So then point to some rule of speech one learns in English class!
Well, for example, you sure as hell didn’t learn to use “one” as a pronoun from your buddies on the playground.
Why do you suppose that? You don’t think I ever said or heard anything like “No, not that one. I want the other one!” as a child?
Perhaps you are referring to my use of “one” in reference to a generic person. But even this pretentiousness, I didn’t learn from English class. I’ve heard and read other people using it and I picked it up. Along the way, I’ve managed to absorb the fact that using “one” in this role carries connotations of greater formality than “you”. This isn’t because any teacher told me this; I’ve just picked it up.
You don’t believe me that I could learn high-falutin’ language rules without explicit instruction? Here, let me give you some more rules of speech:
The adverb “only” can be used to express an upper bound (“Only God can make a tree. No one else can.”) but not a lower bound. However, the adverb “alone” can be used to express both an an upper bound (“God alone can make a tree. No one else can.”) or a lower bound (“The title alone makes Rebel Without a Cause worth watching, on top of which there is James Dean’s acting and the film’s historical importance.” Note that one couldn’t say “Only the title makes Rebel Without a Cause worth watching…” to mean the same thing.). “just” can be used to express an upper bound (“Just twelve men have ever walked on the moon. No one else has.”) and also a lower bound, but only when appearing adjacent to the focus (one could say “Just the title would make Rebel Without a Cause worth watching…” but one couldn’t say “The title would just make Rebel Without a Cause worth watching…” to convey the same meaning).
Furthermore, like most restrictive focusing adverbs, “only” can be used in a noun phrase (pre-head, as in “Only God can make a tree”), adverbial phrase (“Only with great difficulty did he complete the race”), or verb phrase (“Things can only get better from here”). However, in the same role, “alone” can only be used in a noun phrase whose head is its focus, appearing after the head (“God alone can make a tree”, not “Alone God can make a tree”, or “With great difficulty alone did he complete the race” or “Things can get better alone from here”).
I sure as hell wasn’t taught any of these rules in English class. Hell, I wasn’t even explicitly aware of them till looking them up a few minutes ago in the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (and it’s even possible I’ve made some errors transcribing them now). Nonetheless, I’ve been unconsciously following them quite well. I’ve picked them up unthinkingly from the speech I’ve heard around me. That’s how language works.
That’s how my Polish acquisition happened. I was never formally taught Polish. It wasn’t until high school, when I was exploring the language in depth, that I realized that there was a case system involved. It never occurred to me that nouns changed form depending on their grammatical function. Here I was using a rather complicated grammatical construct, despite never having actually been taught it in a formal sense: it was all through listening and imitation.
Actually you just don’t fully realize how much grammar people naturally employ in order to use their native language. If one actually had to be explicitly taught all of these things (such as the abverbial syntax explained by Indistinguishable above, or the varied and complex ways in which we use the word anyway in extended spoken discourse, for example), then one would be studying grammar 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for years.
The problem here is that you’ve bought into the conceit of the classic grade school English teacher, who doesn’t seem to understand or recognize the fundamental differences between speech and writing, and who moreover really believes that he or she (along with his or her colleagues) is the sole party responsible for the total grammatical productive ability of the students that come into his or her room. Over the course of a term, such teachers focus explicit writing instruction on the cannon of classic English-teacher writing bugbears (run on sentences, dangling modifiers, “incomplete” sentences, etc.), but that’s just a very small percentage of overall language competence, and furthermore, most of it applies only to the conventions of formal writing anyway. Even still, the majority of basic grammatical competency (such as adverbial syntax) in writing will cross over from speech, but that which doesn’t couldn’t possibly all be taught explicitly. That kind of language competence is mostly (and most efficiently) acquired through extensive, enjoyable reading. Generally, those who read more will have better writing skills (with generally less prescriptive error). There just isn’t time for an instructor to explicitly and discretely teach every one of those things. The finer points of the conventions of formal writing will always present a challenge to most, except for the more self-motivated and assiduously concerned with writing. Those will be able to look through the prescriptive texts and adjust their written production accordingly, or by way of guidance from teachers. For that type of learner, some of the more complex language competence learned through reading can transfer back to speech, too.
