Topic 12

TEMA 12.
CONCEPTO DE GRAMÁTICA: REFLEXIÓN

SOBRE LA LENGUA Y SU APRENDIZAJE. DE LA
GRAMÁTICA NORMATIVA A LA GRAMÁTICA EN
FUNCIÓN DEL USO DE LA LENGUA Y DE LA
COMUNICACIÓN.
1. INTRODUCTION
2. WHAT IS GRAMMAR? A REFLECTION ON LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
3. KINDS OF GRAMMAR. FROM NORMATIVE TO THE
COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH
4. LANGUAGE AWARENESS AND LANGUAGE TEACHING
5. CONCLUSION
6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
According to LOMCE the study of a foreign language is very important at

Compulsory Secondary Education. At this stage, students are expected to
manage the communicative competence required to be able to communicate
with some degree of independence in the foreign language. The following topic,
that I am going to explain, contributes to the achievement of this subject matter.
1. INTRODUCTION
The areas of grammar and language learning have been changing

rapidly along these last decades. Grammar has had a bad press for many
years. To many people, it is the boring subject done at school that consisted of
learning parts of speech and parsing the 15 types of adverbial clauses. To
language teachers, it is associated with the despised use of “formal” grammar
and the learning by heart of paradigms and rules with innumerable exceptions.
Yet originally the word “glamour” came from the same root as “grammar”; the
1
person who knew grammar was glamorous and could cast mysterious spells.
Only in recent times has grammar become a peripheral boring activity.
This topic we are dealing with is about grammar and its application to
language teaching. We will start first with a reflection of what grammar is and
we will continue with a detailed chronological description of the different types of
grammar and their development.
2. WHAT IS GRAMMAR? A REFLECTION ON LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Grammar is conceived as the branch of linguistics dealing with the form

and structure of words (morphology), and their interrelation in sentences
(syntax).
There are two popular misconceptions about grammar. One is that the
“rules” are somehow there in the language more or less ready formulated.
According to this view, there can only be one “correct” solution to any
grammatical problem.
A second misconception is that the rules of grammar are arbitrary.
Perhaps, grammar though not logical in a strict sense, is nonetheless both
systematic and meaningful.
To many linguists, grammar has been the most exciting area of language
in the 1980s. What actually enables the dealers to communicate with each other
but grammar? Every stride they make relies on the grammatical system of
language. Grammar is at the heart of all human activities: declaring war, writing
a love poem, sentencing a prisoner to death, advertising soap powder, praying,
…
We use language for a purpose and that purpose is to get something
across to someone. But how do we connect the inner world of ideas and
meanings with the outer world of sounds and words? The answer to linguists is
grammar. The vital link between human thought and human communication is
through grammar.
Hence, the modern interpretation of grammar rejects the earlier notions
of prescriptive grammar that told people what to say, of traditional grammar that
analysed parts of speech, and of structuralist grammar that looked at
2
substitutions of items within “structures and patterns”. Each of these, of course,
has some truth to it but none of them reflect this central concept of the grammar
as the core mental system of language.
What is grammar then? The grammar is an interlocking system in which

the grammatical choices themselves contribute to the communicative meaning.
The grammars of all languages are similar; the differences are not random but
represent systematic choices from the alternative ways in which the mind can
use language.
There are particular sequences of acquisition through which most

learners go. For example, children go through a stage in learning the first
language in which they leave the subjects out of their sentences. Similarly in
Second Language Acquisition, the same process occurs. The so-called
grammatical morphemes of English such as “the”, “-ing”, the saxon genitive
occur in much the same order regardless of the learner´s first language.
What does this mean for our understanding of how people learn second
languages and how they should be taught? The overall lesson is that the
learner´s minds construct grammars for themselves and teaching provides the
means to do it. Teaching can do little about changing the sequence of
acquisition but has to work round it. The crucial thing for teaching appears to be
the choice of particular sentences as input for the learners so that they can set
the parameters naturally for themselves.
3. KINDS OF GRAMMAR. FROM NORMATIVE GRAMMAR TO THE
COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH.
Once we have established a framework for grammar studies, we are

