descriptive Period)
Structuralism began its evolution in the 19th century due to historical-comparative studies. This view has two powerful ideas on language development. The first idea is that language can be studied irrespective of its history and genetic relationships to other languages. Idea #1 derives from Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), a Swiss professor of linguistics at the University of Geneva. Even though he published little while he was alive, three years after his death he came to be known as the "father" of structural linguistics because of his impact on the development of linguistics as a field of study. Saussure had the idea to differentiate diachronic and synchronic linguistics. Diachronic being the study of relations that bind together successive terms not perceived by the collective mind but submitted for each other without forming a system. And synchronic concerns with the logical and psychological relations that together coexisting terms and form a system in the collective mind of speakers. To conclude idea #1, Saussure viewed two items in one language as a structure and two items in two different languages as outside the psychological system of the speakers.
The second idea that linguistics is properly viewed as a physical science was formed by an American Linguistic, Leonard Bloomfield. Bloomfield showed two influences of his linguistic view. One was that his work involved the analysis of American Indian languages, and secondly that the influence was based on behaviorist psychology, brought on by the American psychologist J.B. Watson. Bloomfield and his followers reduced the study of language as a whole down to only focus on the study of physical speech. They viewed language as a habit of an uncomplicated organism that learned sentences and words only to fill them with vague memory and association. Edward Sapir (1884-1939) was not a behaviorist; his group came out of anthropology and never adhered to behaviorism. Sapir used the study of language as a mental reality in his work, "La Realite' Psychologique des Phonemes." Sapir and his best known student, Benjamin Whorf (1897-1941), came up with the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and published it in a series of articles written from 1936-1938. The Hypothesis stated that the structure of a person's language (especially syntax and morphology, or word structure) influences non-linguistic activity and the person's view of reality. Although, Bloomfield and Sapir had dramatically different views on idea #2, they had very similar careers.
Structuralism began its evolution in the 19th century due to historical-comparative studies. This view has two powerful ideas on language development. The first idea is that language can be studied irrespective of its history and genetic relationships to other languages. Idea #1 derives from Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), a Swiss professor of linguistics at the University of Geneva. Even though he published little while he was alive, three years after his death he came to be known as the "father" of structural linguistics because of his impact on the development of linguistics as a field of study. Saussure had the idea to differentiate diachronic and synchronic linguistics. Diachronic being the study of relations that bind together successive terms not perceived by the collective mind but submitted for each other without forming a system. And synchronic concerns with the logical and psychological relations that together coexisting terms and form a system in the collective mind of speakers. To conclude idea #1, Saussure viewed two items in one language as a structure and two items in two different languages as outside the psychological system of the speakers.
The second idea that linguistics is properly viewed as a physical science was formed by an American Linguistic, Leonard Bloomfield. Bloomfield showed two influences of his linguistic view. One was that his work involved the analysis of American Indian languages, and secondly that the influence was based on behaviorist psychology, brought on by the American psychologist J.B. Watson. Bloomfield and his followers reduced the study of language as a whole down to only focus on the study of physical speech. They viewed language as a habit of an uncomplicated organism that learned sentences and words only to fill them with vague memory and association. Edward Sapir (1884-1939) was not a behaviorist; his group came out of anthropology and never adhered to behaviorism. Sapir used the study of language as a mental reality in his work, "La Realite' Psychologique des Phonemes." Sapir and his best known student, Benjamin Whorf (1897-1941), came up with the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and published it in a series of articles written from 1936-1938. The Hypothesis stated that the structure of a person's language (especially syntax and morphology, or word structure) influences non-linguistic activity and the person's view of reality. Although, Bloomfield and Sapir had dramatically different views on idea #2, they had very similar careers.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
In-Class, Nov. 19: Haiku
HAIKU....
Today, after you have submitted your Research Essay Folder, we are doing the prompt that we neglected so far due to time constraints: "grammar haiku"!!! Go to the following link to find the old post on our class blog.
Preview:
This Friday, Nov. 21st, you are receiving your study guide for the FINAL EXAM, which will take place on Friday, Dec. 5th (last day of class!) from 9:00-9:50 a.m. in our ordinary classroom.