The real point, though, is that, even for the type of grammar competency you seem to be thinking about, explicit instruction is not the big player you seem to think. English teachers will trot out their rules for their pet peeves, (handed down more by mindless habit and tradition than by realistic and legitimate pedagogical consideration), but that has a very minor role in the grammatical competency of a native speaker. Rather, the English teacher will more efficiently bring his or her students to the point where they can accomplish the expected tasks of the school environment first by fostering engagement and interest with ideas, using language in the process–both speech and writing–with the guidance of exposure to copious model examples of the targeted conventions (essay, narrative, whatever). Then, in the final stages of producing formal texts for academic purposes, the explicit grammar instruction can help to polish the writing so that it conforms to prescriptive expectations. But this is still just a small part of the total grammatical competency the developing writer employs in the entire process, from start to finish, the vast majority of which is acquired early in life naturally without explicit or prescriptive instruction.
I agree with the main thrust of this, and with that of indistinguishable’s related posts, but …
No doubt, we learn language mostly by induction. There are, as indistinguishable says, no rules we have to be taught as such. Yet, very few earn a perfect score on the English section of the SAT. The question is, how do we improve the proficiency of those who are less than perfect? One answer is to toss the whole exercise as a conceit of English teachers. (I’m not an English teacher, by the way, nor do I play one on television.) The other is to try to teach the skill. In the main, in my experience, this consists not so much in droning on about rules as marking up essays. Yes, the latter ends up being tied to prescriptive grammar, but how else could it be?
Which is to say, prescription and description are separate sides of the same coin. In other words, prescription (done right) attempts to describe what careful speakers and writers do. When a teacher marks an essay (an editor reviews an article, etc.), s/he can say a particular passage is wrong because s/he says so. Or s/he can invoke the consensus of scholars who have studied the subject. Or s/he can say there are no rules and nothing is wrong. Which of these approaches are you advocating?
I would like to note, first of all, that I have very consistently stated that writing is a more artificial activity than speech, and thus there is more room to both commit and point out errors in this domain (mostly in the form of orthographic errors, where one may be genuinely ignorant of the standard, or accidents in the shuffling of the written word, where, not through ignorance of the norms of spoken language but through sloppiness in the editing process and inadequate review, one might end up having written such sentences as that even they, upon careful reflection or were they to hear them out of someone else’s mouth in some other context, would acknowledge to be malformed).
That disclaimer out of the way, here are my possibly ill-thought-out, spur-of-the-moment opinions, based on my hazy recollections of the SAT and acquaintance with its current incarnation:
The critical reading section of the SAT is fine and has nothing to do with prescriptive grammar.
The writing section of the modern SAT consists of an essay, whose grading process I don’t really know the details of (but which I would be disappointed in were it to turn out to have much to do with spurious prescriptive shibboleths) and some multiple choice questions which are to a large extent disappointingly about spurious prescriptive shibboleths (see here for a deconstruction of some examples). To that extent, this part is just a conceit of English teachers (or, rather, of the whole mainstream grammar gotcha game delusion), as you put it, and might as well be abandoned (or reformulated).
Coming back to the essay, it should perhaps be graded the same way a movie or book can be reviewed… not scanned, red pen in hand, for violations of some overformalized mechanical rules, but rather assessed only for stylistic issues such as whether it flows readably and substantive issues such as whether it presents a cogent argument. To draw fine distinctions here will be subjective, but that is inevitable (same as in movie or book reviews…). Ideally, then, one would not worry too much about drawing fine distinctions, but that is not a lesson the College Board has ever taken to heart with the SAT (the AP exams are much better about this).
It’s late and perhaps none of the above makes sense. I might not know what I’m talking about; I certainly don’t know why I feel compelled to give my opinion on everything. But I seem to have been asked, in this case.
SAT and ACT essays are graded very quickly. I believe the grader has about 90 seconds per essay. They look to see if there’s an easily identifiable topic, that arguments are raised to support it and a conclusion is drawn. It’s very much a high-level exercise rather than a nuts and bolts persnickety english teacher thing.
