Pre Ph.D Course work presentation

1. MODERN ENGLISH
GRAMMAR AND
USAGE
Dr. Abha Pandey
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2. WHAT IS GRAMMAR?
Is it boring or interesting?
Etymologically “grammar” related
to “glamour”.
An interesting, exciting subject of
study.
What is Modern English
Grammar?
Why do we study Grammar. 2

3. WHAT IS GRAMMAR?
Dictionary defines “ grammar as the rules
by which words change their forms and
are combined in other senses.
English grammar is the body of rules that
describe the structure of expressions in
the English language. This includes the
structure of words, phrases, clauses,
and sentences.
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4. GRAMMAR
Can we use the word ‘grammar’ in
other senses? It may be used to
describe
 a subject
a book of grammar
proficiency/ mastery in the language
T G Grammar as a linguistic theory
consciously learned set of rules for
learning a foreign language.
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5. GRAMMAR IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT
Sentences: Unacceptable/Acceptable
Implicit knowledge of grammar:
Ability to make acceptable sentences but
unable to explain why they are
unacceptable.
Explicit knowledge of grammar:
Ability to distinguish between acceptable
and unacceptable and also to explain the
rule that have been violated.
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6. TYPES OF GRAMMAR
Grammar A :Ability to use the language
and produce acceptable sentences-
Implicit or internalized knowledge of
rules (native speakers)
Grammar B: Use the metalanguage to
explain the rules and process involved-
explicit knowledge of rules formal or
technical talk (native /foreign language
learners) 6

7. PRESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR
Speech of educated native speakers
of English.
Unacceptable or rejected as incorrect
or bad English by some grammars.
Other grammars consider them as
acceptable -found in current usage.
Prescriptive grammar lays down the
rules for use of a language.
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8. DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR
States the facts of a language as they
exist and are spoken by a large
number of people.
Contains rules / conventions that
actually underlie the usage of native
speakers.
Records the violations or deviant
features in an objective way as a part
of changing or current usage.
Distinctions like the natural laws and
the laws of the government.
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9. TYPES OF GRAMMAR
Linguist’s grammar
 Study language as a system of signs.
 Linguists interested in how language is
acquired, how it is comprehended and
how it is produced.
 Such a grammar uses transformational
process and operations
 The goal of linguists is to study human
mind through a study of human
language.
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10. TYPES OF GRAMMAR
Learner’s grammar
 Is meant to help the learner to learn
the language in question.
 language learning is a creative
activity.
 Current trend is indirect method of
learning grammar through usage.
 Presenting a series of meaningful
contextualised text.
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11. TYPES OF GRAMMAR
Teacher’s grammar
 Contains more information than a
learner, higher knowledge.
 Level of teacher’s knowlegde should
be higher than that of learner.
 Occupies a middle ground between
the linguist and the learner.
 Teacher’s grammar need not be
situationalized or contextualised as
learner’s grammar. 11

12. NEED TO STUDY GRAMMAR
 Why should teacher’s/ research scholar’s
study grammar?
 There has been a debate
 Should formal grammar be taught to the
learner’s (in Indian situation)?
 How much of grammar is to be taught?
 How is grammar to be taught?
 The knowledge of grammar may be useful
in teaching, testing, writing research papers,
locating problem areas in learning designing
a syllabus . 12

