Diary: Grammar, Grammar, Grammar

"You know, I don't want a grammar class. I need to talk. I want to attend a conversation class!"

Comments of such constitute my memories of days in which I used to serve as an educational manager in an English institute. Client themselves and even parents were constantly showing their concerns about grammar. Why is Grammar so frightening? Why do people persistently try to avoid grammar? In the following lines I have tried to bring some perspectives about language and especially grammar based on what I have already picked mostly from the book Aspects of Language Teaching by H. G. Widdowson and class discussions and reviewing my own experiences in teaching as well.

When we talk about language- like it or not- inevitably soon we fall into the territory of the grammar. But since grammar is considered as an essential part of language, we may be quite incapable of skip right into the actual practice of teaching without at least taking a quick glance at what linguistics has brought into our perspective about the whole concept of language.

As far as linguistics is concerned, categorization seems to be quit evidently emerging.

In study of languages two broad categories may be seen:

1- Theories about nature of language which mainly discuss about language in its very abstract nature and its history of development

2- Description which employs approaches toward study of particular languages in terms their structures i.e. syntax, morphology, phonology, phonetics etc

Description itself can be divided into two subcategories:

1- Type which studies language elements in abstract

2- Token which deals with actual verbal behavior

Here, I would like to refer back to first lines of this review- if it can be called this- where concerns of the language learners have been mentioned. They, in fact, truly want to acquire the actual behavior of a foreign language though they might not be aware of role of grammar regarding this matter. As far as these concerns are considered, the token description seems to be required, but what about type description? Are they actually of no value? How about theories of language? Are they just fancy academic findings which are of no practical importance?

Here, Widdowson states "It does not mean that for all occasions the actual usage is preferred to type description because type description sometimes activates the learning process."

It has been widely believed that teachers need descriptions. But Widdowson, on the other hand, proposes a contrary view in which theories are considered highly valuable. The reason is that, though, by definition, token description appears to be highly clear-cut, but in fact, the question of how these descriptions should be adopted of classroom use may be answered by the type description.

In case of theories of language and application of them in teaching- the main issue, two views have already been provided:

Halliday(1964) believes a sound knowledge of theories together with the description is of essential importance.

Corder(1973) approaches toward this issue through a more cautious pathway and claims descriptions are the results of application of theories. But what theories provide us with, is an inventory from which an enlightened selection should be made.

In fact, both views try to put emphasis on the influence of linguistics in teaching. Though descriptions, seemingly, are the required means for teaching if they are not supported by theories in terms of reaching a wise selection of them to be applied in actual process of teaching will most probably lead to a state of confusion and chaos.

Once again why do people try their best to avoid grammar? I believe the answer lies beneath the long lasting tradition of separating grammar and conversation – communication- which used to be applied for several years. If your memory appears to be helpful, you might remember those institutes which used to offer completely separated classes for grammar and conversation. The outcome of this trend is that the idea of grammar being an extra, something fancy or unnecessary has been institutionalized.

As we are opposing this idea, it would be better for us to be handful of a rational explanation why grammar is needed. To serve this need, I would like to refer to widdowson once again. He proposes a continuum of which two ends are Lexis and Context.

They are occasions- say something like a surgical situation- in which just mere words without any obvious grammar used convey meaning in a thoroughly understandable fashion. The fact is that in such a known context calling a word is completely meaningful and enough to stimulate the hearer to understand but what if the context is not that much clear?

Here comes the grammar. As far as the continuum – earlier mentioned by widdowson- considered, grammar functions in the midway of the two ends i.e. lexis and grammar. When the context is not clear-cut enough for the meaning to be inferred, grammar adds some necessary clues in for the meaning to be clarified. In other words, grammar limits the number of possible inferences. It goes without saying that though grammar makes understanding of the meaning much more possible, but it never leads to one absolute meaning. What the actual meaning – the meaning of utterance- might be is left over the hearer and the role of pragmatics which will be discussed later.

When it comes to teaching, Widdowson believes- as it has already been clarified-that a teaching merely based on form can not be of ultimate success. What he suggests is a lexical approach in which lexical items are first introduced and then the role of grammar as a modifying means in order for the communication to occur effectively is introduced. In order for this to happen R. Ellis suggests a process called C.R. – consciousness raising by which he means exposing the students to grammar and providing them with the concept of changes happened in language by means of grammar.

For a long time, grammar used to be believed to act upon lexis but in contrary, modern view suggests a bilateral-reciprocal- relationship between lexis and grammar.

As stated earlier, though grammar limits the number of possible inferences, but the final meaning is left over the role of pragmatics. To clarify this, first we should consider the distinction between sentence meaning and utterance meaning. Every hearer/listener, based on his knowledge of context and experiences he has already acquired, can attach various meanings to the utterance. Every sentence has a single invariant meaning- symbolic meaning- which is conveyed through lexical items. But in case of an utterance, based on a type of knowledge called schematic knowledge, understanding may or may not happen. I put this doubt because unless this shared schematic knowledge is present, the full understanding of an utterance may not take place. An absolutely essential process in order for the schematic knowledge to be either activated or formed is negotiation of meaning by which I mean a set of clarifying interactions- say questions and answers- between the speaker and hearer.

If the speaker being present is the case, this negotiation of meaning is called reciprocal otherwise non-reciprocal. In case of non-reciprocal negotiation, the addressee may move from systemic knowledge to schematic knowledge. Here comes the distinction between simulation which involves the schematic knowledge and stimulation which initially involves systemic knowledge and then schematic knowledge.

Now after this rather long discussion are we able to explain the importance of grammar and its undeniable role in understanding actual utterances to people who refer to us in order to learn English?

Future will show us.