You will NOT be allowed to bring your study guide to the final exam; it is just meant for preparing at home. The exam will be like the mid-term exam, consisting of three parts:
1) a part with questions about what we have done in class, the answers for which are to be found on the blog, the Down Syndrome movie guide, and your homework assignments;
2) a grammar part about all the topics we covered in our mini lessons (for which the sentences will NOT be on the study guide);
3) a critical response part (essay question) to an article which I will give you after the Thanksgiving vacations, so you can prepare it entirely at home and email it to yourself, to attach it to your final exam in class.
If you miss class on Nov. 21st, you will not receive the study guide.
We will go over it in class that day, and I will answer any questions or concerns you might have.
What we will do on Nov. 21st:
1) an important course evaluation (survey) about your opinions of this course, and how to improve it;
2) study guide for final exam WORKSHOP (you are allowed to exchange questions with your partners)
3) those who went to the Writing Center and for whom the tutors have written a Conference Summary will submit their Final Research Essay Folder on Nov. 21st, in the first 10 min. of class.
On the remaining three days of class after the Thanksgiving vacations, we will do the following:
- Dec. 1st: presentations of our Readability topics (max. 5 min. each) + course evaluations
-Dec. 3rd: presentations of our Readability topics (max. 5 min. each)
- Dec. 5th: hand in the Readability Essay; finish Readability Presentations (5 min. each); conclusion of course
MEMO: There are no more make-ups for missed days or homework!!! The last EXTRA CREDIT opportunity was for missed days prior to Nov. 17th, for which you made up through extra peer editing.
Today, after you have submitted your Research Essay Folder, we are doing the prompt that we neglected so far due to time constraints: "grammar haiku"!!! Go to the following link to find the old post on our class blog.
Preview:
This Friday, Nov. 21st, you are receiving your study guide for the FINAL EXAM, which will take place on Friday, Dec. 5th (last day of class!) from 9:00-9:50 a.m. in our ordinary classroom.
You will NOT be allowed to bring your study guide to the final exam; it is just meant for preparing at home. The exam will be like the mid-term exam, consisting of three parts:
1) a part with questions about what we have done in class, the answers for which are to be found on the blog, the Down Syndrome movie guide, and your homework assignments;
2) a grammar part about all the topics we covered in our mini lessons (for which the sentences will NOT be on the study guide);
3) a critical response part (essay question) to an article which I will give you after the Thanksgiving vacations, so you can prepare it entirely at home and email it to yourself, to attach it to your final exam in class.
If you miss class on Nov. 21st, you will not receive the study guide.
We will go over it in class that day, and I will answer any questions or concerns you might have.
What we will do on Nov. 21st:
1) an important course evaluation (survey) about your opinions of this course, and how to improve it;
2) study guide for final exam WORKSHOP (you are allowed to exchange questions with your partners)
3) those who went to the Writing Center and for whom the tutors have written a Conference Summary will submit their Final Research Essay Folder on Nov. 21st, in the first 10 min. of class.
On the remaining three days of class after the Thanksgiving vacations, we will do the following:
- Dec. 1st: presentations of our Readability topics (max. 5 min. each) + course evaluations
-Dec. 3rd: presentations of our Readability topics (max. 5 min. each)
- Dec. 5th: hand in the Readability Essay; finish Readability Presentations (5 min. each); conclusion of course
MEMO: There are no more make-ups for missed days or homework!!! The last EXTRA CREDIT opportunity was for missed days prior to Nov. 17th, for which you made up through extra peer editing.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Chapter 3- Prescriptive Rules/ Part 2: pages 48-60
Chapter three in the book: Grammar for Grammarians outlines different Prescriptive Rules. These rules were developed during the 18th century and many of them are still used to this day. This blog will contain a summary of the second half of the chapter: pages 48-60 and will contain these Prescriptive Rules: “Parallelism, Latin Grammar is an Appropriate Model for English, Different Forms Imply Different Meanings, Language Change Represents Decay, and Language is “Logical.”
Parallelism in a rule in Grammar that is thought to date back to “Murray” and it “requires that items in a series be of the same grammatical form.” A few examples the book gives to help understand this rule are: “If he prefer a virtuous life, and is sincere in his professions, he will succeed;” “if he prefers.” “The parliament addresses the king, and has been prorogued the same day;” “and was prorogues.”
