3. Consider the following quoatation.
“You get a picture of this gallant little band of the last literates going down to the peak with ‘Warriner’s Grade Four Grammar’ in one hand and ‘Best-Loved Poems of College English Departments’ in the other….Though our popularizers of good grammar…think they are defending standards and traditions, they keep attacking idions that are centuries old.” (Quinn, p.9)
a. What theory of grammar is the author talking about? Explain.
b. What theory of grammar does the author most likely adhere to? Explain.
a- Prescriptive because they stick to the book and the author has the opposite opinion.
b- Contextual because the author cares more about the analysis more than the rules.
4. In the movie Running on Empty, one character says of his mother, “I said: ‘I wish it was easier’ and she said: ‘You wish it were easier!’ She’s correcting my grammar like one of the kids she teaches.” What type of grammar does the mother teach: prescriptive, descriptive, generative, or contextual?
-Prescriptive.
5. Consider the following three sentences.
A. John hurt himself.
B. John hurt hisself.
C. John hurt heself.
a. What would a prescriptive grammarian say about these sentences, if anything?
b. What would a descriptive grammarian say about these sentences, if anything?
a- They might say there is only one correct answer.
b- They would be interested in whom the speaker is or what dialect it came from since they are interested in all dialect.
Definitions.
1. Grammar is the correct way of writing and speaking a language. It is considered formal and does not include the use of slang.
2. Grammar is how someone constructs sentences within his/her speech or writing, in order to communicate effectively.
