Dissertation: How to do Things with Grammar: Rhetorical Function of Some Grammatical Categories in English

Mon Oct 8 14:55:48 UTC 2012

Institution: Texas A&M University-Commerce, Dept. of Literature and Languages
Dissertation Directors:
Salvatore Attardo (main advisor)
Robert Baumgardner
Sherri Colby
Lucy Pickering

Author: Sergio Pizziconi
Graduation: August 2012

DISSERTATION ABSTRACT

HOW TO DO THINGS WITH GRAMMAR: RHETORICAL FUNCTION OF SOME GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES IN ENGLISH

The debate on the role of grammar training in the language curriculum has shown that, at least in the last five decades, a part of the disagreement between the supporters of the opposite camps is based on conflicting assumptions about the meaning and sense of some of the terms of the discussion. Three of them will be considered in this dissertation as those that, once redefined, can yield a new perspective on how explicit grammar training can be integrated in the English curriculum. They are: (a) the scope of grammar and linguistics; (b) literacy itself, and (c) the objectives of the language curriculum.

In this dissertation, grammar is claimed to be a pedagogical tool that can be used by students as well as teachers to do things: linguistic observations, analyses, transformations, and productions. This educational paradigm is based on a conceptualization of grammar and linguistics as the set of knowledge and analytical tools that functionally connect linguistic forms to socio-cultural context as well as pragmatic and rhetorical features. Literacy, in its widest sense, is redefined as the skill of attributing meaning to reality according to different semiotic codes. The objective of the language curriculum is to build a transferable metalinguistic awareness that enables learners to consciously observe and use linguistic variation not only in already familiar textual fields and communicative contexts, but also in others new to their experience.

A set of grammatical categories roughly recognizable by both traditional grammars and new trends of linguistic research are the foci around which texts, mainly inductive observations and reflections, and re-writing activities are used to build a developmental linguistic competence, substantiated as the aforementioned transferable metalinguistic awareness.

In order to underpin the theoretical elaboration that generated the pedagogical proposal with direct experiences in the class-room, a self-study is presented. As an application of the qualitative methodology of the narrative inquiry, the dialectical relationship between researcher, literature, and object of study is investigated through a hermeneutical analysis of the story of the production and testing of the material. The researcher’s cultural and academic background, the transformation of the researcher’s stance and attitudes in relation to the diverse sources of the debate about grammar, the researcher’s expectations, and observations of students’ reactions to materials generated compose the object of the qualitative analysis.

Table of contents
1. INTRODUCTION
1.0 An epistemological and textual note, almost a chord
1.1 Statement of the problem: a pre-review of the literature
1.1.1 The context
1.1.2 Terminological issues
1.1.3 The factional use, reading, and interpretation of sources
1.2 The claim of the dissertation
1.3 Purpose of the study and research questions
1.4 Lines of the theoretical elaboration
1.5 Results
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 The debate about grammar in language instruction
2.1.1 The social and academic context
2.1.2 All-but-grammar standpoint
2.1.3 Critiquing the evidence
2.1.4 The integrative stances
2.1.5 Summarizing and further expansion of the debate
2.2. Metalinguistic awareness: definitions and debate
2.2.1 The complexity of the concept
2.2.2 An attempt at a new definition and a closing note
3. PEDAGOGICAL FRAMEWORK
3.1 Curriculum design: Language, experience, cognition
3.1.1 The architecture of the curriculum
3.1.2 The meaning of form
3.1.3 The structure of the discipline and the terminology issue
3.1.4 Experience and language: the cognitive link
3.2 Grammar as transferable metalinguistic awareness
3.2.1 Transfer in education
3.2.2 Transfer in How to do things with grammar
3.3 Grammar as experimental observation
3.3.1 Experimental observation and negotiations
3.3.2 Experimental observation and intuition
3.3.3 Texts as spaces for explorations
3.4 Integrating sociolinguistics, pragmalinguistics, and rhetoric
3.4.1 Why sociolinguistics and pragmalinguistics
3.4.2 Language variation: the contribution of sociolinguistics
3.4.3 From “grammar in context” to “context in grammar”: the contribution of pragmalinguistics
3.5 Heuristics
3.6 Textual analysis
3.7 Functional equation
3.8 Textual metamorphoses
3.8.1 Framing textual metamorphoses
3.8.2 Thresholds
3.8.3 The psychological plausibility
3.8.4 The pedagogical nexus
3.9 The meanings of grammar
3.9.1 Can we frame good writing?
3.9.2 But grammar is not only for writing: literacy as semiosis
3.9.3 Motivation
3.9.4 From “how I write” to “why I write these words and other signs”
4. A SET OF GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES AS TEACHING/LEARNING FOCI
4.1 Structure of the units
4.2 Discussion of the single units
4.2.1 Coherence and cohesion
4.2.2 Noun, noun phrases, and non-conventional sentences
4.2.3 Verbs, verb phrases, and types of verb
4.2.4 Subjects and objects
4.2.5 Prepositions and prepositional phrases
4.2.6 Passive voice
4.2.7 Sentence structures
4.2.8 Coordination and subordination
4.2.9 Relative clauses
4.2.10 Technical-scientific registers
5. “SCHOLARSHIP[S] RECONSIDERED”: A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE RESEARCHER’S EXPERIENCE
5.1 Why empirical/experimental research is not an efficacious paradigm for this dissertation
5.1.1 Conflicting epistemological paradigms
5.1.2 Some problematic issues with the object of study
5.1.3 Screening traditional empirical research options
5.1.4 Some issues with achievement/performance tests
5.2 Self-study and narrative inquiry as feasible research strategies
5.2.1 Theoretical background of narrative inquiry
5.2.2 Conceptualizations of narrative inquiry
5.3 The genesis and transformations of the pedagogical proposal
5.3.1 Timelines and fields
5.3.2 People and codes
5.3.3 The development of the theoretical and methodological stance
6. CONCLUSIONS
6.1 Summary
6.1.1 The epistemological route
6.1.2 What do I talk about when I talk about grammar
6.2 Limitations and further research
6.3 Recommendations for a syllabus
NOTES
REFERENCES
APPENDICES
1. Written and spoken texts: Cohesion and coherence
2. Nouns
3. Modal verbs
4. Subject and objects
5. Types of verb and the functions of the passive form (Inductive activity)
6. Prepositions (Inductive activity)
7. Newspaper headlines
8. Sentence structures (Inductive activity)
9. Subject verb inversion
10. Coordination and subordination (Inductive activity)
11. Relative clauses (inductive activity)
12. Technical-scientific registers
13. Images and verb tense
14. Verb types in pictures
15. Figures of speech as patterns of perception

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