Latin Grammar is an Appropriate Model for English- At this point in the chapter the authors bring up the point that a lot of English’s rules are based on the rules of other languages such as Latin. (E.g. the rule of not being able to end a sentence with a preposition) The problems that come from this are:
- Latin is an Italic language and English is a Germanic one.
-Latin is a “synthetic “language with many inflections and English is “analytic” with few inflections.
-Latin is a language where the direct object normally precedes the verb and in English the direct object normally follows the verb.
These differences make both languages not able to be considered a “direct transfer language.”
The next subject the book covers is “Different Forms Imply Different Meanings.” In this section the reader learns that English is a language that has many interchangeable words such as “shall” and “will.” In most languages words can’t be interchangeable and rules are made when and what word to use. Some would use “shall” only for “first-person and “will” would be used for “second and third-persons.” Some people argue that there is always one word or way of saying something that is “superior” to the other.
When languages are changed the authors say the reason is because it has become “decayed.” This rule comes from people thinking that past versions are better, but as time goes on everyone makes small gradual changes to languages and this apparently “normal” as the author states. The best example is to think how English has been changed over the years. 1000 years ago people spoke Old English and we see this in texts such as, Beowulf. Then we evolved to Middle English which is the language that Chaucer developed in his writings. We slowly made our way to Early Modern English which is what a lot of Shakespeare’s writings are in. At this point, English is thought to be known as Modern English, but this doesn’t mean that our language won’t gradually change again and again until the end of time.
During the last section of this chapter readers learn that Language is “logical” because “it is a self-contained, rule-governed system.” The author wants us to keep in mind though that English and all languages can never be thought of as “common sense.” There are many rules that have to be learned by all and take a big part of memorization of rules that go into that language. Interpretation is another thing that makes languages not able to be “common sense” because many see things in different ways and there are many words in English alone that can be interpretive differently.
Prescriptive grammar is a set of rules that make things “correct” or “not-correct” and “actual language use various grades of acceptability.”
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Mon., Nov. 17: Peer Editing Session
On Monday, Nov. 17th, is our PEER EDITING SESSION. If you're not here, you won't get the participation points. (You still have to contact a peer by email to obtain his/her evaluation, or I won't collect and grade your final research essay. Your peer editor's comments on your draft need to be submitted with your final essay in the folder, so I can see which of the suggestions you incorporated!). You all have each other's emails in your email account (I sent you our attendance list).
That means, your ESSAYS NEED TO BE COMPLETELY FINISHED on Monday, Nov. 17th, at class time. You don't need to print them out; have them ready in electronic format (as a Word document; no other attachments accepted!). EMAIL THEM TO ME BY MONDAY AT CLASS TIME. I will distribute essays to students whose partners didn't show up for the editing session, or who were sick (or otherwise excused) and could not attend.
___________________________________________
Instructions for Peer Editing Session:
1) Use the following Peer Edit Sheet (Rubistar rubric), copy and paste it into a Word document, and save it to your desktop, and highlight the fields with the points you want to give on it in color. Assign an overall grade to the student, judging by what you think is most important in a Research Essay from all the components of the rubric. NOTE: You can also type into my rubric, once you've pasted it into Word. That means, you can include your own personal comments (in a different color, please!).
2) Email this sheet to the author of the essay AND to me as cc., so you can get your points. You need to finish peer-editing ONE paper in class on Nov. 17th (because many people cannot open docx files from home).
3) We are doing "online editing," which means that you are going to employ the "comment function" on the top of your menu list to insert your comments. You need to click on REVIEW, and then on NEW COMMENT (a yellow box).
Highlight the word that's wrong / the place where a word or punctuation sign is missing, click on "comment," and type in your suggestions. Save your document!!! If you don't save it, you will lose all your entries. When you're done, email it back to the author and me, TOGETHER with the Peer Edit Sheet (rubric). Correct all spelling, grammar, punctuation, format, and content mistakes you can find! Assign an OVERALL GRADE you would give to your partner, based on the rubric.
