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An Appeal for a Reappraisal of the Role of Linguistics and Traditional

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An Appeal for a Reappraisal of the Role of Linguistics and Traditional . GI r N T. it' v M E . ED 033 152 - . TE 500 441 By-Wolfe. Don M. Crammar and Linguistics: A Contrast in Realities. National Council .of Teachers of English. Champaign. III. Pub Date Feb 64 Note-7p. t. .. ,. Journal Cit -The English Journal: v53 n2 p73-78. 100 Feb 1964 EDRS Price MF -$025 HC-$045 Descriptors -*College High School Cooperation. College Instruction. Composition(Literary). Composition Skills (Literary). English Instruction. Generative Grammar. Graduate Study. Imitation.Instructional Improvement. Language Styles. Secondary Education. Structural Grammar. Structural Linguistics.Teaching Techniques. Traditioni.! Grammar An appeal for a reappraisal of the role of linguisticsand traditional grammar in the secondary school is made in this article. Acase is made for a return to traditional grammar in the teaching of English at all levels prior to graduate school. Fivewriting models with student assignments basedon creative imitation illustrate the kind of stylistic achievement which is attainable with theuse of traditional grammar. The importance and possibility of achieving good literary style andpunctuation habits through grammar study are stressed incontrast with the limitations of linguistics in this domain. Structural linguistics in the classroomis criticized for its lack of simplicity. consistency. and stability. (AF) LIN From: The English Journal, Volume 531 Number 2, February 19611 P11 rt\ c,Grammar and Linguistics: W A Contrast in Realities Don M. Wolfe No battlefield is more vital, perhaps, to the English teacher than that on which the grammars are arrayed. This article is an argument that traditional grammar is more useful in teaching than structural linguistics. Dr. Wolfe, a well-known author of language textbooks, is a professor of English at Brooklyn College and general editor of The Complete Works of John Milton, now in preparation for the Yale University Press. OR MANY years leaders in the Nationalit was grammar that defined the student's Council deplored the emphasis givenattitudetowardEnglish,not themes to formal grammar throughout the na-which opened the deep streams of his tion. Almost every teacher knew gram-life and let them flow into burning im- mar; very few teachers felt the com-ages. Life seldom invaded the classroom; petence or the enthusiasm or the energyit was a separate Compartment of cars to teach writing. The very schedule ofand girls and friends and midnight hours. English teachers, five or six classes daily, Nevertheless, many giftedteachers two hundred pupils a week, made writingcombined expert teaching of grammar assignments impossible to cope with. Thewith remarkable power to draw forth fault with the teaching of grammar wasthe student's deep thoughts. They saw the failure to apply grammatical knowl-that once a grammatical concept was edge to punctuation and style. Manytaught, the student should immediately critics felt, indeed, that no great amountuse his own prepositional phrases in a of grammar teaching could be appliedstory, his own predicate adjectives to to style. Hence the teaching of grammarexpress his moods, his own participles, as such was discouraged. To such an ex-infinitives, and adverbial clauses. When tent as the leaders of the Council held tothus taught, grammatical constructions a party line, it was a hard position againstbecame personal possessions that found formal grammar; indeed the teaching ofcontinuing expression from theme to any grammar was in the minds of manytheme. Many teachers assigned grammati- somewhat suspect. Grammar appealed tocal autobiographies to combine mastery a small intellectual part of a student only;of grammatical concepts with self- expres- it did not take into account his need forsion.' Meanwhile they assigned themes letting his deep feelings and thoughtsfrom week to week which tapped the flowintolanguage. When grammarexplosive powers of self-expression about flourished in the classroom, the sym-those topics that the student, not the pathies of both teacher and studentsteacher, defined as experience with deep- somehow dried up; before such a limitedest meaning. In such a teacher's class- analysis of the power of language theroom, learning grammar was not in- student stood alien and hostile to theconsistent with theflowoforiginal teacher's idea of English. The deep andthoughts and feelings. To such a teacher violent emotional life of the high schoolthe relation between the teaching of student found in many if not most Eng-grammar and the teaching of writing lish classrooms no link to expressive real- 'Sec Don M. Wolfe, "A Grammatical Auto- ity as encouraged by the teacher. The biography," English Journal, 49 (January 1960), more grammar, the less self-expression; pp. 16-21. ); 74 THE ENGLISH JOURNAL was not one of mutual hostility and re-yses of great books to those students pre- jection; the student accepted both. In-paring for college. If the old grammar deedthemore personal becamehisbrought lethargy and boredom to the weekly themes, the more grammar tookclassroom, the