Understanding Grammar [antikvár]

V| f^ V4 C t í O VI The problems which face every potential author of a textbook on English grammar, no matter whether it is designed for the sixth grade or the college senior year, are numerous and perplexing. If an Introduction to such a book is to be of any service at all, whether to instructor, student, or generál reader, it can próbably be most helpful by calling attention to the highly complex background of tradition, of newly developing science, of educational practice, and of public attitűdé, against which a grammar must inevitably be written. And against such a background, the present work stands as a noteworthy achievement and a credit to its author. For the past century and a quarter there has been a science of language-linguistics-soundly based and rigorously controlled in its operation, as any science ought to be. As is the case with many newly developed intellectual disciplines, there has come to be a considerable lag in the application of this body of scientific knowledge about language to the practical and everyday schoolroom situation. Even today, the definitions, the judgments concerning the status of specific expressions and language items, the concept of how language is to be learned, and indeed the attitudes toward the function of language in society which appear, either overtly or covertly, in most school textbooks reflect the neoclassical orientation of the eighteenth century, the pre-scientific age as far as the study of language is concerned. ix