If you need to make up for missed days, tell me for whom you want to do EXTRA CREDIT PEER EDITING, and I will put your name on the list below so your peer knows what to expect from whom! When you email the proofread essay and the Peer Edit Sheet back to that student, and in copy to me, indicate for which missed day you are making up, so I can put an "excused" on my attendance sheet accordingly!
IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT HOW MANY DAYS YOU'VE MISSED, COME TO THE FRONT AND LOOK AT MY GRADE BOOK! Some people might have forgotten to sign the attendance list, so make sure you have an explanation or an extra credit make-up for any missed days. This is the last chance for extra credit.
For people with computer problems at home: we're all trying to save our peer editing papers as Word doc, not Word docx, but if for some reason you cannot open your peer's comments, that doesn't count as excuse. Then, you need to work in the computer lab. If you didn't get anything from your partner, let me know, and I will email you a different paper.
You will exchange your finished research essays with the following partner:
group 1: Creighton Jackson + Jeffrey Ryden
group 2: Michaela Bazar + Katrina Kosma (Stephanie Jacques will do one X for Katrina Kosma)
group 3: Abby Hoover + Brittany Lingle (+ Creighton will do an extra credit editing for Brittany)
group 4: Pamela LaBelle + Ronesha Johnson (+ Creighton will do an extra credit editing for Ronesha)
group 5: Charlotte Jackanicz + Jamie Wolf (Renita Tanner does one X for Jamie)
group 6: David Tabler + Brian Pullyblank (Colin Ott does one X for David Tabler)
group 7: Colin Ott + Tiara Spencer (+ Creighton will do an extra credit editing for Tiara)
group 8: Renita Tanner + Randi McFadden (Colin Ott does one X for Renita Tanner), Abby Hoover is doing one X for Renita Tanner
group 9: Julie Pioter + Stephanie Jacques (Renita Tanner does one X for Julie)
group 10: Amber Pankau reads the essay from Randi McFadden
_____________________________________
HOMEWORK for Wednesday, Nov. 19th, when the PEER-EDITED FINAL PAPERS are DUE:
Submit a FOLDER with the following components:
1. Your completed and corrected RESEARCH ESSAY
2. Staple or attach to it with a paper clip the Report Sheet from www.surveymonkey.com as a pdf file
3. The printed Peer Edit Sheet, and the printed peer-edited essay with your peer's electronic comments. If you have received more than one, submit them all. I'm going to check whether you made the suggestions changes suggested by your peers. Your peers will get credit (or extra credit, where it applies) depending how detailed/well done their proofreading was.
4. Your printed-out three sources (stapled). Make sure they are RESEARCH essays from JSTOR, ERIC, or Google Scholar, not simple webpages. Make sure they printed off correctly; I need to be able to see the page numbers, to proofread your quotations.
5. A written paragraph on a separate sheet of paper in which you tell me whether the peer-editing session has helped you, whether you think I should drop the peer-editing workshop for next year's classes, or whether you would prefer a Writing Center session to an in-class peer editing session, and WHY.
6. The Cover Sheet where you check-mark that everything was submitted, and on which I will write your grade. Print it out from here, or from your email, and check-mark everything you submitted.
EXTENSION ONLY for people who have their paper corrected in the Writing Center:
You can submit your complete folder on Friday, Nov. 21st (the last day of class before the Thanksgiving vacations). You need to have had a session with a Writing Center tutor about your whole essay, and this tutor needs to have written a conference summary to me by Friday, Nov. 21st. You need to tell this to your tutor; he/she won't do it by himself/herself. I will put your conference summary in your folder. You can make up for your missed homework points in all components this way. I won't grade your folder if you don't have a conference summary, because that would be a late assignment.
NO LATE PAPERS accepted.
Apart from the FOLDER: Also email your research paper to me (without attachments). Those which are A+ or A might be used for next year as good examples. I will ask your written consent before employing any of your material. Your support will be greatly appreciated by my future ENGL300 classes!!! Remember, you also got samples for everything we did from my previous classes...
That means, your ESSAYS NEED TO BE COMPLETELY FINISHED on Monday, Nov. 17th, at class time. You don't need to print them out; have them ready in electronic format (as a Word document; no other attachments accepted!). EMAIL THEM TO ME BY MONDAY AT CLASS TIME. I will distribute essays to students whose partners didn't show up for the editing session, or who were sick (or otherwise excused) and could not attend.
