The Meanings of Grammar By Constance Weaver

When teachers are invited to brainstorm what the term grammar means to them, they commonly produce a list such as this:

• Parts of speech (elements or categories)
• Syntactic structures (phrases, clauses, sentence types; roles of elements within larger structures)
• "Correct" sentence structure (subject-verb agreement and such)
• "Correct" punctuation and other aspects of mechanics
• Appropriate usage (often thought of as "standard" or educated forms)
• Sentence sense; style (appropriate and effective use of syntactic options; ability to manipulate syntactic elements)

    The frist two of these, parts of speech and syntactic structures, are part of what one might call a description of how different kinds of words in a language combine into grammatical structures, or syntax. Thus one definition of grammar would be "a description of the syntax of a language," or an explanation of its syntax (a theory of language structure). The next three items, dealing with correctness and appropriateness, clearly involve prescriptions of how to use language. Thus another meaning grammar is "a set of prescriptions or rules for using language." Still another meaning deals with sentence sense and style: for instance, the construction of clear, readable sentences, and the deliberate use of syntactic constructions for particular effects. The latter might be defined as "the rhetorically effective use of syntactic structures," or in other words suiting syntax to such things as the meaning, audience, genre, voice, and intended pace of a text. All three kinds of grammar--but especially the descriptive and prescriptive--are commonly found in the grammar books used in schools, such as Warriner's English Grammar and Composition series (1986; first edition, 1951). For related treatments of the various meanings of grammar, see Hartwell (1985) and Francis (1954).
    Most teachers conceptualize grammar as descriptions of the structure of a language, prescriptions for its use, perhaps as sentence sense or style, and as the kind of books designed for teaching all these. However, relatively few teachers have realized that underlying these four senses of grammar is a more fundamental one: the unconscious command of syntax that enables us to understand and speak the language. Even toddlers use grammatical constructions that are reductions and precursors of the mature syntax they will gradually acquire. In this most fundamental sense, then, we do not need to teach grammar at all: the grammar of our native language is part of what we learn in acquiring that language. Furthermore, non-native speakers of a language can acquire the language in much the same way as native speakers, given similar kinds of opportunities to hear, use, read, and write the language. These topics are addressed in subsequent chapters.
    For now, suffice it to say that there are four major senses of grammar that will concern us in this book:

• Grammar as a description of syntactic structure
• Grammar as prescriptions for how to use structures and words
• Grammar as rhetorically effective use of syntactic structures
• Grammar as the functional command of sentence structure that enables us to comprehend and produce language

Chapter 2 introduces some of the reasons commonly given for direct teaching of grammar as a system and a set of rules for language use: the descriptions and prescriptions found in school grammar texts. First, however, we consider the historical context from which these reasons have arisen.

-- Selected from the book "Teaching Grammar in Context", by Constance Weaver.