13. RECOMMENDED READING
 Quirk, Randolf. “On Conceptions of Good
Grammar”, in The English Language and
Images of Matter. London: Oxford University
Press. 1972.
 Quirk, Randolf, et al. A Grammar of
Contemporary English. London: Longman.
1972.(Sections 1.8to 1.14)
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14. USAGE: GRAMMATICALITY
 In Linguistics, conformity to the rules of a
language as formulated by a Grammar
based on a theory of language description.
 The concept became prominent with the
rise of Generative Grammar in the 1960s,
whose primary aim has been the
construction of rules that would distinguish
between the grammatical or well-
formed sentences and the
ungrammatical, deviant, or ill-
formed sentences of a language.
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15. GRAMMATICALITY AND ACCEPTABILITY
 Grammaticality should not be confused with
notions of correctness or acceptability as
determined by prescriptive grammarians.
 Grammaticality has been differentiated
from ACCEPTABILITY, which is based on the
judgements by native speakers as to whether
they would use a sentence or would consider it
correct .
 Judgements about what is acceptable may
reflect views that a sentence is nonsensical,
implausible, illogical, stylistically inappropriate, or
socially objectionable.
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16. CRITERIA FOR ACCEPTABILITY
We expect a grammar of a language to
clearly say what is “acceptable” and
“unacceptable” in the language?
“Correct” and “incorrect” suggest
absolute norms, deviations in black
and white.
“Acceptable” and “unacceptable”
suggest relative norms, fluid and
variable according to usage, suggests
the possibility of many grey areas.
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17. DIAGRAMMATIC REPRESENTATION
Sentences
Acceptable unacceptable
(grammatical,
meaningful,
appropriate)
ungrammatical inappropriate Semantically odd
linguistic factors non linguistic factors
Dialect register collocation archaism
psychological sociological Aesthetic
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18. CRITERIA FOR DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN
ACCEPTABLE AND UNACCEPTABLE SENTENCES
Acceptability is decided at different
levels. A sentence may be
unacceptable for following reasons:
Grammar and usage
Grammar and Idioms
Collocations
Dialectal variations
 Registral variations
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19. DIFFERENT LEVELS OF UNACCEPTABILITY.
 Sentences: Ungrammatical
not well formed, violating some rule or
convention of grammar.
 Inappropriate: Linguistic Factors:
 Use of non standard English – dialects.
 Informal/ inappropriate registral variations.
 Collocational devices.
Use of derogatory words
 Non linguistic Factors: Psychological,
Sociological, Aesthetic- Ambiguous statements.
 Semantically odd: not appropriate to the
situation.
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20. CRITERIA FOR ACCEPTABILITY
 Grammar books generally give us the idea
of “grammaticality” i.e. What constitutes
acceptable sentences on the basis of
grammatical rules and conventions.
 For dialect, register features, and
collocations, standard dictionaries generally
give some help for exhaustive knowledge
we have to depend on our familiarity with
the language.
 Social cultural or aesthetic appropriateness
is a relative and variable criteria. 20

21. GRAMMAR AND USAGE
 Grammar is, or should be, a description of usage.
 Grammar and usage are not different.
 Traditional prescriptive school grammar presents
rules which militate against actual usage.
 Modern descriptive grammar has another handicap-
usage is various and keeps on changing. Difficult to
furnish all the details of usage.
 As teachers/ scholars of English we should be
conversant with the facts of English usage.
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22. RELEVANCE OF VARIETIES TO GRAMMAR AND
USAGE
 Have you got the time?-British
 Do you have the time?- American
 Whom did you give the book to?- formal
 Who did you give the book to?- informal
 The above sentences are neither correct nor
incorrect. The usage depends on where they are
used.
 Unaware of registral differences we may dismiss
such utterances as wrong, whereas they are
appropriate to a certain register and not so to
others. 22

23. INDIAN ENGLISH
 Indian English is also an international variety.
 Unlike American English or Australian English It is
a non native variety.
 As students/ researchers/ teachers we should
observe and record the features that distinguish
Indian English form non native varieties of English.
 Next step is to evolve remedial procedures for
teaching /writing dissertations and thesis.
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24. FEATURES OF INDIAN ENGLISH
 Pluralization of non count nouns.- informations
 Use of nouns alone which appear in partitive
phrases.- Bread, chalk
 Extended use of compound formation-staff
members
 Deviant article usage-
 Ommission, addition and use of different
prepositions
 Word order inversion- why you have done this.
 Stative verbs used in –ing forms in finite verb
phrases
 Use of same tag question for all kinds of sentences-
Isn’t it?
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25. DIAGRAMMATIC REPRESENTATION
Sentence
Acceptable
ungrammatical inappropriate
unacceptable
Semantically
odd 25

26. DIAGRAMMATIC REPRESENTATION
Inappropriate
sentence
Linguistic factors
Dialect
Register
Collacation
‘archisms
Nonlinguistic factors
Psychological
Sociological
Aesthetic 26

27. RECOMMENDED READING
 Hosali, Priya and Ray Tongue. A Dictionary of
Collocations for Indian Users of English.
1989
 Leech, Geoffery, et al. English Grammar for
Today. London: Macmillan. 1982. (Part A
Introduction)
 Nihalani, P, et al. Indian and British English: A
Handbook of Usage and Pronunciation. New
Delhi: OUP. 1979
 Trudgill, Peter and Joan Hannah. International
English: A guide to Varieties of Standard
English. London: Edward Arnold. ( pages
106-111.) 27

28. THANK YOU
Dr. Abha Pandey
Professor and Head
Department of UG, PG and Research in English
Govt. Mahakoshal Arts and Commerce
Autonomous College , Jabalpur
english_dept1@yahoo.co.in
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