Oh, wow. Well, I guess that’s both not as bad as I feared and not quite what I hoped. I suppose, considering the enormous scale of the thing, it’s probably all that’s plausible.
You can’t seriously tell me that you heard “One doesn’t hit one’s friends,” from another child on a playground. Come on.
Okay. You’re not like most kids though.
No, you could. Let’s stop right there, because we’re off track.
My point is not to defend English instruction. I don’t care how you learn it. My point is simply to point out that there are things we call RULES, high-falutin’ or otherwise, and you value them, and follow them, and expect others to in some situations. That’s all.
Okay. So English teachers should never teach grammar, spelling, use etc.
I understand it fine. You just haven’t bothered to read through the thread.
Okay, so you made a funny spelling error there. Does it matter? What do you think of others who make such errors? (Luckily, you can’t make spelling errors in speech, because it’s different).
Yes, of course. But still a part. Like I said before, you have to know the rules before you know how to break them.
I couldn’t agree more. I am not here to defend English teachers.
I’m not even talking about instruction. I just brought it up in the context of prescription vs. description.
There you go. We agree.
So I’ve said I agree with you, and with Indistinguishable. Can we move on now?
Who said anything about fucking playgrounds? I was exposed to language from many sources: adults, older children, books, children of the same age as me at various ages in my own life, younger children, TV, every which thing.
Yes, not everything I learnt was exclusively from imitation of people the same age as me. (After all, I was once a babbling baby). The strongest influence was certainly my peers, but they and I did not comprise a closed speech community. Often, there was also imitation of people who were not my peers. So what?
Why is it so hard to believe that I learnt to use “one” as a generic pronoun from imitation rather than explicit instruction? No English teacher ever taught me to how to ask for the check at a restaurant, and no one on the playground ever did either, but I picked it up somewhere. No English teacher ever taught me what a “newbie” or an “Internet troll” was, but I picked it up somewhere, post-playground years. And the fact that “one” in the relevant sense is more formal than “newbie” or “Internet troll” makes no difference.
All that having been said, it is also completely plausible to me that “One doesn’t hit one’s friends” would be said on a playground, if that’s the hill you want to die on. Yes, it has a formal tone, but not one alien to children…
I am, in my acquisition of language through imitation, exactly like all kids, and indeed, all human beings of any age.
When have I ever denied the existence of rules? I’ve said repeatedly that there are rules. The point is that no one needs to be explicitly taught or prescribed them. Indeed, almost all of them are rules that speakers are not consciously aware of. That was my point: why are you so convinced that I must have learnt certain things through explicit instruction, when clearly I am not even aware of the vast majority of grammar rules I follow in my speech?
Spelling is part of writing. I’ve consistently stated writing is more artificial and formalized. People need to be taught how to read and write; it’s not something we’ve evolved to do naturally.
But English teachers do not play a significant role in teaching native speakers of English how to speak. In that sense, they shouldn’t feign to teach grammar. Now, they could try to teach grammar not for the purposes of learning how to speak, but simply for the purposes of academic reflection upon the speech one is already unthinkingly fluent in, as part of the science of linguistics, but I don’t believe English teachers typically actually know very much about this. Though, certainly, if they did know what they were talking about, and students did want to hear it, that would be an encourageable harmony.
(You may find I have different attitudes about compulsory education than everyone else. That departure of views is not particularly relevant to my linguistics assertions, except on the one matter where I am likely to agree with everyone else, that fluent English speech is not a product of English class)
Presriptive rules are, by their nature unnatural
E.G. consider the slang fuckin insertion case, it abso-fucking-lutely has strict rules. If it is inserted before a stressed syllable it is fan-fuckin-tastic if if you break that rule it is “absolute-fuckin-ly” bad.
That is a completely non-taught hard rule, note how “absolute-fuckin-ly” does not work.
Vs. prescriptive rules which are not natural and may not cause any issues in either written or spoken form.
“Which class did you enroll in?”
