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What is Grammar?

What is Grammar?. Descriptivism vs. Prescriptivism. Conceptions about Grammar. S omething that young people are not taught properly at school. A collection of archaic terminology: ‘auxiliary’, ‘past participle’, ‘relative clause’ etc.

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What is Grammar?

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  1. What is Grammar? Descriptivism vs. Prescriptivism

  2. Conceptions about Grammar • Something that young people are not taught properly at school. • A collection of archaic terminology: ‘auxiliary’, ‘past participle’, ‘relative clause’ etc. • A cluster of prohibitions that make people worry about whether they speak their own language properly (Don’t end sentences with prepositions, Less people is wrong; you should say fewer people, Don’t split infinitives etc.)

  3. Definition of Grammar • With a partner, come up with your own definition of grammar. • ‘The rules of combining words into sentences’ • 1 a: the study of the classes of words, their inflections, and their functions and relations in the sentence b: a study of what is to be preferred and what avoided in inflection and syntax. (Merriam-Webster, 2009)

  4. What is Grammar for? • Language without grammar? • Grammar is essentially a limited set of devices for expressing certain kinds of necessary meaning that cannot be conveyed by referential vocabulary alone.

  5. Descriptivism vs. Prescriptivism • Watch the video and answer following questions in a group of 4: • Do you agree with John Simon that ungrammatical usage leads to the deterioration of language? • Who of the 2 opponents is the real linguist? Why do you think that? • What do you think about slang? Is it acceptable or a sign of uneducated language?

  6. Prescriptive grammar • Prescribes rules governing what people should or shouldn’t say Don’t end sentences with prepositions! Less people is wrong; you should say fewer people! Don’t split infinitives! Don’t use double negatives!

  7. Violation of Language rules? • It’s ungrammatical to end a sentence with a preposition • It’s ungrammatical to split an infinitive. • Linguistics is what I live for. • Captain Kirk wants to boldly go were no man has gone before. • We don’t need no education. (Pink Floyd)

  8. Who of these 2 is the Prescriptivist?

  9. Descriptive Grammar • Describes the rules that govern what people do or can say (their “mental grammar”) • Descriptive rules are linguists’ attempt to represent your mental grammar. • Descriptive rules are natural, followed intuitively, need not be taught.

  10. Descriptive Grammar Right or wrong??? • We love linguistics classes. • *Love we linguistics classes. • If I were you, I would take lots of linguistic classes. • If I was you, I would take lots of linguistic classes.

  11. Descriptive Grammar • (?)We don’t need no prescriptive rules. • (?)My teacher don’t believe in prescriptivism. Non-standard vs. wrong

  12. Descriptivism vs. Prescriptivism • Descriptivists describe systematic phenomena in language and label them non-standard if they don’t confirm with grammar rules. • Prescriptivists believe that there is only one right way of speaking correctly and appropriately.

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