This is an extract from "Politics, Reading and Knowledge about Language", the author's address to the 1991 annual conference of the National Association for the Teaching of English. It describes the moment in 1988 when Kenneth Baker, then Secretary of State for Education and Science, received the report of the Committee of Inquiry into…

Grammar is "a system of rules governing the conventional arrangement and relationship of words in a sentence" (Brown 1994) which can facilitate the acquisition of a foreign language and is conducive for cultivating comprehensive language competence. Most teachers regard grammar as a frame of English learning. The grammar teaching beliefs…

Traditional grammar instruction is a challenging element of the English curriculum; both students and teachers struggle with the rules and dull nature of grammar. However, understanding grammar is important because students need to understand the language they speak in order to be effective communicators, and teachers provide grammar instruction…

The focus of this dissertation is the highly specialized and stylized liturgical language of Russian Church Slavonic (RCS). Historically, RCS has been strictly controlled by authorities and has conformed to established norms, but innovations have nevertheless arisen in response to various conditions. One major wave of innovations was a long,…

Reviews earliest French grammars written by Claude Mauger. (RL)

"Academy" refers to the Spanish Royal Academy. (SK)

Examines the roots of traditional grammar in ancient Greek philosophy, particularly philosophy of language. (AM)

This book, written in an informal dialogue style, develops the thesis that of all the significant forms of art and communication, language alone has remained bound by an outdated, rigid structure--"command grammar"--that inhibits thought and expression. The book explains how language may be freed through use of Neo-Narrative, an "open structure"…

Contends that Latinism was rejected by nineteenth-century American traditional grammarians. (DD)

Discussion of the appropriateness of grammatical terminologies, old and new, occasioned by a reading of the text cited in the title. (RS)

Any English department that is changing from Traditional Grammar to Transformational Grammar (or any other system of grammar) is likely to find that such a curriculum change works best if transitional strategies are developed." Author illustrates these strategies and says they must be expanded into detailed lesson plans appropriate to…

Condensed from "Today's Education, volume 57 (December 1968), 61-62.

A charge is made that the traditional classification of the Latin verb system into six tenses in the indicative mood (present, future, future perfect, imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect) is incorrect since it unduly stresses application of the term "tense." Ensuing discussion centers around grammatical aspect as signaled by the form of a verb…

Third and concluding part of a continued article. (SK)