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Outline
Introduction

Which rules to describe

Form and Function

Type versus Token

Discourse Grammar

Spoken vs Written Grammer

Limitations of Grammatical Descriptions

Lexicogrammar
Learning Grammar
Teaching Grammar 2
 When it comes to definitions of grammar, confusion
abounds. One problem is that the word ‘grammar’
means different things to different people.
◦ To do with do’s and don’ts
 It is I not It is me.
 Grammars with rules that make distinction between
correct and incorrect forms are defined as ‘prescriptive’
grammars.
 Grammars that do not make these distinctions and that
aim to describe language as it is actually used are called
‘descriptive’ grammars.
◦ Focuses on how native speakers speak, not how they ought
to speak.

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 Value Neutral Terms ‘grammatical’ and
‘ungrammatical’ are used to distinguish
between patterns that are well-formed,
possible sentences or phrases in the
language and those that are not.
 Grammar in this sense consists of rules of
syntax, which specify how words and
phrases combine to form sentences, and
rules of morphology, which specify how
word forms are constructed.

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 For applied linguists, the focus is more on
‘pedagogical grammar’, the type of
grammar designed for the needs of second-
language students and teachers.
 Although teaching grammar in a second
language does involve some of the
prescriptive rules for the standard varieties,
a pedagogical grammar resembles a
descriptive grammar much more than a
prescriptive one, especially in terms of the
range of structures covered.
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 pedagogical grammars are typically more eclectic, drawing on
insights from formal and functional grammars, as well as
work on corpus linguistics, discourse analysis and
pragmatics.
◦ Formal Grammar
 is a set of production rules for strings in a formal language. The rules
describe how to form strings from the language's alphabet that are valid
according to the language's syntax
 Formal Grammar is used to describe the structure of individual sentences.
This type sets language as a set of rules which allow or disallow certain
sentence structure.
◦ Functional Grammar
 a theory of grammar concerned with the social and pragmatic functions of
language, relating these to both formal syntactic properties and prosodic
properties.
 Functional Grammar is used to describe language in actual use and so focus
on texts and their contexts. This type sets a language as a resource for
making meaning.
 Applied linguists must be concerned that students not only
can produce grammatical structures that are formally
accurate; students must be able to use them meaningfully
and appropriately as well.

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 Formal / traditional
Type of differences grammar Functional grammar

– How are the

– How is (should) this
Primary concern meanings of this text
sentence be structured?
realized

Unit of analysis Sentences Whole texts

Language level of
concern Syntax Semantics

– is something we – Is something we do-

Language know- as a set of rules as a resource for
for sentence construction making meaning

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 We tend to expect grammars to state rules in terms
of general statements, to describe how structures
behave in a predictable, rule-governed way.
Grammar must include both rules that are invariant
and rules that admit variations.
 He leaves now.
 I insist that he leave now.
 Some descriptive grammars may include only
standard varieties as spoken and written on formal
occasions by educated speakers of the language,
whereas others may focus more on standard forms
but also include certain non-standard, or
‘informal’ variants.
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 Pedagogical grammars, on the other
hand, may focus on standard formal
patterns but also include a number of
informal patterns, with explanations
of the situations in which each is
acceptable, for example, class
assignments, job interviews and the
like typically required for formal
writing or speaking.

