Theoretical Grammar: Introduction into Grammar Theories

Вопрос №1

Стандартные стеки коммуникационных протоколов.

Вопрос №2

Почтовые системы. Правила формирования почтовых адресов.

 

Theoretical Grammar: Introduction into Grammar Theories

Seven Ways of Looking at Grammar by Scott Thornbury
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp8QSGcS0QI

Description
What is grammar, and how is it internalized in the mind? Is it made up of symbolic code or of neural connections? Is it a sedimented trace left by previous conversations or an innate human capacity? Our answers to these questions obviously shape the way we go about teaching second languages.

In this talk, reviews some of the main models of grammar—often couched as metaphors—and looks at their implications for classroom practice. Thornbury is a faculty member in The New School MA in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) program and an author whose work has been published by Oxford University Press.

 

Introduction (00:05:45 – 00:13:37)

Vocabulary:

· “We are in a good company”: to be in a good company – to have done or experienced something bad which someone who people admire has also done or experienced. E.g. Don't worry, Einstein did badly at school, so you're in good company.

· prescriptive grammar – прескриптивная (нормативная) грамматика

· language maven – «знаток языка»)

· applied linguistics, applied linguist

· Wallace Stevens “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”

· a stanza – строфа, станс

· haiku – хокку

· proliferation (of theories)– theoretical pluralism, a rapid and often excessive spread or increase of theories

 

Points to discuss:

J Why wouldn’t the publisher like to change the award certificate with the spelling mistake for the one with the corrected spelling?

J What’s the ambiguity of the term “linguist”, according to the speaker?

1. Comment on the statement: “Today with corpus linguistics we have more data than we can handle”.
2. What do you think are the reason for the current proliferation of grammar theories? What effects might it have?

 

1. Grammar as rules (00:13:37 – 00:18:09)

Vocabulary:

· descriptive grammar

· grammar metalanguage – язык грамматического описания (grammar terms)

· elusive concepts – concepts that are difficult to perceive

· to make head or tail out of sth (the rules) – to get the idea of, to understand

· an accurate description

· spontaneous decision VS premeditated decision

· psychological reality – the individual psychological context

· “grammar-translation method of teaching”

 

Points to discuss:

1.Comment on the idea of the quote:

“It … does not follow that grammars that are descriptively adequate are psychologically real.”

Larsen-Freeman, D., and Cameron, L. (2008). Complex Systems an Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 113.

2. Grammar as structures (00:18:10 – 00:22:42)

Vocabulary:

Charles Fries

structural grammar (based completely on corpus data)

substitution tables; slots and fillers

audiolingual approach

an amnesiac

 

Points to discuss:

1. There are three features, traditionally used for language units description – form, meaning and function. Which of them has been absolutised in Ch. Fries’s theory?
2. Describe the procedure of Ch. Fries’s analysis of the language data.
3. What are the drawbacks and limitations of the “patterns as habits” approach in language acquisition?

 

3. Grammar as mathematics (00:22:43 – 00:29:16)

Vocabulary:

· Avram Noam Chomsky

· “Chomskyan revolution” (in Thomas Kuhn’s terms)

· generative grammar = transformational grammar (TG)

· deep structure VS surface structure

· to reduce the language to a set of generative theorems

· a “tree diagram” – “дерево зависимостей”

· to (not) be psychologically applicable

· verb-centered theory

 

Points to discuss:

1. What makes it possible to describe Chomsky’s theory called as “formalism / structuralism from [sort of] underground”?
2. Why has this very quote been chosen to illustrate the speaker’s idea of the correlation between generative grammar and mathematics?

“It is reasonable to regard the grammar of language (L) ideally as a mechanism that provides an enumeration of the sentences of L in something like the way in which a deductive theory gives an enumeration of a set of theorems.” Chomsky, N. (1957) A review of B.F.Skinner’s Verbal Behavior.

3. How is generative grammar theory use the notion of “universal grammar” and “innate grammar”?

 

4. Grammar as algorithms (00:29:17 – 00:34:02)

Vocabulary:

· Algorithm – (comp.) a set of rules for solving problems or doing calculations, especially rules that a

· computer uses

· ‘MIND IS A COMPUTER’ metaphor

· to process the input

· to produce an output

· brain as a blackbox

· proceduralisation of grammar (“grammaring”)

· “production plan”

· constrained (language use) = limited, devoid of the local or social context

Points to discuss:

1. What are the named reasons for theinconsistency of the described theory?

2. What’s the way to finish the quote that is meant to present the essence of the cognitive approach to grammar:

“Language is the way it is

a) because of the way we think;

b) because of what it has to do;

c) because of the way it has been used.

Ground your choice.

