Grammar

Initially I thought that I was going to be bored to death by this section in the Williams text. I can’t say that it was enthralling or anything but it was definitely far more interesting than I would have thought possible. I have to say I was less interested in the actual examples of grammar and usage mistakes which I have heard a million times (and still have trouble remembering) and more interested in the intuition and innate abilities that we all possess.

Before this class I was one of the people that really didn’t know that there is a difference between grammar and usage. I slumped it all together and I think that the majority of students do the same. I can’t remember any specific instance in school when a teacher differentiated between the two (except now). I always thought that I was fairly good with grammar but now that I absolutely know the difference between grammar and usage I realize I am horrible with grammar. My usage is ok, my grammar is horrible. Because I still struggle with the same issues that I have looked up and corrected a million times, I really don’t think it is going to get any better. Williams states that, “the tendency is to lump everything under the heading of “grammar,” with unfortunate results” (172). I’m still kind of wondering how a teacher would go about teaching the two areas separately and how this would really help with writing. “Grammar can be great fun, provided it is taught properly” (172). I had to laugh.

I really enjoyed reading about language acquisition. It is probably interesting to me because I have small children and can really identify with things that Williams mentions. Now that I fully under what grammar really consist of, I think it is amazing that children have the ability to speak correctly (for the most part) at such a young age. Williams points out that around 2.5 years old, children start using past-sense verbs more often. My daughter is 3.5 and my son just turned 2. I think it will be interesting to really pay attention to the difference in the use of past tense verbs between the two of them.

Something happened to me today that I thought was kind of interesting after having just finished reading this chapter. When Williams talks about cognitive grammar, he talks about associations and the connections that we make with words and “mental representations” (213). My son loves animals, particularly farm animals. We were looking at a new book today and every time we would get to a page with a black and white horse, he would call it a cow. I know he knew the picture was a horse because he has known the difference for the last year and it is obvious in the picture. When he was doing it I was just picturing the exact explanation Williams gave on page 213. The two descriptions of the animals were competing with each other and the word horse was replaced with cow. Just a thought…