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 Models of grammar differ greatly,
depending on whether they are formal
grammars or functional grammars. Formal
grammar is concerned with the forms
themselves and with how they operate
within the overall system of grammar. The
most influential formal grammar in the later
half of the twentieth century has been the
generative (transformational) theory of
grammar (Chomsky) and its competing
variants. The focus is primarily on syntax
and morphology 10
 Generative theory is based on a rationalist approach,
the central assumption being that language is
represented as a speaker’s mental grammar, a set of
abstract rules for generating grammatical sentences.
This mental grammar, internalized, unconscious
knowledge of the system of rules is termed
‘competence’.
 Dell Hymes (1972) developed a functional model that
focuses more on appropriate use of language, that is,
on how language functions in discourse.
 Although not rejecting Chomsky's model entirely,
Hymes extended it and gave greater emphasis to
sociolinguistic and pragmatic factors. A central
concern of his model is the concept ‘communicative
competence’, which emphasizes language as
meaningful communication, including the appropriate
use of language in particular social context.
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 In applied linguistics, the influence of
these theoretical models is evident in
various areas. For example, the approach
to grammar as abstract linguistic
descriptions is found in learners’
grammars (such as Quirck et al (1972)..
On the other hand, a functional approach
is evident in Leech and Svartvik (1975),
which is a communicative grammar based
on correspondences between structure
and function. Those that evolved from
functional considerations, tend to
promote fluency over accuracy.
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 Various teaching approaches also draw on
insights from these differing approaches to
grammar.
 Approaches influenced by formal theories
such as generative grammar tend to view
language learning as rule acquisition and,
therefore, focus on formalized rules of
grammar.
 Those that evolved from functional
considerations, known as communicative
language teaching, view language as
communication and tend to promote fluency
over accuracy, consequently shifting the
focus from sentence-level forms to
communicative functions, such as requests,
greetings, apologies and the like.
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 More recently, some applied linguists have
argued for an approach that draws not on one or
the other, but on both.
 Widdowson is particularly insistent that it is a
mistake to concentrate solely on functional
considerations while ignoring form altogether.
◦ that just as approaches that rely too heavily on
achievement of rules of grammar often lead to
dissociation from any consideration of appropriateness,
so approaches which rely too heavily on an ability to use
language appropriately can lead to a lack of necessary
grammatical knowledge and of the ability to compose or
decompose sentences with reference to it.
 What is needed is an approach that provides a
middle ground in that it neglects neither.

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 These authors (Diane Larsen-Freeman
& Jeanette DeCarrico) aim for a middle
ground that gives prominence not to
both from and function but to
meaning as well.

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 Pedagogical grammarians Celec-Murcia and
Larsen-Freeman (1999) give strong support to
the view that,
◦ in language teaching, a formal or functional approach
should not be taken to the exclusion of the other.
 In fact, these authors recommend adopting a
three-prong approach, including meaning as a
separate dimension, along with those of form
and function.
 They recognize that grammar is not merely a
collection of forms ‘but rather involves the three
dimensions of what linguists refer to as
(morpho)syntax, semantics, and pragmatics’

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FORM/ MEANING/
STRUCTURE SEMANTICS
Morphosyntactic and Lexical meaning
lexical patterns Grammatical meaning
Phonemic/
graphemic patterns

USE/ PRAGMATICS
Social context
Linguistic discourse context
Presuppositions about context
FORM MEANING
How is it formed? What does it mean?

USE
When/ why is it used?
 POSSESSIVES

MEANING
FORM Possession

‘s or s’ Description

/z/~/s/~/əz/ Amount
Relationship
Part/ whole
Origin/ agent

USE
‘s versus possessive determiner (my, your etc)
‘s versus of the
 PHRASAL VERBS

FORM MEANING
Verb + particle
Literal
Verb + particle +
preposition Figurative
Transitive/ intrans. Multiple meanings
Separable/ inseparable
Stress and juncture
patterns
USE
Informal discourse
Principle of dominance
 Form
◦ Meaningful practice
◦ Games
◦ Cuisenaire rods
◦ Problem-solving activities
 Meaning
◦ Associate form + meaning.
◦ Realia / pictures.
◦ Actions (TPR).
 Use
◦ Selecting between different options.
(Why use one form and not another?)

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 The framework helps teachers identify
where the learning challenge lies.
 And helps teachers make clear decisions
about how to teach grammar.

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 Descriptions of language will also have different
outcomes depending on whether they account for
types of linguistic element in the abstract, or for
tokens of linguistic element as they actually occur in
contexts of use. Whereas a type description might
present a board array of structures and give each
equal weight, a token description ‘might well reveal
that some of these were of rare occurrence, or
restricted to a realization through a limited range of
Lexical items, almost exclusively confined to certain
contexts, or associated with certain meanings.

 With the development of computers and computer

analysis of language, token descriptions are now
possible on a massive scale, and such descriptions
have revolutionized the way we view language.

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 Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.

◦ In one sense of ‘word’ we may count three

different words; Types

◦ in another sense we may count ten

different words. Tokens”.

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 Sinclair (1985) notes that type descriptions
lacking attested data do not provide an
adequate source of reference for language
teaching. Instead, he believes that language
for pedagogical purposes should be a
projection of what actually occurs as recorded
by the computer analysis of text.
 Projects based on analyses of this and other
corpus studies have produced various
dictionaries and grammars, including the
Collins COBUILD English Grammar (1990)

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 Corpus studies have also led to an
increased interest in analyses of
‘discourse grammar’,
◦ Analyses of the functional roles of
grammatical structures in discourse.
 Here we are using discourse to mean the
organization of language at a level above
the sentence or individual conversational
turn – that which connects language at
the suprasentential level.