 

 

5. Grammar as texture (00:34:02 -- 00:39:11)

Vocabulary:

Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday (systemic functional grammar)

abstruse – difficult to understand

contextualized grammar

social functions of the language

Points to discuss:

1. Comment on the idea of the quote:

“Language is as it is because of what it has to do.” Halliday, M.A.K. (1978) Language as Social

Semiotics

2. What are two the key differences between Chomsky’s and Halliday’s grammar theories?

3. Which aspect is common for both of them?

6. Grammar as collocation (00:39:12 – 00:48:01)

Vocabulary:

· fuzzy – unclear, indistinct

· suggestive – наводящий на мысли, размышление; a ~ theory – многообещающая теория

· in the vicinity – next to, close to, not far from

· probabilistic – вероятностный

· to become routinised

· epistemic modality – a sub-type of linguistic modality that deals with a speaker's evaluation / judgment of, degree of confidence in, or belief of the knowledge upon which a proposition is based. In other words, epistemic modality refers to the way speakers communicate their doubts, certainties, and guesses — their "modes of knowing".

· Priming – «прайминг» (от англ. глагола “to prime” – инструктировать заранее, давать предшествующую установку и т.п.), явление имплицитной памяти, которое представляет собой способность опознать или извлечь из памяти объект в результате особой предшествующей встречи с этим объектом. В работах отечественных исследователей и в переводных изданиях можно встретить такие варианты перевода данного термина, как «преднастройка», «подсказка», «подготовка», «эффект предшествования».

Points to discuss:

1. Comment on the idea of the quote:

“There is no boundary between lexis and grammar: lexis and grammar are interdependent.” Stubbs, M. (1996). Text and Corpus Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell, p. 36

2. How is the language corpus data used for collocation studies?

3. Why can grammar be described as based on collocation principle?

4. What’s the link between routinising grammar structures and expectations in perceiving oral / written speech?

5. Comment on the idea of the quote:

“What we think of as grammar is the product of the accumulation of all the lexical primings of an individual’s lifetime.” Hoey, M. (2005) Lexical Priming. London: Routledge, pp.160-161.

 

7. Grammar as an emergent phenomenon (00:48:03 – 00:55:27)

Vocabulary:

· Emergence – (букв. «возникновение», «появление нового») «системный эффект», в теории систем — наличие у какой-либо системы особых свойств, не присущих её подсистемам и блокам, а также сумме элементов, не связанных особыми системообразующими связями; несводимость свойств системы к сумме свойств её компонентов

· emergent phenomenon – term borrowed from sciences studying natural systems

· a shoal of fish

· “sedimentary rock” metaphor

· to become grammatised

· futurity

Points to discuss:

1. Comment on the idea of the quote:

“Language is not fixed, but is rather a dynamic system. Language evolves and changes... [it] grows and organises itself from the bottom up in an organic way, as do other complex systems.” Larsen-Freeman, D. 2006. The emergence of complexity, fluency, and accuracy in the oral and written production of five Chinese learners of English. Applied Linguistics, 27/4, 558-589.

2. How do the quotes below help to understand the grounds for metaphoric representation of grammar as a sedimentary structure?

a) “We say things that have been said before. Our speech is a vast collection of hand-me-downs that reaches back in time to the beginnings of language”. Hopper, P.J. 1998. Emergent language. In Tomasello, M. (ed.) The New Psychology of Language: Cognitive and Functional Approaches to Language Structure. Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum. 155-175.

b) “Grammar is seen as … the set of sedimented conventions that have been routinized out of the more frequently occurring ways of saying things…” (Hopper, op. cit)

3. Comment on the idea of the quote:

“Language is the way it is because of the way it has been used.” Larsen-Freeman, D., and Cameron, L. (2008). Complex Systems and Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 115.

Conclusions (00:55:28 – 01:01:05)

Vocabulary:

corpus linguistics

psycholinguistics

a chunk = “a portion of information”

to misconstrue (a pattern) – to get the meaning of a pattern in the wrong way

 

Points to discuss:

1. What the function of the “pattern recognition device” that the speaker claims the human brain

contains? How does it work?

1. Is grammar a prerequisite or a by-product of communication?

 

 

Wallace Stevens

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I Among twenty snowy mountains,The only moving thingWas the eye of the blackbird. II I was of three minds,Like a treeIn which there are three blackbirds. III The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.It was a small part of the pantomime. IV A man and a womanAre one.A man and a woman and a blackbirdAre one. V I do not know which to prefer,The beauty of inflectionsOr the beauty of innuendoes,The blackbird whistlingOr just after. VI Icicles filled the long windowWith barbaric glass.The shadow of the blackbirdCrossed it to and fro.The moodTraced in the shadowAn indecipherable cause. VII О thin men of Haddam,Why do you imagine golden birds?Do you not see how the blackbirdWalks around the feetOf the women about you: VIII I know noble accentsAnd lucid, inescapable rhythms;But I know, too,That the blackbird is involvedIn what I know. IX When the blackbird flew out of sight,It marked the edgeOf one of many circles. X At the sight of blackbirdsFlying in a green light,Even the bawds of euphonyWould cry out sharply. XI He rode over ConnectkutIn a glass coach.Once, a fear pierced him,In that he mistookThe shadow of his equipageFor blackbirds. XII The river is moving.The blackbird must be flying. XIII It was evening all afternoon.It was snowingAnd it was going to snow.The blackbird satIn the cedar-lirnbs.