1. IN THE NAME OF ALLAH

2. Professor: Dr. Mahmoodi Prepared by: Mina-Shahalizade

3. Description of Language and Language Use: Grammar

4. The words ‘grammar’ means different things.  For many it suggests a list of do’s and don’ts, rules that tell us we should say It is I, not It is me.  For others it may refer to the rules of grammar found mainly in written language.  It may simply mean an objective description of the structures or language, with no common concerning correct versus incorrect forms. Introduction: Grammar and Grammars

5. Kinds of Grammar 1. Grammar with rules that make distinction between correct and incorrect forms are defined as Prescriptive grammar 2. Grammars that aim to describe language as it is used by the native speaker. They represent speaker’s unconscious knowledge or ‘mental grammar’ of the language. It is Descriptive grammar

6. Pedagogical grammar Grammar designed for the needs of second language students and teachers. A pedagogical grammar resembles a descriptive grammar much more than a perspective one.

8. Issues when Describing Grammar In describing grammar, we tend to expect grammars to state rules in terms of general statement, to describe how structures behave in a predictable rule-governed way. In grammar some rules apply more consistently than the others for example: 1.The ordering of auxiliaries is invariant, like: modal auxiliaries, such as would, might, and so on, always precede the primary auxiliaries have or be, as in: would have tired or might be trying

9. Issues when Describing Grammar 2. The subject-verb agreement rule like: verbs take the suffix –s if their subject is the third person singular, as in, He leaves. But there are exceptions such as subjunctive forms, like: I insist that he leave now.

10. Issues when Describing Grammar 3. Plural titles of books, plays, films, etc. are also sometimes exceptions to the subject-verb agreement rule. Angela’s Ashes is a novel about growing up in an impoverished Irish family. As these examples indicate grammar must include both rules that are invariant and rules that admit variation. Pedagogical grammar may focus on standard formal patterns but also indicate a number of informal alternatives, with explanation of the situations in which each is acceptable, for example: class assignments, job interviews. and the like typically require formal writing or speaking, whereas casual conversation with friends tends towards informal expressions like: Hi there, what’s up?

11. Form and Function Models of grammar differ greatly, depending on whether they are formal grammars: It is concerned with the form themselves and with how they operate within the overall system of grammar. Traditional grammar, which describe the structure of sentence, is perhaps the best known formal grammar. Among linguists, the most influential formal grammar is generative theory of grammar or UG. The interest of generative linguists focus mainly on rule- governed behavior and on the grammatical structure of sentences and do not include concerns for the appropriate use of language in context.

12. Functional Grammar Hymes, an anthropological linguist, developed a functional model that focuses more on appropriate use of language, that is, on how language functions in discourse, and emphasized on sociolinguistic and pragmatic factors. A central concern of this model is the concept of communicative competence, which emphasize language as meaningful communication, including the appropriate use of language in particular social context, such as informal conversation at the dinner table versus formal conversation at the bank.

13. Syllabus design Influence of different models of grammar can also be seen in syllabus design. Structural syllabus design: Many ESL or EFL grammar texts are based on structural syllabus design in formal terms, with lexical item and grammatical patterns presented according to structural categories such as nouns and noun phrase, verb and verb phrase, verb tense and aspect, and clause and sentence types. In contrast, Notional syllabuses: Defined in functional terms such as the speech acts of requesting, ‘Could you VP?’, offering ‘would you like X?’ and so on. These notional syllabus developed at a time when linguistic interest had begun to shift to the communicative properties of language.

14. Interconnected dimensions of grammar Pedagogical grammarians say that, the language is not made just by forms or functions, and add more item, called meaning. They offer three-dimensional approach that is combined of : 1. Morphosyntax /form 2. Semantics 3. Pragmatics

15. Type versus Token Descriptions of language will have different outcomes depending on whether they account for types of linguistic elements in the abstract, or for tokens of linguistic elements as they actually occur in contexts of use. Descriptions that deal with forms in the abstract describe a range of category types, but those that deal with actual tokens (instances) of language use reveal more than category types.

