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Is a unified terminology possible for grammar?

Is a unified terminology possible for grammar?. LAGB September 2012. Why now?. Grammatical analysis is part of the National Curriculum for England has been since 1990 but even more so in the draft revised NC for English In principle, grammar is learned in English

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Is a unified terminology possible for grammar?

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  1. Is a unified terminology possible for grammar? LAGB September 2012

  2. Why now? • Grammatical analysis is part of the National Curriculum for England • has been since 1990 • but even more so in the draft revised NC for English • In principle, grammar is learned in English • then used in foreign languages

  3. But … • Secondary English teachers learned no grammar at school or in HE. • So confusing terminology is a double problem: • for teachers • for pupils

  4. Learning from history • 1911: report of the Joint Committee on Grammatical Terminology • Part of a big argument. • See John Walmsley 1988 • available on our website • google <lagb education committee>

  5. The protagonists • Edward Adolf Sonnenschein (1851–1929) • unified terminology for all (IE) languages • pro consistency • Otto Jespersen (1860-1943) • every language described in its own terms • pro evidence • Main differences: case and mood.

  6. The debate • Unified terminology offered "practical as well as scientific advantages, and it brings English at once into line with Latin, Greek and German" (Sonnenschein, 1914) • "The rules have to be learned by rote by the pupils, for they cannot be understood." (Jespersen, 1924)

  7. Sonnenschein on cases

  8. Sonnenschein's English Grammar (1902)

  9. Jespersen • "… case is a purely grammatical (syntactic) category and not a notional one in the true sense of the word … No wonder, therefore, that languages vary enormously, even those which go back ultimately to the same ‘parent-language.’ Cases form one of the most irrational parts of language in general." (Jespersen, Philosophy of Grammar, 1924:185-6)

  10. Nesfield (against Sonnenschein)

  11. An academic debate? • Sonnenschein wrote The Soul of Grammar (1927) in order to • "demolish the arch-enemy Jespersen" • Maybe Sonnenschein was fighting for the survival of the Classics in schools, as the basis for all language teaching. • Compare modern languages today?

  12. So what happened? • [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…” (Board of Education 1921: 289-90). • "linguists, currently 'squabbling among themselves' (Wilson 1969:157) 'will have to compose some of their differences before their science can be of direct assistance to the teacher' (Thompson 1969:7)

  13. And now? • Grammar teaching died, but Government wants to revive it. • Linguists could help the revival. • But how? • Could the LAGB produce a unified glossary for use by schools?

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