We Know English Grammar Without Knowing It | ArticleGym.com

Mother tongue speakers have achieved their greatest intellectual feat by the time they are two or three years old. They have learnt English grammar by simply listening to the speech that they hear around them and repeating it.

English speakers carry the conventions of their language around with them for the rest of their lives. Chinese speakers carry the grammatical rules of their language which is arguably even more complex than English. Although many errors occur we are usually able to communicate effectively.

But few are able to explain to another person what the rules are that we apply as we speak and write because they are so complicated. They are part of our make-up, having been imprinted on our brains during our early, crucial years of language development. Studies of feral children have shown that if we do not acquire language when we should our minds are stunted forever. Learning grammar, therefore, is a way of knowing better who we are.

The process of acquiring English as a second or third language is more complicated. Many people learn terminology and rules so well that they are soon able to explain them better than a native speaker who uses the same rules unthinkingly. However, the native speaker will speak and write acceptably, making fewer glaring errors than the non-native speaker. This throws light upon the relationship between rules and language use.

We cannot learn Chinese simply by studying the rules. We need to first use the language for communicative purposes. This is also the case when people try to learn any other language.First, messages must be made and when mistakes are made we need some knowledge of conventions in order to understand why the mistakes have been made. However, a person may communicate without knowing much about grammatical terminology.

Editing a piece if writing is a very important part of the writing process. It is at this stage that knowledge of rules becomes important. Explaining quite what the rules are and how they operate is not even necessary for editing. It is only when teaching the language that this knowledge is essential. As a teacher it is not sufficient to explain a rule by saying, ?that?s just the way we say it?. Nevertheless, some rules and idioms are very difficult to explain, even though we apply them on a daily basis.

Western civilization is based on the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome. That is why Latin was used as a template for many centuries. It was mid-way through the twentieth century that Noam Chomsky came up with an alternative way of explaining grammatical rules. However, even before Chomsky, grammarians had become uncomfortable using a dead language to explain a living language.

The new grammar was called ?transformational grammar? because it attempted to explain how human beings think in ?deep structures? like ?John run?. As language is used these deep structure are transformed into surface strings such as ?John is running?. The rules that account for how deep structures are transformed into surface structures are named, collectively, transformational grammar. They are not simple, and some find them almost impossible to understand. However, that is the fascination of English grammar. It is almost as complicated as the human brain. Fortunately we do not have to explain everything in order to use a language effectively

Want to find out more about English Grammar, then visit our site on how to choose the best advice on English Grammar for your needs.

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