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 Speakers and writers make grammatical
choices that depend on how they
construe and wish to represent the
context and on how they wish to position
themselves in it (Larsen-Freeman, 2002).
◦ For example in the tense aspect system the
past perfect tense aspect combination is
often used not to indicate the first of two past
events but to give a reason or justification for
the main events of the narrative. These events
are not the main events themselves but,
rather, are felt to be an essential background
to what happened

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 Corpus studies also reveal important
distinctions between spoken and written
grammar.
 Comparisons of spoken and written corpora
have raised some basic questions concerning
descriptions of grammar, such as
◦ how different types of spoken language can be
classified,
◦ how features of written and spoken grammar are
differently distributed and
◦ what the status of the spoken language is, as an
object of study within applied linguistics

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 Carter and McCarthy (1995) believe that the
differences between spoken and written grammar
are especially important for pedagogical
grammars, since ‘descriptions that rest on the
written mode or on restricted genres and
registers of spoken language are likely to omit
many common features of everyday informal
grammar and usage’
 Leech (2000) contends that the same
grammatical repertoires operate in both speech
and writing, although the structures used in each
may occur with different frequencies.
 It should also be noted that there has often been
a ‘written bias’ in linguistic descriptions

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 Grammar is not a separate system within
language.

 Other parts of language system have a say

(influence) in describing/determining the
descriptions of grammar

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 Regardless of the type of description or the approach
taken, when we try to make general statements about
grammar that neatly identify broad patterns, we are
abstracting away from the overall system in ways that
are somewhat artificial.
 It is very difficult to isolate grammar and lexis into
completely separate categories, because grammar
does not exist on its own. It is interdependent with
lexis and, in many cases, grammatical regularity and
acceptability are conditioned by word.
◦ We easily recognize that a sentence such as Mary is taking a
nap indicates a temporary activity, whereas Mary is taking a
class indicates an activity of extended duration.

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 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 tend to
use a great many expressions that are formulaic in
nature, fixed or semi-fixed expressions that act as
single lexical units used as wholes. That is, they are
not composed each time from scratch by the rules of
syntax. As fixed units, they appear to be intermediary
between lexical words and grammatical structures.
 These prefabricated units are called by many names,
perhaps most commonly ‘formulaic sequences’ (Wray,
2002), and exhibit great variability

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 ‘multi-word lexical phenomena that exist somewhere
between the traditional poles of lexicon and syntax,
conventionalized form/function composites that
occur more frequently and have more idiomatically
determined meaning than language that is put
together each time’. Nattinger and DeCarrico (1992)
 As form/function composites, lexical phrases differ
from other formulaic language, such as idioms (kick
the bucket, hell bent for leather), in that they have
associated discourse functions.
◦ completely fixed: as in by the way, which functions to shift
a topic in discourse,
◦ relatively fixed frames: with limited slots for fillers, as in
a___ago, used to express time relationships (for example, a
day ago, a long time ago),
◦ considerable variation: I’m (really) (very) sorry to hear that X
(where X may be an entire clause, such as, you flunked the
test, you lost your job, etc.), used to express sympathy.

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 The descriptive part of the problme is that these phrasal
units, which are pervasive in langauge, cannot be
adequatlly accounted for by models consisting of abstract
rules of sentence syntax, supported by a lexicon of single
word items that are inserted into abstract categories such
NP, VP, PP, etc.
 There’s a considerable evidence that the mind stores and
processes lexical phrases as individual wholes, including
evidence from first language acquisition studies indicating
that they are learned first as unanalysed chunks and, and,
only later, analysed as to particular grammatical patterns.
 There’s a growing interest in investigating the implications
of formulaic language for descriptions of grammar, in
particular, implications for how we view the components of
syntax and lexicon, and for how the components interact
with each other, and with discourse level concerns.

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 different theories of learning have been
proposed to account for how grammar is
learned
◦ Learning Grammar through Habit Formation
 middle of the previous century
◦ ‘rule formation’
 generative grammar and its view of language as a
system of rules
◦ Shift to communicative language teaching changed
grammar learning once again

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 For Some grammar learning took place implicitly
and most effectively when students’ attention
was not on grammar at all. Krashen and Terrell,
1983)

 Chomskyan universal grammar (UG) perspective

felt that target language input alone or input with
negative evidence might be sufficient to have
learners reset the parameters of UG principles in
order to reflect the differences between the
native language and target language grammars
(White, 1987).

