Uses 24 examples to demonstrate that a comprehensive generative stylistics can provide an interlocking method for describing and teaching writing strategies. (DD)

Three grammars that, since the 50's, have supplemented or offered alternatives to traditional grammar are discussed in this article. The role of grammar in communicative utterances and the underlying considerations in describing a grammatical system are analyzed. Then, brief summaries about and comments on structural linguistics, tagmemic grammar,…

Aspects of language instruction which "derive from the nature of language itself" are discussed in this study. The notion that language teachers should teach grammar exclusively is disputed. This position is based on the following generalizations presented in an analysis of the nature of grammar and language: (1) language comprises more than what…

Reviews the development of generative theory, points out the limitations of present generative grammar for the teaching of English and expresses the view that it will be of greater value in the future when certain further theoretical developments have taken place. (FB)

Transformational grammar offers the most adequate system by which to meet the goal of grammar instruction, which is to increase the student's understanding of the nature of language. This grammar attempts to explain the mental processes underlying the production and understanding of sentences, to describe linguistic competence, to construct…

These two units of the Minnesota Project English curriculum employ transformational grammar in an attempt to make eighth-grade students aware of fundamental facts about their language. Concepts taught in the first unit are (1) that an infinite number of English sentences exists, (2) that a few basic transformations are the basis for a large number…

The approaches of traditional grammar, descriptive linguistics, and generative grammar are largely complementary rather than exclusive. Traditional grammar defines eight parts of speech according to meaning or function and concerns itself almost wholely with the written language. Descriptive linguistics postulates that English has a set of unique…

Supports the view that a teacher is needed to help students acquire foreign language skills and that language instruction cannot be exclusively entrusted to the language laboratory. (DS)

For secondary English teachers concerned with the theoretical and practical problems of the traditional approaches to teaching grammar, this paper proposes that a realistic solution can be found in current linguistic investigation. This solution lies not in the product of linguistic inquiry, but in the process of inquiry itself. The paper first…