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On Learning A Language: What Is Grammar ?

This document discusses grammar and its importance in language learning and communication. It notes that grammar was once seen as "magical" in Scotland and led to the word "glamour." While grammar instruction fell out of favor in the 1960s, the document argues that grammar is still important for analytical thinking and learning additional languages through identifying patterns. It describes the key building blocks of grammar as nouns, adjectives, and verbs, and how they relate to each other. The document also discusses prescriptive versus descriptive grammar and the need to balance rules with acknowledging a language's natural evolution.

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Emily James
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63 views2 pages

On Learning A Language: What Is Grammar ?

This document discusses grammar and its importance in language learning and communication. It notes that grammar was once seen as "magical" in Scotland and led to the word "glamour." While grammar instruction fell out of favor in the 1960s, the document argues that grammar is still important for analytical thinking and learning additional languages through identifying patterns. It describes the key building blocks of grammar as nouns, adjectives, and verbs, and how they relate to each other. The document also discusses prescriptive versus descriptive grammar and the need to balance rules with acknowledging a language's natural evolution.

Uploaded by

Emily James
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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On learning a language: what is grammar ?

Grammar is much sexier than it first appears. The Scots were quick to realise this, for
they used grammar to describe the magical quality of words, and pronounced it a
wee bit differently from those of us south of the border. Before long English had a
new word, glamour.
Glamour may have moved on to the world of celebrities and supermodels, but the
magic of grammar remains, even if it isnt always obvious. Many are frightened off
by talk of split infinitives and hanging participles, by red ink scrawled over exercise
books, by examinations and a fear of failure. This was all too negative for the 1960s,
when grammar stopped being taught as a matter of routine. In the circles where it did
survive, grammar was wrapped up in an academic jargon that suffocated the
flickering embers of interest. Many teachers thereafter simply ignored it, for that was
the precedent. Some hadnt been taught it in the first place.
The downgrading was partly because grammar is not essential to the development of
our own mother-tongue: the infant who desires a slurp of milk soon discovers which
noise will get him some. As grunts turn into words, we add to and refine our
knowledge and develop a feel for the patterns of the language and build our own
grammar as we go along. It is only when we want to be analytical and think about
what we think, what we write, and what we say, that grammar begins to matter.
Grammar has an inevitable part to play in the study of other languages. You can learn
a foreign language by going to the country and just getting on with it; but you may
find the months if not years needed for that impracticable. A language course is the
next best solution, and the languages grammar will offer the short-cut to rapid
learning. Grammar is hugely creative; it is not a manual of what you should say so
much as what you can say. For instance, if we can use the future tense of one verb,
e.g he will see you, we can apply the formula to other expressions to create the
future of every other English verb (he will visit', 'he will leave etc.). The
grammar identifies the patterns of a language, which will quickly multiply what we
can say.
Grammar is the subject or science which deals with words, how they are formed, their
shape, their bearing on each other. There are broadly two theories about the best use
of grammar: one is prescriptive, the other descriptive. Prescriptive grammar is the
rules of engagement, what we should or shouldn't say or write, while descriptive
grammar is a study of how the language is used, noting regular and other uses without
seeking to determine what is correct. One is an instruction manual, the other a plain
record. Any worthwhile study of language should harness both approaches, for they
temper each other: any living language will continue to evolve, so we cannot have too
fixed a set of rules; equally, an approach which tries to do without rules and
guidelines will only accelerate the decline of language as an instrument of
communication.
The essential building blocks are nouns. When we speak or think or write, we have to
have something in mind. Take food for instance. It might be fast food, hot food or
delicious food, but the thing is the food. The other words (adjectives) tell us more
about it, but by themselves they are nothing; fast, hot and delicious are

meaningless in a vacuum. They have to refer to something, a fast runner, perhaps, or


delicious dinner. When we say hot today, isn't it?, the thing, though not stated, is
obviously the weather, unless youre eating chilli or a curry.
There are lots of things that can happen to food. You can buy it, cook it, chew it,
swallow it, wolf it down, spit it out, give it away, lose it or put it in the fridge. These
words which state the action are called verbs. Verbs have different tenses to make
clear the timing, i.e. past tenses for actions in the past, the present tense for current
ones, and the future for what is still to happen (I will, I am, I have , etc).
No language is free from irregularity and inconsistency. Consider the two English
expressions 'like to chat' and 'like chatting'. They are very similar in meaning. But
'stop chatting' and 'stop to chat' are quite different. Exceptions like this do not devalue
the patterns: it is only odd because you have an idea of the regular pattern in the first
place. I hoped you stopped to read this. Now you can stop reading it.
George Sharpley, Language Courses Resource Director, Lingua (UK) Ltd

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