The
movie Grammar revolution describes the debate between the two different set of
rules in English Grammar. Descriptive and Prescriptive Grammar. Prescriptive
rules are rules made by grammarians and language teachers, which give
guidelines about how a language should be written or spoken. An example of
prescriptive grammar: To whom did you give the money? Instead of: Who did you
give the money to? The first sentence is correct in a prescriptive view because
you should avoid ending a sentence with a preposition. The second sentence is
correct in a descriptive view because it is used in the everyday English spoken
language.
Another approach to grammar is as I have
mentioned is a Descriptive view, in contrary to prescriptive view where rules
and norms are very important for the way you speak or write. If you have a
descriptive view, you are more susceptible to breaking some of the rules that
is not used in the spoken form of the language. A descriptive view is not without
its rules, but students are not being thought how to string sentences correctly
together by the correct rules. Students learn it by intuition, so most of them
learn it by reading and listening.
Some of the arguments against Standard English in
school is that is straining on the creativity of the students, if students had
to learn all the rules in prescriptive grammar, they wouldn’t be able to
express themselves creatively. Learning grammar also confuses and frustrates
students. Another argument is that students learn grammar by reading English. They
also mention in the movie that removing Standard English from the school system
made the social differences less significant. Those who mastered Standard
English would not be looked upon as better than those who did not master it.
The arguments for grammar teaching is giving
students a greater tool to use when they get older, if you are good at writing
you might also have a lot more career possibilities the if aren’t good at
writing.
My own opinion about teaching grammar is students
are always going to have an advantage knowing Standard English. If they need to
know formal English in a future profession, it might be necessary they get an
adequate grammar education in primary school. When I think about my own English
education, there were not a lot of grammar instructions, I read many English magazines
and that was where I learned most of my grammar, so you might say I learned English
in descriptive view. I probably don’t write
good standard English, but it I always found English interesting and I never
found it boring and frustrating.
Hi Stian!
SvarSlettIt was interesting reading your blog entry. You've given good examples of the differences between prescriptivism and desciptivism. It is a good point about the advantage Standard English may give you in future professions. I guess you are for grammar instruction to a certain degree?
Hi! I really liked the way you described the differences between the two sets of rules in English Grammar, and with the use of examples. I also liked how you put them in contrast to each other to make the differences easier to see. And like you, I do too believe that learning Standard English would give future job applicants a certain advantage on the marked.
SvarSlettBro this stuff is excellent. I Agree with Eirin in that you have given good examples of the differences between prescriptivism and descriptivism. You make the arguments very clear to me.
SvarSlettI agree with the previous commentators. Very good and clear description of descriptive and prescriptive grammar with examples! :) Good examples of the two positions regarding grammar teaching. Your English definitely sounds standard enough to me, and there is nothing wrong to have learned English without much explicit teaching. If you have reached your current level of English just by reading and being exposed to English, I would say the way you have learned English is the "ideal" language learning environment, just the way we would learn our first language. Explicit grammar teaching is more debatable in second language learning since learners don´t have the luxury of having sufficient input to the target language for naturalistic acquisition. You are absolutely right that having a good grammatical knowledge is beneficial to the learners for many reasons (e.g., building up a good foundation for advancing your language skills for future profession). Can you think of more benefits if you were to make your readers more convinced about teaching grammar?
SvarSlett