 For others, explicit grammar teaching had a role

(Norris and Ortega, 2000
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 an analysis of the language that learners
use, their ‘interlanguage’, reveals that
grammar is not acquired in a linear fashion,
one structure being mastered after another.
◦ Overgeneralisation – goed, foots
◦ Pre-verbal negation – ‘no want’
 New structures are not simply assimilated
one by one, but rather as a new structure
makes its appearance into a learner’s
interlanguage, the learner’s system begins
to shift.

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 Connectionist / Neural Networks research
◦ Rule formation does not account for all language
learning:
 Patterns are extracted from the way structures are
statistically distributed in massive amounts of input
data.
 Emergentists
◦ speakers’ performance being managed by a ‘top-
down’ rule-governed system, learners’
interlanguage emerges from repeated encounters
with structures and with opportunities to use them.

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 Regardless of which type (or types) of process
is responsible for learning, SLA research
makes clear that some attention must be
given to grammar by second language
learners.
◦ also clear that the attention to form should not
come through the use of decontextualized drills
or isolated grammar exercises
 pedagogical activities have to be
psychologically authentic

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 students must first notice what it is they are
to learn (Schmidt, 1990).
 Larsen’s Three pronged approach:
◦ Students should know
 Formulate the form
 Know the meaning (compositional)
 Understand the context in which to use it

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 E.g.,
◦ English Subject Verb Agreement
 Form:
 ‘s’ added to word stem
 Meaning:
 Signals present tense and third person is single entry
 Use:
 meaning contribution is independent from form, show
departure from convention
 Ten miles makes for a long hike.’

 E.G., 2
◦ Good Evening:
 Form: Attributive adjective + Noun
 Meaning: greeting at a particular time of day
 Use: when to appropriate, (Hi, not Good Bye / Good
Night) 42
 the prevailing view today is that students
must notice what it is they are to learn.#
◦ Make it more implicit or interactive
 Input Enhancement (implicit)
 Implicitly obvious: Making the target structures bold
face
 Guided Participation
 peer interactions, may also heighten awareness
(consciousness-raising tasks)
 Sandy bought Margaret a gift.
 Sandy bought a gift for Margaret.
 Sandy bought it for her.
 *Sandy bought her it
 Input-processing tasks,
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 Just noticing is not enough:
 Overt productive practice is essential

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 Depending on the learning challenge the
productive practice activity will differ
◦ Focus on form:
 Daily routines for present simple tense
 Also useful for lexical phrases/ formulaic expressions
◦ Focus on meaning:
 Practice bonding form and meaning together
◦ Focus on Use
 students will need to make a choice

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 Feedback is also seen to be a necessary part
of grammar instruction
◦ Direct correction to recasts

◦ Overt correction are noticed but may negatively

influence motivation,
◦ Recasts may go unnoticed,
 Make them noticeable

 Should students be encouraged to make

mistakes

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 Grammar learning is an organic process, not
necessarily a sequential, like beads on a
string.
 This suggests that a traditional grammatical
syllabus that sequences structures one after
another may result in a mis-match between
learnability and teachability
 many have recommended the use of a ‘spiral
syllabus’, where particular structures are
recycled from time to time during a course
◦ It would be helpful to use a different dimension of
that structure every time it is revisited

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 Some even suggested not to adopt a
grammatical syllabus at all.
◦ that the grammar that students need to learn will
become apparent as they work on meaningful
content.
◦ a ‘focus on form’ should only occur as needed;
students should otherwise spend their time
engaged in meaningful tasks and in learning
content (Long, 1991). When it appears that students
are ready to learn, their attention can be drawn to
linguistic form.
 (But you may miss some infrequent structures

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 grammar checklist – Perhaps the best
compromise
◦ Ensures all grammar structures are included–
◦ Non-sequential
◦ supplementary tasks for non naturally occurring
structures.
◦ Low risk of focus on form in isolation

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 Don’t just teach English, teach something
with English – use language for the purpose it
is used for.
◦ Tasks should have both
 Content Objectives, &
 Linguistic Objective

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Thank you

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