going to focus on the main grammar models and their application to teaching
languages, commenting both their advantages and their disadvantages, and
how they developed in the communicative approach.
A. TRADITIONAL / NORMATIVE GRAMMAR
3
Most people first encounter grammar in connection with the study of their
own or of a second language in school. This kind of grammar is called
normative, or prescriptive, because it defines the roles of various parts of
speech and tells what the norm is. These rules are taken from written literary
texts.
In the field of SLA, we have the Grammar Translation Method. It adapts

traditional grammar to language teaching. The objective is to be able to read
literature in the foreign language and the ss must acquire a grammatical
knowledge through an inductive way. Obviously, translation acquires a great
importance.
Spoken language and written non-literary language are left apart so
motivation is highly difficult to reach since the texts are not related to the
students interests. Moreover, morphology and syntax are absolutely separated,
which makes it impossible to explain such concepts as what a transitive verbs
is. So, students cannot understand why examples such “I prepare” are wrong
with no Direct Object.
In spite of all the criticism made to this method, we must remember that it
is necessary to know the rules of a language in order to be able to use the
standard register. But these grammar point should not be studied in isolation
but in relationship with a context and the reasons to use it.
B. STRUCTURALISM
Different structural grammatical models rose from the theoretical bases

of Structuralism given by Saussare. They are usually grouped in two groups:
European Structuralism and American structuralism. Within the European
Structuralism we find Prague´s School that concentrated on phonology. The
American structuralism started with Bloomfield´s language.
The application of the structural ideas to language teaching is called
behaviourism. The main idea of this theory introduced by Skinner is that
language is behaviour, so it can be learnt by means of acquiring habits.
4
According to this theory, ss learn when their reactions to given stimuli are
reinforced in a negative way, in order to avoid repetition.
Structural grammar and the behaviourist approach gave rise to a new

model which has a great importance in language teaching: contrastive
analysis. It consists of comparing the L1 and L2 in order to identify the
differences that can cause problems to students. For contrastive analysis, the
main problem students have to face is interference or negative transfer.
These theories were put into practice in the Audio-lingual Method

where oral language is emphasized, new materials attractive for the ss are used
and the typical activities are both structural drills and dialogues that ss have to
hear and reproduce.
In spite of the enormous evolution that structuralism represented, there
are some criticisms to be made to this approach since the mere creation of
habits does not take into account the creative aspect of language.
C. GENERATIVE GRAMMAR
TGG appeared as a reaction to structuralism. It makes a basic

distinction: competence / performance. Competence is the knowledge one
native speaker of a language has about his own language. Performance is the
actual realization of the language, what the speaker actually says.
Chomsky believes that human language is an innate human capacity.
The proof is the fact that young children are able to learn how to speak
correctly, in spite of the fact that they are exposed to only a limited set of
sentences and that, often, the kind of language adults use to speak to children
is incorrect.
The application of this theory language teaching is known as the
cognitive approach. Ss are believed to have a LAD, as children have, which
allows them to create their own grammar.
One of the most influential authors in the field of cognitivism is Steven
Krashen. His theory is constituted by the 5 basic hypothesis that we study in
5
topic 1; acquisition/learning hypothesis, the monitor, the natural order and the
affective filter.
D. TEXTUAL LINGUISTICS
Under “TL” we find a group of heterogeneous approaches to language