new grammar to some on new and vital significance. teachers brought sickness of spirit and Then came linguistics, or a new zeala more colossal waste of precious time for linguistics, an interest in which wasthan the old grammar had ever mustered. fostered by outstanding college profes-Meanwhile, where was English? What sors and leaders within the Nationalnew insight did linguistics bring to an Council. To almost every enthusiast forappreciation of style, to the rhetoric of linguistics, traditional grammar had failedbeautifulsentences?Where was the todegcribethe language with thosevisualization of the incandescent moment minute and accurate qualifications neces-from a great gook, from the student's sary to scientificanalysis. Unlike thelifea moment of fear, hope, happiness, traditional grammar, the new sciencedespair, discovery? incorporated the sounds of language as My own view is that those who be- well as the function of each element oflieveinstructurallinguisticsfor the structure.Insteadofeightpartsofaverage classroom must show how the speech, the linguists followed Fries innew science can be used to improve both defining four parts of speech as Class 1,punctuation and style:the same tests Class 2, Class 3, and Class 4 words andthat they justly believed should be ap- denominating fifteen to seventeen groupsplied to the teaching of grammar. I be- of structure words. In the midst of pro-lieve that traditional grammar hasa hun- liferating linguistic theory, Paul Robertsdred times more potential for improving and others attempted in a series of bookspunctuation and style than has structural to bring linguistics within reach of thelinguistics. I wish to present againsome average classroom teacher. Lou La Brantconcreteprinciples by which formal in her exciting series, Your Language,grammar can be used by the average adopted and expanded the new linguisticteacher. I am not defending grammar as terminology. If the terminology of thea wholly economical resource; I am de- old grammar was antiquated and in-fending it as a resource of limited bene- exact, the terminology of structural lin-fits that no person of professional training guistics was so extensive and so difficultcan afford to dispense with. Consider the to define that ;;ven those teachers mostfivesentence patterns below and the eager to comprehend the new scienceclassroom assignments based on them. found it impossible to adopt in the class-Traditional grammar can help the stu- room or teach with any degree of assur-dent to understand these patterns. Crea ance, especially in the midst of a newtiveimitationof thesesentences can surge of the writing and usage assign-enhance the student's comprehension of ments to college-bound students. Whengrammar while improving his apprecia- an eager classroom teacher tried to teachtion and command of literary diction. linguistics to a class oriented in tradi-PatternI.IntroductoryPrepositional tional grammar, he more often thanPhrases for Background not found the task baffling and fruitless. On the pleasant shore of the French Indeed he was now taking a dozen-foldRiviera, about halfway between Mar- as much time to teach a new grammar asseilles and the Italian border, standsa he had taken to teach the old, mean-large, proud, rose-colored hotel. while neglecting his far more important F. Scott Fitzgerald, from Tender Is task of assigning college essays and anal- the Night GRAMMAR ANDLINGUISTICS... Is Assinment: Describe a building youthe blast of cold wind, gasped like men know in a sentence constructed like theplunged into icy water. one above. Begin with a background Joseph Conrad image in a prepositional phrase naming Assignment: Write a sentence with state or country or town; then, as Fitz-grammatical elements parallel to the one gerald does, use another prepositionalabove, opening with a participle as Con- phrase to identify the place more exactly.rad does, using two verbs as visual and Finally, use the verb and subject of thedynamic as swarmed and gasped. Con- sentence, with the subject at or near theclude your sentence with a simile as end. intense in diction as Conrad's. Example: Among the mountains of Example: Shivering with cold,I West Virginia, on a steep road betweenjumped into bed, and wrapping myself Elkins and Parsons, stands a lonely, roof-in the warmth of the blanket, drew my less house of gray stone. head under it like a turtle shrinking back Pattern 2. An Adjective Following theinto its shell. Subject A half moon, dusky-gold, was sinkingPattern 5. Adverbial Clause Followed by behind the black sycamore tree. an Absolute Phrase D. H. Lawrence, from Sons Even as she was falling asleep, head and Loversbowed over the child, she was still aware of a strange wakeful happiness. Assignment: Write a sentence like this Katherine Anne Porter, from "Maria one in construction and intensity of dic- Concepcion" tion. In your imitation use two color adjectives following the subject, as Law- Assignment: Opening with an as clause, rence does; also use one other color inas in the sentence above, use an absolute your sentence. phrase to give an image of the person, as Katherine Porter does. Example: A high sail, chalk white, was dipping toward the blue water.
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