This breaks the “Don’t end a sentence with a preposition prescriptive rule.”
Note: I admit that is one of the more silly rules.
But “. . . to boldly go where no one has gone before.” prescriptive rules tend to be related to social issues such as income levels or ethnicity.
More importantly the prescriptive rules tend to be poorly defined and would cause speech and writing issues if you followed them to the letter.
E.G.
“The landlord threatened to more than double her rent.”
“The landlord threatened more than to double her rent.”
The first one has a split infinitive second the second is pretty ambiguous although “technically” correct.
Prescription has some value, but I think what you are arguing for is just natural language rules.
Er, replace “departure of views” with “attitude”. My attitude re: compulsory education (where I, for example, disagreed with rat avatar in the linked thread) is not particularly relevant to my assertions about language, except on the one matter where we are likely to agree, that fluent English speech occurs naturally regardless of English class.
Why? If it should turn out that people are, in fact, “breaking the rules” before knowing them, what’s the problem?
You are free to move on at any time. Your repeated insistence that I could not have learnt to use the generic personal pronoun “one” on the playground suggests that we do not really agree, though.
What does that pat assertion even mean?
Also,
Why?
Well, I can sort of see what he’s getting at–I think. There is certainly utility for learning the prestige dialect of a language, and this is where English teachers come in. Whether you think the rules are arbitrary, non-sensical, counter to how people actually talk, it doesn’t really matter, as society does judge you on the way you speak, and the people you most likely want to impress are those who have been taught and follow the prestige dialect and see it as the one and only “correct” way to speak English. And this goes both ways. Speaking the prestige dialect in my working class neighborhood might earn you respect, or it might earn you a label of “oh, he thinks he’s better than us” know-it-all. Code-switching and all that.
But, no, you don’t have to know the rules to break them. In my neighborhood, negative agreement is a normal construction. By “negative agreement,” I mean in the sense of a sentence like “I ain’t got no money,” in which the verb is negated and the object is also negated. Or “I can’t get no satisfaction.” Prestige dialect English would say that two negatives make a positive, as if language is math, or something. You don’t have to know this rule to employ double negation/negative agreement at all. But it does help to know the formal English rule when you are talking outside your dialect or in a formal register.
Despite being a descriptivist for the most part, I am all for English teachers and prescriptive teaching when it comes to formal English. I just wish English teachers were better informed on dialect and language. That said, I think for many students there is a utility in just teaching a “this is the way it is, do it” sort of method, rather than “well, this is the way the prestige dialect works, and your dialect may vary, and while your dialect is not incorrect, many people judge you by your words, blahblahblah.”
Eh, fair enough. (I mean, as usual, I’m more starry-eyed and less convinced of the utility of “This is the way it is, do it” than you, but it doesn’t matter). Like you, I would not characterize “There is utility in experience with the prestige dialect” as “You have to know the rules before you know how to break them”. I still well with irritation at that phrase. But I also find my last post pretty annoying, so…
Apologies for being annoying there, lance strongarm. I stand by my positions but not my presentation.
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable;15362666. (I mean, as usual, I’m more starry-eyed and less convinced of the utility of “This is the way it is, do it” than you, but it doesn’t matter).[/quote]
Well, I don’t think we diverge that much in our opinions. I’m a pragmatist. I disagree with a lot of what is taught as “proper grammar,” but I would like my (as of now, hypothetical) kids to learn it, because that’s the “English” society expects of them. I’m happy to teach them exceptions and nuance of language, but I’ve found folks to be particularly defensive of language. I’d rather my kids know the “right” answer, and then work around that, teaching the nuances.
Right, right; I don’t think we fundamentally diverge either. But I think there is some pattern, in these threads, where I like to rant dramatically, and you are more willing to temper your tone with pragmatics (I’m perhaps thinking mainly of our disagreement once on whether Strunk and White was entirely, or only mostly, worthless, though I see on search that you’ve moved a bit closer to my opinion since then).
All I know is ever since it was pointed out to me, I can’t help but note every time someone rails at the use of the passive voice and fails to identify it accurately.