What is grammar?

What is grammar?

1. Texts, sentences, words, sounds

   • -The study of grammar consist of looking at the way these 4 forms are patterened. -Grammar, on other words, is the study of linguistics chains and slots.
     • Syntax: the system of rules that cover the order of words in a sentence.
     • Morphology: the system of rules that cover the formation of words.
     • Many second language learners errors result from overgeneralising rules from their own language. The ability to recognise and produce well-formed sentences is and essential part of learning.
       • But: how do you develop that ability? and what does well-formed really means?

2. Grammar and meaning

   • Grammar communicater meanings of a precise kind.
     • Sometimes we can make rules, like: the more context, the less grammar. Grammar is a process for making a speaker´s or writer´s meaning clear when contextual information is lacking.

3. Two kinds of meaning

   • Representational function is the kind of meaning which reflects the way we percieve the world. It is mostly represented by nouns, processes affecting other things (verbs), events in particular circumstaances (adverbials).
   • Interpersonal function is typically reflected in the way we use grammar to ease the task of getting things done. Here we use modality (can, may, might)

4. Grammar and function

   • When we process language we are not only trying to make sense of the words and the grammar, we are also trying to infer the speaker´s intention, the function of what they are saying.
     • In order to match form and function it´s necessary to be able to read clues from the context to understand the speaker ´s meaning.

5. Spoken grammar and written grammar

   • Spoken language: you can omit words, usequestion tags, and have sentences with two subjects. These are common things in spoken grammar.
   • Written language: syntactically complex constructions, like passive structures, subordinate clauses. These are common things in written grammar.

6. Grammar syllabi

   • A syllabus is like an itinerary for a teacher. it is pre-planner, itemised, account of the route. It tells the teachers and studentswhat is to be covered in a course and in what order.
     • A syllabus can help you with: selection (what to include) and grading (the order of the items). The criteria to select the order are essentially two: usefulness and frequency. But there are other criteria: complexity, learnability and teachability.
       • An item is complex if it has a lot of elements. The learnability of an item is measured by its complexity, the more simple, the more learnable. The teachability is measure by how easy it is to explain and demosntrate.

7. Grammar rules

   • Prescriptive rules: the type of rules of what language should be.
   • Descriptive rules: were based on hunches and intuitios of how language works.
   • There are other set of rules: rules of form and rules of use.