study, whose common point is that they go beyond the sentence. It has three
main disciplines: syntax, semantics and pragmatics, which is the most important
one.
It is interested in language use and communication, so it studies
performance. Competence evolves from a linguistic one to a communicative
one. The application of textual linguistics to language learning is The
Communicative Approach. The main objective of this learning process is to
achieve a communicative competence. For this reason, it is necessary to study
not only grammar but also the different varieties of a language and cultural and
social aspects.
Syllabuses have to be organised around functions, not around grammar
points. Moreover, it is necessary to use “real” communicative situations, where
these functions can be used and which will motivate students. The four skills
have to be worked on equal emphasis and fluency is more important than
correctness.
According to Widdowson, the heart of the language lesson is the
communicative activity in itself, not the grammar explanation. As stated by
Morrow, a communicative activity has to have 3 characteristics: information
gap, authentic materials and feedback.
Obviously, if we have the chance we should use the new technologies to
present attractive activities for our students or just to make use of the wide
range of possibilities and resources they offer.
4. LANGUAGE AWARENESS AND LANGUAGE TEACHING
6
As teachers of a second foreign language, and as advanced non-native
students, we cannot avoid some questions, for example: is grammar just
needed for writing but not for speech? Is English grammar simple if we
compare it with Spanish or Valencian one? If simple then is easy. But, could
any non-native speaker of English who has spent several years learning the
language feel that A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language by R.
Quirk et al. is simple and easy? And finally, if there is no doubt that the field of
grammar is fundamental, dynamic, relevant, and real…, how can something
which ought to be so fascinating come to be so boring?
English has generally been perceived and practiced as a highly serious
subject, with the aim of following the tradition which began with Classical
authors, with the focus always on the written language and on the elimination of
what was considered grammatical error.
The atmosphere of many grammar classes was, as a consequence,
one of uncertainty, because a large number of grammatical rules lacked solid
basis, and came from arbitrary decisions of the first grammarians. The prospect
of grammar class being enjoyable was rare.
In addition, school-leavers wanted to forget about grammar as quickly as
possible. But society would not permit them to forget the distance between the
rules in their grammar books and the way they actually spoke. So, they
developed a sense of linguistic inferiority. This is the real source that those
mastering the difficulties of traditional grammar were perceived to be educated
and socially well off. For schoolchildren, secretaries, and subordinates of all
kinds, the use of split infinitives was one of several sure signs of social linguistic
inadequacy, and their avoidance a mark of successful upward mobility.
Grammarians of the 2000’s are the inheritors of the distortions and
limitations imposed on English by two centuries of a Latinate perspective, and
have to find ways to deal with them.
Modern approaches to English grammar are improving, and some
approaches that are now being used aim to help people obtain insight into
grammatical structure. Let’s illustrate some of them:
- Using role play, stories, poems and other genres to focus attention on a
linguistic issue. Another consists on…
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- Taking nothing for granted when we teach. For example it is not possible
to teach a young child the concept of word order in sentences, if the basic
notion of “order” is itself not clear.
- And finally, using animation, cartoons, and computer products.
These are just some of the modern ways of putting across a grammatical
point.Ways of showing grammar as something real, familiar and easy and as
important as a tool.
5. CONCLUSION
The topic provides a general view of the discipline from both sides
linguistics and society. Both directly related and interdependent. Firstly, we
define the matter by contrastive definitions of grammar; secondly, we reflect on
the subject throughout the fundamental methods used from linguistics; and
finally, we reflect on people’s rejection to grammar, causes and avoidance.
6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Chrystal, D. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of English Language. 2nd edition

C.U.P.
- Cuenca. M.J. Teories gramaticals i ensenyament de llengues. Tàndem.
- Robins, R.H. General Linguistics: An Introductory Survey. Longman. 3rd
edition. London, 1980.

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TEMA 12.

CONCEPTO DE GRAMÁTICA: REFLEXIÓN

According to LOMCE the study of a foreign language is very important at

The areas of grammar and language learning have been changing

2. WHAT IS GRAMMAR? A REFLECTION ON LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Grammar is conceived as the branch of linguistics dealing with the form

What is grammar then? The grammar is an interlocking system in which

There are particular sequences of acquisition through which most

Once we have established a framework for grammar studies, we are

A. TRADITIONAL / NORMATIVE GRAMMAR

In the field of SLA, we have the Grammar Translation Method. It adapts

Different structural grammatical models rose from the theoretical bases

Structural grammar and the behaviourist approach gave rise to a new

These theories were put into practice in the Audio-lingual Method

TGG appeared as a reaction to structuralism. It makes a basic

Under “TL” we find a group of heterogeneous approaches to language

4. LANGUAGE AWARENESS AND LANGUAGE TEACHING

- Chrystal, D. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of English Language. 2nd edition

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