Linguistics for education

1. Linguistics for education Dick Hudson Cambridge December 2010

2. Plan • The history of useful linguistics • Why education needs linguistics • How universities help or hinder schools • How to build new bridges • Through politicians • Through teachers • Directly

3. 1. Is linguistics useful? • "You're a human being, and your time as a human being should be socially useful. It doesn't mean that your choices about helping other people have to be within the context of your professional training as a linguist. Maybe that training just doesn't help you to be useful to other people. In fact, it doesn't." • Noam Chomsky, 1991

4. Curiosity-driven linguistics … • has a long history • in philosophy and logic • in psychology • in anthropology. • Historical linguistics was driven by curiosity. • And so are most of us.

5. But … • linguistics can be useful as well! • Applied linguistics applies linguistics • to "the advancement of education by fostering and promoting … the study of language use, language acquisition and language teaching" (BAAL constitution) • 'Linguistics' (the analysis of language structure) has been useful since work in …

6. … Iraq about 2,000

7. BC

8. Babylonia Akkadian Babylon Sumerian

9. Becoming literate in Babylon

10. Verb conjugations(Sumerian and Akkadian)

11. First – second – third person, in that order!! We – you – they

12. The Babylonian model • Education teaches aboutL2 (Sumerian) • Education also teaches aboutL1 (Akkadian) • Linguistics provides a systematic and explicit analysis of language structure.

13. And in the next 4,000 years? • Most of the time, at least some linguists worked for education: • writing pedagogical grammars and dictionaries • of dead languages (Greek, Latin) • of living languages (English, Icelandic) • So linguistics was mostly useful.

14. 2. What education needs from linguists • ideas, e.g. prescriptivism • simple but controversial • teachers need to believe • models, e.g. the syntax/semantics distinction • abstract – teachers need to understand • descriptions, e.g. English phonemes • very rich and complex – teachers need to learn

15. Some ideas • Variation • Language varies with speaker and context • e.g. we weren't ~ we wasn't ~ we were not • Descriptivism • Variation need not be right/wrong • we wasn't (correct non-standard) BUT we not was (wrong) • Form/function • Form and function have a complex relation • e.g. in dog biscuit, dog is not an adjective!

16. Some models • Sounds and letters are different! • How many sounds in through? • Words and meanings are different! • How many legs does the word DOG have? • Tokens and types are different. • How many words in The cat sat on the mat? • Oh for some good notations in school!!!!!

17. Some descriptions • Any bits of • inflectional morphology • syntax • the phoneme system • lexical relations • using standard metalanguage • using standard notations.

18. 3. How universities help or hinder schools • In an ideal world, • schools and universities are part of an integrated educational system • linguistics supports language education • In the real world of the UK, • linguistics doesn't support language education.

19. The ideal education cycle adult researcher university school teacher know- ledge research know- ledge Year 1-13 infant

20. For example, … • Modern linguists distinguish determiners from adjectives. • So universities should teach future L1 and L2 teachers about determiners. • Then the next generation will learn about determiners in school … • … as they do in France.

21. On sale in any post office or service station

22. Contrast: A UK student with French and Spanish at A-level

23. The death of foreign languages?A-level entries 1938-2010

24. Why? UK universities Language education (excluding linguistics) • ignores language • 'English', 'French' etc mean 'E/F literature' • ignores linguistics • Most English/'Language' departments have very few teachers who research language • produces no linguistics researchers • Research on French etc linguistics hardly exists

25. 4. How to help schools • Through policy managers • and official policy statements • Through teachers • and teacher training • Directly • through university activity in schools

26. 4.1 Official policy makers • Politicians are hard to persuade. • But educational managers listen to: • good arguments. • fair criticisms on technicalities • especially when combined with solutions. • But they depend on: • politicians for approval • teachers for implementation.

27. The National Curriculum • 1991: Margaret Thatcher • How should English be taught? • several committees met and reported • linguistics was well represented and influential • The NC requires grammar teaching • but English teachers know very little grammar • and grammar is never tested • so the NC has had very little effect on grammar

28. 4.2 Teachers • Michael Halliday's UCL project 1964-70 • massive Government support • employed 3 linguists and 9 teachers for 6 years! • trained 60 English teachers for a year • reached many more • Strong on variation • weak on grammar

29. A-level English Language • One of Halliday's achievements • Study of variation in English for 17/18-year olds

30. 4.3 Direct action • The UK Linguistics Olympiad • run by university linguists • selects a team for the International Olympiad • First year in 2010: • 600 children • age 12-18 • very popular

31. Some advice • Get to know your education system. • Concentrate on basic linguistics. • Help to achieve existing goals. • Work through committees. • Be prepared to compromise. • Use evidence, just as in research. • Be patient – change takes a generation.