Grammar: Making the connections

1. Grammar: Making the connections Brett Reynolds English Language Centre

2. OVERVIEW • Medium: Grammar • Message: Making connections

3. THE CONNECTIONS • The rump roast problem • We often ask students to do research and include a list of references • Shouldn’t we demand as much of our grammar books?

4. THE GRAMMAR • Grammar cycles (&1985 NCTE resolution). • Younger teachers may not have needed declarative knowledge or meta-language • More experienced teachers have misunderstandings: • Bad definitions • Faulty/inconsistent grammatical theory • Prescribed rules that don’t obtain • Personal language norms (age, location, social group)

5. GRAMMAR CYCLES • Resolved, that the National Council of Teachers of English affirm the position that the use of isolated grammar and usage exercises not supported by theory and research is a deterrent to the improvement of students' speaking and writing and that, in order to improve both of these, class time at all levels must be devoted to opportunities for meaningful listening, speaking, reading, and writing; (1985) • BUTTeaching grammar in context is also in line with the NCTE standards for the English language arts, particularly standard 6 (NCTE, 1996)

6. CURRENTLY AT A PEAK

8. SINGULAR THEY • Examples: • A runner should eat lots of pasta the night before a race, even if they would rather have a steak, because carbohydrates provide fuel for endurance events, while proteins do not. • He was still unwilling to admit that there would be the smallest difficulty in every body's returning into their proper place the next morning.

9. SINGULAR THEY: The complaint • “So feminist authorities went back to the drawing board. Unsatisfied with having rammed their 80-ton 16-wheeler into the nimble sports-car of English style, they proceeded to shoot the legs out from under grammar—which collapsed in a heap after agreement between subject and pronoun was declared to be optional. “When an Anglican priest mounts the pulpit, they are about to address the congregation”…Yet such sentences skreak like fingernails on a blackboard.” David Gelernter

10. SINGULAR THEY • Connections: • It’s wrong. • It is not. • Is. • Is not. • Is. • Isn’t • Is, is, is.

11. SINGULAR THEY

12. SINGULAR THEY

13. SINGULAR THEY

14. SINGULAR THEY • Connections: • What do most people use today? • What have great writers written through history? • What do expert users think about it? • Are there analogous areas of grammar to be compared? • Does the rule hold under a wide variety of situations? • What are the psycholinguistic effects? • What is the history of proscription?

15. SINGULAR THEY: In common use? • “The use of they, their, them, and themselves as pronouns of indefinite gender and indefinite number is well established in speech and writing, even in literary and formal contexts.” MW Dict Great writers:

16. SINGULAR THEY: Great writers • Shakespeare • And every one to rest themselves betake. • Jane Austen • I would have everybody marry if they can do it properly. • Bible • 2 Kings 14:12: And Iudah was put to the worse before Israel, and they fled euery man to their tents. • Matt. 18:35: So likewise shall my heauenly Father doe also vnto you, if yee from your hearts forgiue not euery one his brother their trespasses. • Phl. 2:3: Let nothing bee done through strife, or vaine glory, but in lowlinesse of minde let each esteeme other better then themselues. The Poll:

17. SINGULAR THEY: The poll • How many people here use it? • How many would allow it in students’ work? • I wonder what the department of justice thinks…

18. SINGULAR THEY

19. SINGULAR THEY: Arguments from analogy

20. SINGULAR THEY: Arguments from analogy • Partial paradigm of second person pronouns • Nom. Thou ye • Dat. Acc. Thee you Robust rule:

21. SINGULAR THEY: Rule always holds • A truck driver should never drive when sleepy, even if he/she/they may be struggling to make a delivery on time, because many accidents are caused by drivers who fall asleep at the wheel. • A nurse should have an understanding of how a medication works, even if he/she/they will not have any say in prescribing it, because nurses must anticipate how a patient will respond to the medication. • Which student left his/her/their laptop over here? • A person should never shave his/her/their legs while standing in a slippery tub. Psycholingustics:

22. SINGULAR THEY: The psycholinguistics • In the current study, two reading-time experiments demonstrated that singular they is a cognitively efficient substitute for generic he or she, particularly when the antecedent is nonreferential. In such instances, clauses containing they were read (a) much more quickly than clauses containing a gendered pronoun that went against the gender stereotype of the antecedent, and (b) just as quickly as clauses containing a gendered pronoun that matched the stereotype of the antecedent. However, with referential antecedents, for which the gender was presumably known, clauses containing singular they were not read as quickly as clauses containing a gendered pronoun that matched the antecedent's stereotypic gender. The history of proscription

23. SINGULAR THEY: History of proscription • “The Masculine Person answers to the general Name, which comprehends both Male and Female; as, any Person who knows what he says.” (Fisher [1745] 1750:117n)