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Grammar

The document discusses the concept of grammar, defining it as a system of rules that governs language use and evolves over time. It distinguishes between prescriptive grammar, which dictates correct usage, and descriptive grammar, which describes how language is actually used. Additionally, it highlights the importance of teaching grammar in language learning, outlining various approaches such as deductive, inductive, and functional-notional methods.

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12 views17 pages

Grammar

The document discusses the concept of grammar, defining it as a system of rules that governs language use and evolves over time. It distinguishes between prescriptive grammar, which dictates correct usage, and descriptive grammar, which describes how language is actually used. Additionally, it highlights the importance of teaching grammar in language learning, outlining various approaches such as deductive, inductive, and functional-notional methods.

Uploaded by

Fatima Noor
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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GRAMMAR AND

VOCABULARY
WHAT IS GRAMMAR?
• Grammar is an important part of language
learning.
• “Grammar is the business of taking a
language to pieces, to see how it works”
(Crystal).
• Grammar is the system – a set of rules - of a
language.
• The word ‘rules’ imply that somebody
created the rules first and then spoke the
language.
• However, languages did not start like that.
• All languages change over time.
• Grammar is the mental system of rules and
categories that allows humans to form and
interpret the words and sentences of their
language.
• In order for students to have a functional
knowledge of a language (that they can
spontaneously produce language), they must
have at least some knowledge about the
grammatical constructs of the language.
• Grammar adds meanings that are not easily
inferable from the immediate context.
DEFINITIONS OF GRAMMAR
• When it comes to definitions of grammar, confusion
abounds.
• One problem is that the word ‘grammar’ means different
things to different people.
• For many, the term suggests a list of do’s and don’ts,
rules that tell us we should say It is I, not It is me, that
we should not say ain’t, or that we should avoid ending
a sentence with a preposition.
• For others, the term may refer to the rules of grammar
found mainly in written language, for example, rules
that label sentence fragments as incorrect even though
they are often found in spoken language (for example,
‘Working on a term paper’ as a response to the question
‘What are you doing?’), or that admonish us not to begin
sentences with and or but, though again, this usage is
PRESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR
• Grammars with rules that make distinctions between
correct and incorrect forms are defined as ‘prescriptive’
grammars.
• They tell us how we ought to speak, as in It is I, and how
we ought not to speak, as in It is me, or He ain’t home.
• This approach codifies certain distinctions between
standard and non-standard varieties, and often makes
overt value judgements by referring to the standard
varieties as correct, or ‘good’, English and the
nonstandard as incorrect, or ‘bad’, English.
DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR
• Grammars that do not make correct or incorrect distinctions
and that aim to describe language as it is actually used are
called ‘descriptive’ grammars.
• The rules are more like a blueprint for building well-formed
structures, and they represent speakers’ unconscious
knowledge, or ‘mental grammar’ of the language.
• Taking this unconscious knowledge into account, this
approach focuses on describing how native speakers actually
do speak and does not prescribe how they ought to speak.
• No value judgements are made, but rather the value-neutral
terms ‘grammatical’ and ‘ungrammatical’ are used to
distinguish between patterns that are well-formed, possible
sentences or phrases in a language and those that are not.
• For example,
• The cow ate the corn is a grammatical sentence in English, but
• *Ate the corn the cow is ungrammatical.
(An asterisk indicates a form that is ungrammatical or
inappropriate.)
• Grammar in this sense consists of rules of syntax, which
specify how words and phrases combine to form sentences,
and rules of morphology, which specify how word forms are
constructed (for example, present and past tense distinctions:
love, loved; number distinctions: word, words) and so on.
• For linguists, a descriptive grammar may also be a more
detailed look at language, including not only syntax and
morphology but also phonetics, phonology, semantics and lexis
(that is, vocabulary).
GRAMMAR AND APPLIED
LINGUISTICS
• For applied linguists, the focus is more on ‘pedagogical grammar’, the
type of grammar designed for the needs of second-language students
and teachers.
• Although teaching grammar in a second language does involve some
of the prescriptive rules for the standard varieties, a pedagogical
grammar resembles a descriptive grammar much more than a
prescriptive one, especially in terms of the range of structures
covered (Odlin, 1994).
• And while certain linguistic grammars tend to be narrowly focused,
pedagogical grammars are typically more eclectic, drawing on insights
from formal and functional grammars, as well as work on corpus
linguistics, discourse analysis and pragmatics.
• For after all, applied linguists must be concerned that students not
only can produce grammatical structures that are formally accurate;
students must be able to use them meaningfully and appropriately as
well.
IMPORTANCE OF TEACHING GRAMMAR

• Sentence - machine argument


• Grammar enables students to generate new sentences.
• potentially limitless linguistic creativity.
• ‘Rules’ provide learners with the means to generate an
enormous number of original sentences.
• The rule-of-law argument
• Since grammar is a system of learnable rules, it lends
itself to a view of teaching and learning known as
transmission.
• Grammar offers the teacher a structured system that can
be taught and tested in methodical steps.
THE DEDUCTIVE APPROACH
• Rule driven grammar learning
• starts with the presentation of rules to students, which is
followed by examples for explanation.
• Students then practice those rules.
• Learners engage themselves with rules through the study
and manipulation of examples.
• A teacher - centered approach to present new content.
• Example:
The form and use of the ‘Parts of speech’ is explained to
learners; then they have a gap-fill exercise to complete;
then prepare their own examples.
THE INDUCTIVE APPROACH
• The rule-discovery path
• An inductive approach, starts with examples and asks
learners to find rules.
• more learner-centered.
• Instead of explaining a given concept and following its
explanation with examples, the teacher presents
students with many examples showing how the
concept is used.
• The intent is for students to “notice” - through
examples - how the concept works.
FUNCTIONAL-NOTIONAL
APPROACH
• People who study and use a language are
mainly interested in how they can do things
with language - how they can make meanings,
get attention to their problems and interests.
• They are only interested in the grammatical
structure of the language as a means to
getting things done.
• A grammar which puts together the patterns
of the language and the things you can do
with them is called a functional grammar
(Cobuild, 1990).
• Objective:
• To explain language in terms of how
people use it to live.
• Adopts a semantic and pragmatic
orientation inside the grammar.
• It does not see semantics and pragmatics
as extra levels of organization but sees
them as integral to the organization of the
grammar.
HOW TO TEST GRAMMAR?
• The testing of grammar is one of the
main features of language testing.
• Test the ability to either recognize or
produce correct grammar, they do not
test the ability to use the language to
express meaning.
• However, it can be argued that a basic
knowledge of grammar underlies the
ability to use language to express
meaning.
• Therefore, grammar tests do have an
• 1. Multiple Choice Test
• cover a lot of grammatical points quickly.
• 2. Error Correction
• An error correction item is one in which
the testee is given a sentence with an
error.
• 3. Items to Test Knowledge of
Word/Sentence Order
• Some items can be used to test testees'
knowledge of word order.
• The traditional way is to present the
• 4. Completion Items
• Items in which the testees are
asked to fill in blanks in sentences.
• 5. Word Changing Items
• the testees are given a sentence
and a word which they need to fit
into the sentence by changing the
form of the word.

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