LitArk » Books » Children

Andrea DeCapua - Grammar for Teachers: A Guide to American English for Native and Non-Native Speakers

Here you can read online Andrea DeCapua - Grammar for Teachers: A Guide to American English for Native and Non-Native Speakers full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2016, publisher: Springer, genre: Children. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Book:
Grammar for Teachers: A Guide to American English for Native and Non-Native Speakers
Author:
Andrea DeCapua
Publisher:
Springer
Genre:
Books / Children
Year:
2016
Rating:
4 / 5
Favourites:
Add to favourites
Your mark:
- 80
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5

Description
Author's other books
Similar books

Grammar for Teachers: A Guide to American English for Native and Non-Native Speakers: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Grammar for Teachers: A Guide to American English for Native and Non-Native Speakers" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

Updated and revised with more examples and expanded discussions, this second edition continues the aim of providing teachers with a solid understanding of the use and function of grammatical structures in American English. The book avoids jargon and presents essential grammatical structures clearly and concisely. Dr. DeCapua approaches grammar from a descriptive rather than a prescriptive standpoint, discussing differences between formal and informal language, and spoken and written English. The text draws examples from a wide variety of authentic materials to illustrate grammatical concepts. The many activities throughout the book engage users in exploring the different elements of grammar and in considering how these elements work together to form meaning. Users are encouraged to tap into their own, often subconscious, knowledge of grammar to consciously apply their knowledge to their own varied teaching settings. The text also emphasizes the importance of understanding grammar from the perspective of English language learners, an approach that allows teachers to better appreciate the difficulties these learners face. Specific areas of difficulties for learners of English are highlighted throughout.

Andrea DeCapua: author's other books

Who wrote Grammar for Teachers: A Guide to American English for Native and Non-Native Speakers? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

Grammar for Teachers: A Guide to American English for Native and Non-Native Speakers — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Grammar for Teachers: A Guide to American English for Native and Non-Native Speakers" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017

Andrea DeCapua Grammar for Teachers Springer Texts in Education 10.1007/978-3-319-33916-0_1

1. What Is Grammar?

Andrea DeCapua 1

(1)

New York University, New York, NY, USA

Andrea DeCapua

Email:

Abstract

This chapter is an overview of what grammar is. We examine what exactly rules of grammar consist of and consider these rules from two perspectives: prescriptive and descriptive. Throughout the chapter, you will exercise your knowledge as a native or highly proficient non-native speaker of Englishknowledge that you may only have had until now, implicitly.

Keywords

prescriptive grammar descriptive grammar

Introduction

When I think of grammar, I think of word usagewhich, of course, everyone butchers.

I despise grammar. I find the rules trite and boring.

Grammar (and its enforcers) need to loosen up and enjoy life more! Grammar makes my stomach churn.

These comments will strike a chord with many users of this textbook. The term grammar does not bring pleasant memories to the minds of many people. Instead, grammar frequently brings to mind tedious lessons with endless drills, repetition, and other generally mindless practice, focused on mostly obscure rules of how people are supposed to write and speak. For native speakers of any given language, grammar often represents to them the great mystery of language, known only to language specialists or those of older generations, the ones who really know what is right. Many feel that grammar is something that they were never taught and therefore dont know. Because bad grammar is often attributed to peoples misuse of language, there is often a sense of resentment or frustration with the notion of grammar.

1.1 Section 1: Grammarians and Grammar

The idea that grammar is a set of rules, often seen as arbitrary or unrealistic, is only one narrow view of grammar. Such a view is based on the belief that grammar:

must be explicitly taught;
is absolute and fixed, a target or goal that speakers need attain in order to be good speakers or writers of the language;
is inherently difficult and confusing, its mysteries apparent only to teachers, language mavens, or linguists.

People who follow this approach to grammar are called traditional or prescriptive grammarians.

Discovery Activity 1: Making Decisions on Grammaticality

Look at the sentences below.

Based on your opinion, label each sentence as G for grammatical, N for ungrammatical, and ? for not sure or dont know.
For those sentences you labeled as N , identify the element or elements that you think are ungrammatical and explain why you think they are ungrammatical. For those sentences you labeled as ? , discuss why you are unsure.
1. (a)
  _____ She had less problems with the move to a new school than she thought she would.
2. (b)
  _____ She lays in bed all day whenever she gets a migraine headache.
3. (c)
  _____ My sister Alice, who is older than me, still lives at home.
4. (d)
  _____ Everyone needs to buy their books before the first day of class.

