Grammar as Defined in Understanding English Grammar

Kolln and Funk’s Understanding English Grammar is not about a set of rules so much as an understanding of what English grammar is: a continually evolving construct of a language that is both widely spoken and extremely fluid. In the introductory Chapter 1, the authors draw the distinction between the different types, or concepts, of grammar and how they all influence the way in which the language is spoken and written.

There is no one single English language, nor is there one perfect, authoritative version of it. There are vocabulary differences (such as British vs. American English) pronunciation differences (such as Southern, New England, and Midwestern American English), and grammatical differences. Such variations can be considered regionalisms (minor variations confined to a given geographical area, such as the city of “Baston” in New England and “ayuh” as the affirmative in Maine, or a more extensive set of variations can be considered a dialect, such as Southern black speech in the early twentieth century, or urban black speech (also known as Ebonics dialect) in later decades. The authors note that “every variety of English is equally grammatical” (Kolln & Funk 4). This contrasts with the perception that “She done broke my best dish” is an inferior or inherently faulty construction because it contradicts standard English grammar.

Kolln and Funk divide grammar into four distinct categories: descriptive, prescriptive, structural, and transformational. The distinctions are important. For many years, the only kind of “real” grammar was prescriptive: there was a set of rules, and if you didn’t follow them, your grammar was incorrect. Many of the lingering prohibitions in English pedagogy, such as the admonition to never end a sentence with a preposition, to never split an infinitive, and to never begin a sentence with a conjunction, are artifacts of prescriptive texts written well over a century ago by teachers who still felt that Latin was the perfect language and that English should, therefore, conform to its rules. This is obviously flawed thinking, in that other considerations aside, Latin is quite dissimilar to English. The authors note that prescriptivism is on the wane, or at least is not the be-all and end-all of English grammar.

Descriptive grammar is reportage. It surveys how the language is currently being used, not how it “should” be used. Kolln and Funk in particular note the usefulness of the contraction ain’t and the awkwardness of alternative constructions: they remark that “The stigma attached to ain’t has left a void in our language” (9). Similarly, everyday usage fills in gaps in English grammar even when whatever is used to plug the gap is prescriptively ungrammatical. A good example would be the use of “they” for the singular indefinite personal pronoun, because “he/she” or “him/her” sounds so awkward and stilted in everyday speech. Descriptivism recognizes the legitimacy of such modifications. If enough people speak the language in some new way, then that is what is “correct” even if it contradicts grammar books.

Structural grammar examines syntax and the “nuts and bolts” of the language. Structuralism examines how the English language is rather than how it ought to be. English depends on word order for the meanings of its sentences, unlike inflected languages with case endings conveying meaning. It also has only a vestige of gendered words, mostly pronouns (as opposed to one of its ancestors, German). The structure can change overall, or it can be part of a regionalism, a dialect, or even a creole.

Transformational grammar is the study of how the rules change over time. As with descriptive grammar, it is concerned more with how the speakers of English choose to express themselves rather than how grammar books say they should. The language is fluid, and what was bad grammar yesterday is perfectly acceptable today. We can likewise assume that what is transgressive today by scholarly standards will be perfectly acceptable tomorrow. English moves and has moved from the vernacular to the standard with astonishing rapidity.

Kolln and Funk acknowledge that there are wide differences in style in terms of what is appropriate. There are many constructs that are perfectly acceptable in spoken and/or colloquial English that would not be acceptable in a business letter or a classroom essay. However, this does not mean that informal language is wrong, only that the vocabulary and syntax may vary according to the situation: “What is appropriate or effective in one situation may be completely out of place in another” (Kolln & Funk 10). The distinction is important.

The authors note that the standard formal discourse version of American English is in itself a dialect called “Edited American English” (11). They identify it as a status dialect, in that its appropriateness is related to context and the relative status of the speaker and the audience. In much the same way that a 19th-century master and his slave both spoke widely differing versions of English that denoted their status, so would one use different language in an email to one’s friend or relative and in an email to one’s boss. The fact of the matter is that most English speakers have several status dialects at their command, even if they don’t fully realize the distinction. A given person may have a much different vocabulary, syntax, and grammar when speaking to a child, an equal, or a superior.

The phenomenon of language change is mentioned in this chapter. The authors give several examples of how the 1925 version of English contained several constructs as well as vocabulary that have become archaic. This, of course, has been happening for the entire history of English, but what is interesting is how rapidly it is happening today and how fluid the language is despite its huge population of speakers. English not only borrows heavily from other languages, but it also borrows from itself. Words like “google” (verb) and “smartphone” become part of the language not because anyone says they should, but because one day, they become part of the vernacular. The prescriptivists would say that “google” wasn’t a word until it appeared in the dictionary; the descriptivists would say it became a word long before that.

Kolln and Funk emphasize that English is a world language but that it is not, for that, a single language. Therefore, there is no single “correct” version of English. Someone writing a grammar guide today would find that some of its descriptions would be outdated before the book went to print. Neologisms are constantly being created, and what makes them part of the language is not that they appear in dictionaries but rather, that they “go viral” and suddenly, they are part of the language, without anyone’s conscious volition.

What frees up the study of the “living” English language is the equalization of vernacular, dialect, and regionalisms with whatever “standard” English happens to be. The sentence “We brung them with us” is just as grammatical as its Standard equivalent. This is the difference between Koln and Funk’s work and many, many other grammar books that have preceded it. The question of what English should be is discarded in favor of what it actually is. While dialectical English may be looked down upon by those who don’t speak that dialect, it is as legitimate as the most formal Edited American English. A gaggle of teenagers chattering to each other: “He’s like…” and “Then she’s all, like…” may make an English teacher cringe, but those constructions are perfectly acceptable within the dialect (if we had to give it a name, we might call it Teenspeak), and therefore perfectly acceptable in general. The refusal to regard one form of English as superior to all others greatly aids the scholarship of the language. It also provides an insight into the cultural forces driving the various derivations of the language.

Work Cited

Koln, Martha J. and Robert W. Funk. Understanding English Grammar (9th ed.). New York: Longman, 2002. Print.