Hi, Even those who believe in Chomskyan syntax acknowledge that what children hear in the environment is used in language acquisition. No one believes that the grammar of English is innate or the grammar of French is innate. There is some delicate interplay of environmental input and innate knowledge that leads to the rapid acquisition of any human language. There is a good film series, now 15 years old, called "The Human Language Series." It is very good at clarifying this point.
Shelia Kennison Associate Professor & IRB Chair Department of Psychology 116 North Murray Hall Oklahoma State University Stillwater, OK 74078 (405) 744-7335 http://psychology.okstate.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=95&Itemid=28 ________________________________________ From: Mike Palij [m...@nyu.edu] Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2011 12:19 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Mike Palij Subject: RE: [tips] Pet peeve: Grammar Nazis Not to dump on everyone's fun but there are a few points to keep in mind. (1) What people refer to as "grammar" is a set of conventions about the usage of a language that have developed over time and have been influenced by class distinctions, social and cultural factors, economics, political factors, and so on. If you ask a Chomskyan linguist about syntax (the scientific representation of the rules which grammar allegedly follows), you may get an answer that syntax is not learned, that "native speakers" have the intuitive/tacit/implicit knowledge to know what is syntactically correct or incorrect, and that the actual usage patterns reflect the surface structures one has been exposed to. >From this perspective, one could argue that any person's usage of language, as long as that person is a native speaker, is correct. Ask a sociolinguist about syntax and one is likely to get a list of factors (like the one I started with) that will reflect the rules that guide language usage (regardless of whether one agrees with them or not). The real question about grammar is who is in a position of power to enforce the use of certain rules and not others. Clearly, teachers are in such a position. But we should not be surprised if the real world blithely ignores such people and the rules they promote (by the way, where's the outrage about using nouns as verbs? Shall we "task" someone to find out?). Listen to CNBC for a prolonged period of time and see how they use language (by the way #2, when did "impactful" replace "influential" in speech, especially bizspeak? Check out www.urbandictionary.com for its definition of impactful). (2) Pop quiz: which of the following is wrong? Why? (a) The aggendum is... (b) The agenda is... (c) The agenda are (d) The agendas are (3) Does anyone else get the irony of using a scene that is a parody of a scene from the movie "Inglourious Basterds" (which should not be confused with the movie "The Inglorious Bastards")? Check Wikipedia for the entries on these movies (standard disclaimers apply). -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu -----------------Original Messages--------------------------------- On Sun, 13 Mar 2011 09:37:27 -0700, Karl L Wuensch wrote: Perhaps if our students viewed this video they would become more likely to consider grammar important: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1935115 Cheers, ------------------------------------------------------------- From: Annette Taylor [mailto:tay...@sandiego.edu] Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2011 12:31 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] Pet peeve The plural actually sounds much better to me. Are we using aesthetics for the rule? ;) Annette Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D. Professor, Psychological Sciences University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 tay...@sandiego.edu<mailto:tay...@sandiego.edu> ________________________________ From: sbl...@ubishops.ca [sbl...@ubishops.ca] Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2011 7:22 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Pet peeve On 13 Mar 2011 at 6:06, Helweg-Larsen, Marie wrote: > How we can possible teach students that the word `data´ is > plural with a New York Times headline like this: "This Data > Isn´t Dull. It Improves Lives." Not wanting to be contrary (oh, yes I do), but I think Marie has stumbled onto one of the best examples of why we should sometimes use data as a singular noun. I'm not talking about saying if it's good enough for the New York Times it's good enough for me (although that does carry a certain weight) but this: What's the allegedly correct alternative? "These Data Aren't Dull. They Improve Lives". Tell the truth, now. Which sounds better? --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: shelia.kenni...@okstate.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13500.357861553d0db7307050a24ce16a8c64&n=T&l=tips&o=9344 or send a blank email to leave-9344-13500.357861553d0db7307050a24ce16a8...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=9345 or send a blank email to leave-9345-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