Discussion: Discovery Activity 1

In all of these sentences, there is a difference between casual English and formal English. In formal English, particularly when written, there are rules that speakers are taught that must be followed in order for sentences to be considered correct.

Sentence a

Few, according to prescriptive grammarians, should be used only with nouns we can count, such as apples, pens, or days, while less should be used with nouns we cant count, such as math, water, or beauty. According to this rule, the sentence should be She had fewer problems with the move to the new school than she thought she would (see Chap. ).

Sentence b

Lie and lay are two different verbs. Lie is a verb that is not followed by an object, while lay is a verb that is followed by an object. Compare these two sentences:

Cats lie on beds.	lie = resting or sleeping
Cats lay mice on beds.	lay = put

Another way to differentiate these two similar verbs is to describe lay as an action verb and lie as a non-action verb. According to the rule, lie doesnt take an object but lay does, therefore, Sentence b in formal English needs to be rewritten as:

She lies in bed all day whenever she gets a migraine headache.

Adding to the confusion between lie and lay is the fact that the past tense form of lie is lay .

Yesterday she lay in bed all day long.

A tip in remember how to distinguish lay and lie is to ask yourself whether or not the verb put can be substituted as in: Cats put mice on beds but not * Cats put on beds.

Sentence c

There is a grammar rule that dictates I needs to be used here, not me, because than compares two nouns in subject position as in:

My sister Alice, who is older than I , still lives at home.

Nevertheless, for most speakers of American English, I after than sounds stilted or affected, especially in spoken English and in informal written contexts, such as e-mail or personal correspondence.

Sentence d

Here the discussion of which pronoun to refer back to everyone has long been a subject of controversy. Traditional grammarians for centuries have argued that the singular male possessive pronoun is the grammatically correct form because words such as anyone or anybody are singular, even though they refer to plural conceptualizations of people. The use of his after such pronouns as anyone or everybody is an artificial construct of traditional grammarians, derived from early English grammarians who wrote the first grammars based on logical Latin. Guided by the logic of Latin, they concluded that since one and body are singular and since a male pronoun would encompass reference to all persons, his was the logical or correct choice.

While such an argument may be true of Latin and other languages such as Spanish or German, there is no basis for this in English. In Spanish, all nouns are either masculine or feminine. In the case of Latin or German, all nouns are masculine, feminine, or neuter. The plural form, when reference is made to both sexes, has traditionally been the male plural form in these languages, although changes in modern languages include using both the male and female plural forms when referring to mixed groups.

English, in contrast, does not classify nouns according to gender, except in a few instances where they clearly refer to a specific sex, such as girl or father . Moreover, in plural form, English pronouns are all gender neutral ( we, our, ours, you, your, yours, they, their, theirs ).

Thus, although grammarians have insisted that speakers use his for centuries, the tendency has been to use the plural pronoun form their and to avoid any reference to gender.

In the last several decades, it has become generally unacceptable in American English to use the singular male pronoun after such words as each, everyone, and somebody . It has become more and more acceptable, even in formal writing, to use the plural they. Many newspapers, such as the Washington Post, now accept they after indefinite pronouns; Facebook allows people to choose they as their preferred pronoun; and in 2015, the American Dialect Society chose they as the gender-neutral singular pronoun.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Grammar for Teachers: A Guide to American English for Native and Non-Native Speakers»

Look at similar books to Grammar for Teachers: A Guide to American English for Native and Non-Native Speakers. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Collins

Grammar and Punctuation

Caroline Taggart

My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be Me?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English

Roger Hawkins

French Grammar and Usage

Benjamin Carmen

A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish

Andrea DeCapua

Grammar for Teachers

Jacobs

200 English Grammar Mistakes!: A Workbook of Common Grammar and Punctuation Errors with Examples, Exercises and Solutions So You Never Make Them Again

Anna Proudfoot

Modern Italian Grammar: A Practical Guide

Carl Eldridge

Real Grammar: Understand English. Clear and simple.

coll.

Collins COBUILD English Grammar

Mike Thacker

Essential French Grammar

Geoffrey Leech

A Communicative Grammar of English, Third Edition

Unknown

Collins Cobuild English Grammar.

Reviews about «Grammar for Teachers: A Guide to American English for Native and Non-Native Speakers»

Discussion, reviews of the book Grammar for Teachers: A Guide to American English for Native and Non-Native Speakers and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.