16. Discourse Grammar Corpus studies have also led to an increased interest in analyses of‘discourse grammar’, that is, analyses of the functional roles of grammatical structure in discourse. Speakers and writers make grammatical choices that depend how they construct and they wish to represent the context and how they wish to position themselves in it. Celce-Murcia, argues that the vast majority of grammatical choices that writers make represent ‘rules’ discourse-sensitive, including:  Position of adverbials  Passive versus active voice  Indirect object  Sequencing

17. Spoken and Written Grammar Comparison of spoken and written corpora have raised some basic quastions concerning description of grammar such as:  How different types of spoken language can be classified?  How features of written and spoken grammar are differently distributed?  What the status of spoken language is, as an object of study within applied linguistics. Carter and McCarty believe that the differences between spoken and written grammar are specially important for pedagogical grammars, since ‘descriptions that rest on the written mode or on restricted genres of spoken language are likely to omit many common features of everyday informal grammar and usage’.

18. Limitations of Grammatical Descriptions 1. The Interdependence of Grammar and Lexis It is difficult to isolate grammar and lexis into completely separate categories because grammar does not exist on its own.  Grammatical regularity and acceptability are conditioned by words  The choice of lexical item may restrict grammatical structures the progressive aspect is often used to indicate a temporary activity, but certain lexical break this rule. temporary: Mary is taking a nap. extended duration: Mary is taking a class.

19. Lexicogrammar: The Problem of Defining Boundaries A more striking instance of the interdependence of lexis and grammar is that of prefabricated ‘chunks’ of language, in which the boundary between the two becomes even more blurred. Native speakers use formulaic expression that are semi-fixed or fixed, which act as a single lexical units used as a wholes. As fixed units, they appear to be intermediary between lexical words and grammatical structures.

20. Learning Grammar Over the history of applied linguistics, different theories of learning have been proposed to account for how grammar is learned. During the middle of the previous century, for example grammar learning was thought to take place through a process of verbal ‘ habit formation ’.  Help students to overcome the habits of their native language and inculcate those of the target language.  Conducting pattern practice drills of various type: repetition, transformation, question and answer  Introducing little new vocabulary until the grammatical patterns were firmly stablished  Controlling tightly in order to prevent students making errors that could lead to the formation of bad habits that would later prove difficult to eradicate.

21. Learning Grammar  Rule Formation With the rise of generative grammar and its view of language as a system of rules, grammar learning was seen to take place through a process of, rule formation,. In this way students should be formulated, tasted, and revised hypotheses about grammatical structure in the target language. Consistent with this perspective, students’ errors were not to be feared but rather welcomed to receive feedback.

22. Learning Grammar  Communicative approach In this approach, it is said that grammar was best learned subconsciously when students were engaged in understanding the meaning of the language to which they were introduced. Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is a modern perspective of grammar. In fact as we noted earlier, what needs to be learnt about grammar can be characterized by three dimensions: Form, Meaning, Use.

23. Teaching Grammar In teaching grammar the common view is that students must notice what it is they are to learn. As an example of an implicit means of promoting students noticing is the use of some sort of input enhancement. It might take the form of ‘input flooding’ that is, increasing the number of times that students encounter the target structure in a particular text. Another possibility for enhancing the input is for the teachers to modify the text features in some fashion, such as bold facing the target structures to make them more salient to students.

24. Teaching Grammar Peer interaction This has also been used effectively in promoting noticing through the use of specific ‘consciousness-rising’ tasks in which students are given data such as a set of grammatical and ungrammatical sentences, and are encouraged to discover the grammatical generalization for themselves.

25. Teaching Grammar Input-processing task The way in which students are guided to pay attention to particular aspects of the target language, especially those aspects that differ between the L1 and L2 rather than working on explicit rule learning and application.

26. Teaching Grammar Feed back Feed back is also seen to be a necessary part of grammar instruction. Feed back mechanisms span the spectrum from direct correction by the teacher reformulates correctly what the learner has just said erroneously, to give students the space to correct themselves.