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    2.1 Classical or Traditional Grammar

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    It's Cklare
    This document discusses different descriptions of language that have been developed through the history of linguistics and how they relate to English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses. It outlines six main stages of language description: 1) Classical/Traditional Grammar, which analyzed words' roles in sentences based on Greek and Latin; 2) Traditional grammar descriptions of English were also influenced by these classical languages. 3) While not all linguistic developments have direct applications to teaching, understanding different descriptions can help apply them appropriately to ESP courses.

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    2.1 Classical or Traditional Grammar

    Uploaded by

    It's Cklare
    97 views11 pages
    This document discusses different descriptions of language that have been developed through the history of linguistics and how they relate to English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses. It outlines six main stages of language description: 1) Classical/Traditional Grammar, which analyzed words' roles in sentences based on Greek and Latin; 2) Traditional grammar descriptions of English were also influenced by these classical languages. 3) While not all linguistic developments have direct applications to teaching, understanding different descriptions can help apply them appropriately to ESP courses.

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    This document discusses different descriptions of language that have been developed through the history of linguistics and how they relate to English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses. It outlines six main stages of language description: 1) Classical/Traditional Grammar, which analyzed words' roles in sentences based on Greek and Latin; 2) Traditional grammar descriptions of English were also influenced by these classical languages. 3) While not all linguistic developments have direct applications to teaching, understanding different descriptions can help apply them appropriately to ESP courses.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    97 views11 pages

    2.1 Classical or Traditional Grammar

    Uploaded by

    It's Cklare
    This document discusses different descriptions of language that have been developed through the history of linguistics and how they relate to English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses. It outlines six main stages of language description: 1) Classical/Traditional Grammar, which analyzed words' roles in sentences based on Greek and Latin; 2) Traditional grammar descriptions of English were also influenced by these classical languages. 3) While not all linguistic developments have direct applications to teaching, understanding different descriptions can help apply them appropriately to ESP courses.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    of 11

    Language

    Description
    Any ESP courses makes use of
    explicit or implicit ideas about the
    nature of language. These ideas are
    drawn from the various language
    descriptions that have been
    developed by succeeding schools of
    thought in Linguistics. We now
    have a number of ways of
    describing language available to us.
    It is, therefore, important to
    understand the main features of
    each of these descriptions in order
    to consider how they can be used
    most appropriately in ESP courses.
    Not all developments in Linguistics
    have had pedagogic applications, of
    course. In this chapter we shall give
    a brief outline of the various ideas
    about language that have influenced
    ESP in some way. We can identify
    six main stages of development.
    CLASSICAL
    OR
    TRADITIONAL
    GRAMMAR
    Although language teaching
    has a long history stretching
    back to ancient times (Howatt,
    1984), the ways of describing
    language remained little
    change until this century.
    Descriptions of English and
    other languages were based on the
    grammar of the classical languages, Greek
    and Latin. These descriptions were based
    on an analysis of the role played by each
    word in the sentence. Languages were
    described in this way because the classical
    languages were case-based languages
    where the grammatical function of each
    word in the sentence was made apparent by
    the use of appropriate inflections.
    Thus the form of a word
    would change according to
    whether it was a subject,
    object, indirect object and so
    on. The prestige of the old
    classical languages ensured
    the survival of this form of
    description even after English
    had lost most of its case
    markers and became a largely
    word-order based language.
    Since ESP emerged after the classical
    form of description had been largely
    abandoned, its influence on ESP has
    never been strong. Nevertheless, it has
    continued to provide the teacher with a
    useful indirect source of guidance.
    Register analysis, for example, drew
    heavily upon its terminology in
    syllabus design As Allen and
    Widdownson say:
    "Teachers who wish to maintain a
    balanced view of linguistics
    should not overlook the fact that
    traditional grammar has many
    useful virtues. The traditional
    handbooks provided an array of
    terms and distinctions which most
    of us used in learning to talk about
    our own language, and which
    many people continue to find
    serviceable throughout their
    lives."
    It can also be argued that,
    although cases may no longer
    be apparent in modern English,
    the concepts they represent
    underlie any language
    (Fillmore, 1968) . Thus a
    knowledge of the classical
    description can still deepen our
    knowledge of how languages
    operate.
    Thank you!

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