___________________________________________
Instructions for Peer Editing Session:
1) Use the following Peer Edit Sheet (Rubistar rubric), copy and paste it into a Word document, and save it to your desktop, and highlight the fields with the points you want to give on it in color. Assign an overall grade to the student, judging by what you think is most important in a Research Essay from all the components of the rubric. NOTE: You can also type into my rubric, once you've pasted it into Word. That means, you can include your own personal comments (in a different color, please!).
2) Email this sheet to the author of the essay AND to me as cc., so you can get your points. You need to finish peer-editing ONE paper in class on Nov. 17th (because many people cannot open docx files from home).
3) We are doing "online editing," which means that you are going to employ the "comment function" on the top of your menu list to insert your comments. You need to click on REVIEW, and then on NEW COMMENT (a yellow box).
Highlight the word that's wrong / the place where a word or punctuation sign is missing, click on "comment," and type in your suggestions. Save your document!!! If you don't save it, you will lose all your entries. When you're done, email it back to the author and me, TOGETHER with the Peer Edit Sheet (rubric). Correct all spelling, grammar, punctuation, format, and content mistakes you can find! Assign an OVERALL GRADE you would give to your partner, based on the rubric.
If you need to make up for missed days, tell me for whom you want to do EXTRA CREDIT PEER EDITING, and I will put your name on the list below so your peer knows what to expect from whom! When you email the proofread essay and the Peer Edit Sheet back to that student, and in copy to me, indicate for which missed day you are making up, so I can put an "excused" on my attendance sheet accordingly!
IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT HOW MANY DAYS YOU'VE MISSED, COME TO THE FRONT AND LOOK AT MY GRADE BOOK! Some people might have forgotten to sign the attendance list, so make sure you have an explanation or an extra credit make-up for any missed days. This is the last chance for extra credit.
For people with computer problems at home: we're all trying to save our peer editing papers as Word doc, not Word docx, but if for some reason you cannot open your peer's comments, that doesn't count as excuse. Then, you need to work in the computer lab. If you didn't get anything from your partner, let me know, and I will email you a different paper.
You will exchange your finished research essays with the following partner:
group 1: Creighton Jackson + Jeffrey Ryden
group 2: Michaela Bazar + Katrina Kosma (Stephanie Jacques will do one X for Katrina Kosma)
group 3: Abby Hoover + Brittany Lingle (+ Creighton will do an extra credit editing for Brittany)
group 4: Pamela LaBelle + Ronesha Johnson (+ Creighton will do an extra credit editing for Ronesha)
group 5: Charlotte Jackanicz + Jamie Wolf (Renita Tanner does one X for Jamie)
group 6: David Tabler + Brian Pullyblank (Colin Ott does one X for David Tabler)
group 7: Colin Ott + Tiara Spencer (+ Creighton will do an extra credit editing for Tiara)
group 8: Renita Tanner + Randi McFadden (Colin Ott does one X for Renita Tanner), Abby Hoover is doing one X for Renita Tanner
group 9: Julie Pioter + Stephanie Jacques (Renita Tanner does one X for Julie)
group 10: Amber Pankau reads the essay from Randi McFadden
_____________________________________
HOMEWORK for Wednesday, Nov. 19th, when the PEER-EDITED FINAL PAPERS are DUE:
Submit a FOLDER with the following components:
1. Your completed and corrected RESEARCH ESSAY
2. Staple or attach to it with a paper clip the Report Sheet from www.surveymonkey.com as a pdf file
3. The printed Peer Edit Sheet, and the printed peer-edited essay with your peer's electronic comments. If you have received more than one, submit them all. I'm going to check whether you made the suggestions changes suggested by your peers. Your peers will get credit (or extra credit, where it applies) depending how detailed/well done their proofreading was.
4. Your printed-out three sources (stapled). Make sure they are RESEARCH essays from JSTOR, ERIC, or Google Scholar, not simple webpages. Make sure they printed off correctly; I need to be able to see the page numbers, to proofread your quotations.
5. A written paragraph on a separate sheet of paper in which you tell me whether the peer-editing session has helped you, whether you think I should drop the peer-editing workshop for next year's classes, or whether you would prefer a Writing Center session to an in-class peer editing session, and WHY.
