Discusses four definitions of "grammar" and suggests that ignorance of any of the four harms research and teaching. (DD)

The greatest benefit of transformational grammar lies in helping students to understand and appreciate language but not to use it. (DD)

Contends that the rule "do not split infinitives" is a proper subset of the rule "do not split verbs," and that both should be taught. (DD)

The serious student of language, English or foreign, and especially the future language teacher must receive a solid training not only in theoretical but also in applied syntax. Such a course should be offered at the advanced level and deal with the syntax of the language involved in a rigorously systematic way. The search for a systematic, yet…

Contemporary syntactic theory rejects the idea that prescriptive grammar can provide students with any insights into how language works. For generative grammar, a term for the aggregate of methodologies which currently dominates modern linguistics, rules determining the grammaticality of a sentence do not relate in any way to the rules which make…

Designed for use by composition students as well as teachers, the essays and background discussions in this book address themselves to questions of theory and practice in rhetoric. The book is divided into sections on invention, form, and style, and contains articles by such authors as Janet Emig, Wayne C. Booth, Richard L. Larson, Kenneth Burke,…

Version of a paper read at the Annual Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English, NOvember 1969, in Washington, D.C. (DS)

If college freshmen know something about syntax, have practiced combining and breaking down sentences, and have learned to think in terms of deep structures and surface structures, they may be better able to understand and relieve the discomfort caused by a garbled key sentence structure. Grammar instruction in freshman composition provides a…

Describes the transformational-generative model of grammar and discusses how this theory has influenced composition teaching and theory. Outlines a new model of language being developed by cognitive scientists and how this model might inform composition in the future. (HB)

Describes a course for preservice English teachers on descriptive grammar. Discusses definitions and aims and what to do about traditional grammar; transformational-generative grammar; language acquisition; and applied grammar. Presents teaching strategies. (RS)

Noting that, contrary to the first conference, disagreements began to surface among the conference participants of the second conference, this proceedings contains papers presented at the second conference on the teaching of grammar (except for a preconference workshop and one paper). Papers in the proceedings are: "Keynote: Finding Reasons…

A review of the various grammatical traditions from traditional grammar through structural linguistics to transformational grammar points out that traditional and transformational grammar are neither mutually exclusive nor entirely contradictory. Implications drawn from modern inquiry include the necessity for reading and writing teachers to guide…

This book is a selected distillation of linguistic scholarship which describes from both a historical (diachronic) and a contemporary (synchronic) viewpoint that conglomerate set of dialects and idiolects called English. The emphasis is on contemporary American English. But foreign language examples are also given in an attempt to demonstrate the…

The traditional method of teaching writing to students in universities by correcting their errors supposes a generally well-developed sense of written language structure and formal English language discourse. The new population seeking higher education does not always possess such a background. An alternative instructional method is to use the…