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Introduction To Linguistics

The author reflects on their experience teaching English for many years and realizing they had an outdated understanding of linguistics. They were too prescriptive in teaching grammar rules without consideration for how language naturally evolves. By learning conceptual foundations of linguistics, the author gained awareness of their limited knowledge and how rigidly enforcing rules caused students stress. The author wants to shift to a more balanced approach, viewing rules as regularities rather than strict regulations, and allowing for changes in modern language usage.

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Arleen J. Lim
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29 views2 pages

Introduction To Linguistics

The author reflects on their experience teaching English for many years and realizing they had an outdated understanding of linguistics. They were too prescriptive in teaching grammar rules without consideration for how language naturally evolves. By learning conceptual foundations of linguistics, the author gained awareness of their limited knowledge and how rigidly enforcing rules caused students stress. The author wants to shift to a more balanced approach, viewing rules as regularities rather than strict regulations, and allowing for changes in modern language usage.

Uploaded by

Arleen J. Lim
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Introduction to Linguistics: Conceptual Foundations

“Little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” “The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.” Every
now and then, these two cliches would jog my memory by turns. But this time, they seem to have joined
forces to bring me back to my senses and in my supposed state or position. For many years that I have
been teaching reading and language, I thought that I have gained enough and have been equipped
sufficiently by my experiences. To my chagrin, I am beginning to realize that I was all wrong. As I read
and learned the conceptual foundations of linguistics, I have been instantaneously taken into discovering
one big realization that my grasp of the subject that I am teaching has been too outdated and is already
out of the ark. I have been too prescriptive in teaching English Communication Arts, both in oral and
written form, especially in the grammar aspect of the language. I feel guilty and abashed recalling how I
would correct my students a lot of times whenever they mispronounced certain words and how I would
put red marks in their compositions each time I would see “Me and my friends/family” in the subject part of
their sentence and the use of double negatives in their speeches or write-ups.” Worse, I would even be
proud sharing with my fellow English teachers some information that I would read on the internet such as
not ending a sentence with a preposition, applying precisely pronoun-reference agreement rules, and
others. Although I know that there is such an idea called linguistics, I did not bother knowing what it is all
about; neither did I mind that as an educator, I should see its massive relevance in the subject that I am
teaching. It was not introduced to me as well in my undergraduate studies since I did not have a
specialization in any subject.

With all the cracks in my understanding of the subject that I teach, I am grateful now that I see the silver
lining; it is in those cracks that the light gets in. God must have used instruments so that I eyes would be
opened to my realities. Had it not been for them, I would have been stuck in what I already know, which
sadly is very inadequate and limited. I would not have recognized how little the knowledge that I know is
and how assuming I was that I knew everything about the subject I am teaching. I would probably be
reaching the end point of my teaching career not being able to make my students feel that grammar and
language structure may not be dreadful at all. I would not have the opportunity to discover that there is so
much more beyond the grammar rules that I impose to my students. It is very liberating to imagine that
the next time I face my students, I do not epitomize anymore terror for strictly imposing how language
should be used; rather, they feel more at ease, free from fear of committing ungrammatical sentences,
embarrassed for being corrected, and free from any judgment on usages considered acceptable or not. I
see a vision of myself not getting agitated anymore whenever my students do no not use the language
according to how I use it and how I demonstrate to them the structure of the language. I would like to
have some degree of paradigm shift, seeing ‘rules-not-as-regulations’ but ‘rules-as-regularities’, where I
can be more introspective about how learners use the language. Being more conscious of how language
evolves, how it is continuously changing, and how it should likewise play along with the changes taking
place in the modern world, I should not be stubbornly stuck in my old standards and philosophies.

At any rate, I do not totally blame myself with the kind of mindset that I used to have. First and foremost, I
grew up in this kind of orientation where my teachers would tell me how I could correctly use the
language. Second, it is the framework of the description of the structure of the language. Third, the roots
of traditional grammar are in the work of classical Greek and Latin grammarians, and the modern
alphabet is based on Latin origin. Fourth, most English textbooks are still following traditional grammar
despite the emergence of modern linguistics. Fifth, the problem lies in the traditional approach to teaching
grammar. According to the study conducted by Gina Jaeger in her thesis entitled The Effectiveness of
Teaching Traditional Grammar on Writing Composition at the High School Level, the problem lies in the
method of instruction, and her findings parallel some previous research.

Ferdinand de Saussure emphasized on language as it is used rather than on how experts say that it
should be used. I believe that as a second language, English will not be an impediment to meaningful
learning if we teachers will not dictate onto our students that language should be used according to how
we teach them it should be. However, I cannot simply turn a blind eye to structuring the language
correctly and grammatically. So, I am now wondering: Can I possibly be a descriptive prescriber? 

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