Free English Language Dissertations - Language Learning Became Dependent Upon The Teaching Of Grammar In A
Language learning became dependent upon the teaching of grammar in a deductive manner, heavily reliant on the use of grammatical rules realised through translation, with prescriptive grammars based on the rules of Latin (Pinker, 1994, p. 374) which did not always fit too well with the more amorphous usage of English, an example being the concept of the ‘split infinitive’ from the Latin which was carried over into English until the last few years. Pinker suggests that the very fact that they [prescriptive rules]..have to be drilled shows that they are alien to the natural workings of the language system (Pinker, 1994, p. 372).
Although a considered a sign of erudition, a perfect translation from Latin or Greek into the English vernacular established itself as the definitive method of language teaching until the 20th Century, it has been suggested that instruction into the rules of grammar have resulted in learners being unable to transfer this knowledge to talk about themselves in a real-life setting (McDonough and Shaw, 1993, p. 21). As a result a disparity emerged between the Sciences and the Arts with Latin retained for nomenclature within the Sciences and a greater emphasis on the vernacular in the Arts, elucidated by Leith and Graddol who suggested that Literary English seeking synonyms in order to provide alternative forms of expression (eloquence), science required a precise and standardised language (Leith and Graddol, 1996,p. 176).
Simon Jenkins, previously editor to ‘The Times’ (London) is not a follower of what he considers useless paraphernalia. He refers to the precision of the Classical languages which ‘require little punctuation’, giving, as his example, the American Constitution as beautifully structured and controlled (Davis, The Times, 2004), despite the fact that the American Constitution was modelled on the language of the Legal Jurists of 18th Century Britain, and the Greeks epitomised the comma: even the Greeks needed to breathe when reading:
Lastly, to deal with a very unimportant point, I observe that the Leipsic Teubner edition of 894 makes Books ii. and iii. end with a comma
(The Odyssey by Homer, http://www.classicauthors.net/Homer/odyssey/)
Contemporary English
The growth of the middle classes and public school education became the driver for the growth in Received Pronunciation , whilst colonisation and foreign travel imposed the English language onto new cultures, with many of those colonised languages becoming integrated into the English language, often resulting in British English and American English becoming intermingled by the media, and computer vocabulary and text-messaging increasing everyday vocabulary with words such as WISIWYG and mouse, internet and monitor, and changes in spelling such as TXT U L8TER.
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