6. The Cover Sheet where you check-mark that everything was submitted, and on which I will write your grade. Print it out from here, or from your email, and check-mark everything you submitted.
EXTENSION ONLY for people who have their paper corrected in the Writing Center:
You can submit your complete folder on Friday, Nov. 21st (the last day of class before the Thanksgiving vacations). You need to have had a session with a Writing Center tutor about your whole essay, and this tutor needs to have written a conference summary to me by Friday, Nov. 21st. You need to tell this to your tutor; he/she won't do it by himself/herself. I will put your conference summary in your folder. You can make up for your missed homework points in all components this way. I won't grade your folder if you don't have a conference summary, because that would be a late assignment.
NO LATE PAPERS accepted.
Apart from the FOLDER: Also email your research paper to me (without attachments). Those which are A+ or A might be used for next year as good examples. I will ask your written consent before employing any of your material. Your support will be greatly appreciated by my future ENGL300 classes!!! Remember, you also got samples for everything we did from my previous classes...
Saturday, November 15, 2008
The Prescriptive Period in the United States
Chapter two of Parker and Riley’s Grammar for Grammarians deals with the prescriptive period of grammar from England to the United States. For the US portion of the chapter, the authors focus on Noah Webster and Lindley Murray.
Webster is better known for his work as a lexicographer -- his dictionaries are widely used. Webster’s work on alternate spellings (changing traveling to travelling, colour to color, etc.) was crucial to establishing America’s linguistic identity separate from England and “British English.” Webster believed that “honor requires [the United States] to have a system of our own, in language as well as government” (30). He pushed for an American standard in his books.
Murray was also very influential. He is well known as a grammarian and wrote English Grammar, Adapted to the Different Classes of Learners. This book was meant for classroom use, but gained immense popularity through the years. Murray’s presentation of grammar emphasized grammatical correctness and also linked proper language to virtue and religion. It is interesting to note that Murray’s book were very similar (almost verbatim) to the works of British grammarian Lowth.
Parker and Riley briefly discuss George Perkins Marsh and William Dwight Whitney. Marsh continues Murray’s idea that grammar and morality are deeply connected. Using words and phrases in ways that were “unacceptable” suggested that a person was morally oblique. To him, speech was to be pure and clean. Whitney, on the other hand, refuted this concept. He focused more on the connection between language and sociology. For him, it was more important to observe who uses a particular word than to judge the word without regard for the user.
Webster is better known for his work as a lexicographer -- his dictionaries are widely used. Webster’s work on alternate spellings (changing traveling to travelling, colour to color, etc.) was crucial to establishing America’s linguistic identity separate from England and “British English.” Webster believed that “honor requires [the United States] to have a system of our own, in language as well as government” (30). He pushed for an American standard in his books.
Murray was also very influential. He is well known as a grammarian and wrote English Grammar, Adapted to the Different Classes of Learners. This book was meant for classroom use, but gained immense popularity through the years. Murray’s presentation of grammar emphasized grammatical correctness and also linked proper language to virtue and religion. It is interesting to note that Murray’s book were very similar (almost verbatim) to the works of British grammarian Lowth.
Parker and Riley briefly discuss George Perkins Marsh and William Dwight Whitney. Marsh continues Murray’s idea that grammar and morality are deeply connected. Using words and phrases in ways that were “unacceptable” suggested that a person was morally oblique. To him, speech was to be pure and clean. Whitney, on the other hand, refuted this concept. He focused more on the connection between language and sociology. For him, it was more important to observe who uses a particular word than to judge the word without regard for the user.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Prescriptive Grammar: The Classical Period
The Classical Period lasted from 500BC to 500AD, during which much language study was done by the Greek and the Romans. It is from this ancient grammar that much of prescriptive grammar is descended. The Greeks made a lot of grammatical progress in this time, and that knowledge was transmitted to other lands by the Romans.
The Greeks became interested in language for a couple of different reasons. One is that they knew about other languages through trade and travel. This allowed them to observe similarities and differences across languages. Another reason that interested the Greeks is the multiple dialects that can be found in Greece due to geographic divides. The Greeks also developed an interest in comparing older, written language with the standard language they spoke at the time. They could see that the language had changed. Observing that language can come in different forms and change over time, the Greeks began to study language and grammar.
The most important innovation pioneered by the Greeks was the alphabet. They were the first people to assign a symbol to every consonant and vowel sound, and our alphabet of today is descended from theirs. These forethinkers of the Classical Period turned their interest into a common practice of consciously speculating about the use of language. The people most associated with this movement were Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and a group called the Stoics. One of the biggest contentions between these figures was whether words/language was nature or convention. This means they fought over whether words sounded like what they were(like cock-a-doodle-doo), or were just arbitrary and unconnected sounds that randomly represent things(like rooster). They also debated about analogy versus anomoly in language, which is basically whether or not language is orderly and regular. Analogists thought is was structured, while anamolists did not.
Another major contribution by the Greeks were the first parts of speech. Plato and Aristotle pioneered the concepts of nouns, verbs, and conjunctions. Later in the Classical Period, an Alexandrian Dionysius wrote The Art of Grammar and added five categories: participle, article, pronoun, preposition, and adverb. Even later, Priscian released his 1,000 page grammar and introduces interjections. This massive work was later used as the basis for the first grammar book written for English. It wasn't until 1700 years later that Joseph Priestley, where the English parts of speech were finalized into the eight parts we now know.
The Classical Period's study of parts of speech gave rise to sentence parsing. Parsing is basically breaking a sentence down into its parts and identifying each word's part and function. This is what most grammar classes still do today. The idea of conjugating verbs and nouns also arose in this period. Yet, there were gaps in this knowledge. They didn't understand that languages were interrelated, and that Greek was the sister language of Latin. They Greeks also had a mistaken idea that any change in language was decay, rather than evolution. They also had a concept that spoken language was corrupted, and only written language could be pure. They got this mistaken idea out of the change in what they spoke, and what was written in old writings. Despite these deficits in knowledge, the Greeks (and Romans) are considered pioneers in the field of grammar.
The Greeks became interested in language for a couple of different reasons. One is that they knew about other languages through trade and travel. This allowed them to observe similarities and differences across languages. Another reason that interested the Greeks is the multiple dialects that can be found in Greece due to geographic divides. The Greeks also developed an interest in comparing older, written language with the standard language they spoke at the time. They could see that the language had changed. Observing that language can come in different forms and change over time, the Greeks began to study language and grammar.
The most important innovation pioneered by the Greeks was the alphabet. They were the first people to assign a symbol to every consonant and vowel sound, and our alphabet of today is descended from theirs. These forethinkers of the Classical Period turned their interest into a common practice of consciously speculating about the use of language. The people most associated with this movement were Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and a group called the Stoics. One of the biggest contentions between these figures was whether words/language was nature or convention. This means they fought over whether words sounded like what they were(like cock-a-doodle-doo), or were just arbitrary and unconnected sounds that randomly represent things(like rooster). They also debated about analogy versus anomoly in language, which is basically whether or not language is orderly and regular. Analogists thought is was structured, while anamolists did not.
Another major contribution by the Greeks were the first parts of speech. Plato and Aristotle pioneered the concepts of nouns, verbs, and conjunctions. Later in the Classical Period, an Alexandrian Dionysius wrote The Art of Grammar and added five categories: participle, article, pronoun, preposition, and adverb. Even later, Priscian released his 1,000 page grammar and introduces interjections. This massive work was later used as the basis for the first grammar book written for English. It wasn't until 1700 years later that Joseph Priestley, where the English parts of speech were finalized into the eight parts we now know.
The Classical Period's study of parts of speech gave rise to sentence parsing. Parsing is basically breaking a sentence down into its parts and identifying each word's part and function. This is what most grammar classes still do today. The idea of conjugating verbs and nouns also arose in this period. Yet, there were gaps in this knowledge. They didn't understand that languages were interrelated, and that Greek was the sister language of Latin. They Greeks also had a mistaken idea that any change in language was decay, rather than evolution. They also had a concept that spoken language was corrupted, and only written language could be pure. They got this mistaken idea out of the change in what they spoke, and what was written in old writings. Despite these deficits in knowledge, the Greeks (and Romans) are considered pioneers in the field of grammar.
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