规范英语语法课程描述(2010)

1、规范英语语法课程描述（2010）Normative English GrammarCourse Description (2010)By TIAN Bing (revised 2011.04.28)Normative English Grammar is a course specially designed for undergraduates in English Education at Shaanxi Normal University. It is, in other words, oriented for future English teachers in high school

2、 or primary school in China. It is pedagogical in nature, bearing in mind the needs and difficulties of Chinese learners of English as a foreign or second language. English grammar has long been investigated. Various grammatical theories have been proposed to describe the nature, the components, the

3、 structure, the working mechanism, or the functions of the grammar of the English language. Transformational- Generative Grammar, Case Grammar, Systemic-Functional Grammar, Lexical- Functional Grammar are among the best-known ones. These grammars have contributed much to our better understanding of

4、human languages, English included. They are, nevertheless, mostly not directly related to the teaching of grammar in school in that they are not practice-oriented in nature. The grammar taught in school is a pedagogical one and a practical one, which is more likely to be, as is called, the tradition

5、al grammar. A pedagogical grammar for practical use should be normative in nature. By normative it is meant that the description of the grammar of a language should tell a student what is correct or wrong when s/he is confused with the use of a word, a phrase, or a structure in a certain context. In

6、 other words, a normative grammar is more synonymous with a prescriptive grammar in formulating grammatical rules, i.e. giving simple and definite answers to clarify word usage rather than pursuing a more comprehensive and detailed depicting of how a word is differently used by different people in m

7、inutely different contexts. A normative grammar does not presume a denial of the findings of the linguistic studies in a descriptive approach to grammar, especially the quantitative description of the English language available since the mid 1980s because of the rapid development of corpus linguisti

8、cs. Corpus linguistic studies have also helped us to see more clearly the grammatical differences between the different varies of the English language, such as British English and American English, and the grammatical differences between spoken English and written English. A normative grammar should

9、 not deny the findings of pragmatics. A word or a sentence comes to be alive only when it is put in a particular context. How does a context make a word alive? How can a student use a word in a foreign language more appropriately? There is no other choice but contextualizing it for him/her to learn

10、even when there is usually no way to create an authentic situation in real life in most of the cases. A normative grammar should not separate a grammar book with a dictionary. A grammar usually aims to find and present the common or universal patterns in language use, i.e. the rules governing how a

11、class or sub-class of words should be used. A dictionary, on the other hand, makes every effort to portrait the idiosyncratic features of the grammar of a word or an expression. As Wang Zongyan says, after learning the basics of the grammar of a language, a foreign language student should more often

12、 come to a dictionary to examine and master the individual features of words one by one. A normative grammar for pedagogical purposes should also be production-oriented. In other words, a student should learn the grammar rather than learn about the grammar. The grammatical knowledge should be intern

13、alized and become implicit in language use. The only way for grammatical internalization to occur is by means of practice to speak and write in English. Grammar can only be acquired in the practice of listening, speaking, reading, writing, and translating, especially in speaking and writing, i.e. in

14、 production. The materials for this course of English Grammar mainly come from the grammar books and linguistic works published since 2000 by British or American publishing houses. Another important source for such a course on internet is from the Internet the ever-increasing resource of valuable tr

15、easures for grammar studies and grammar teaching. The major topics for the course presently provided in this course are as follows. Part I An Introduction to English Grammar 1 Top 24 Grammatical Terms That We Should Know2 Eight PARTS of SPEECH 3 Basic Sentence Structures 4 Grammar and the different

16、grammars we have today Part II Basic Syntax and Sentence Combining 5 Introduction to Sentence Combining 6 Sentence Combining: Three Essays for Exercising 7 Coordinating Words, Phrases, and Clauses 8 CONJUNCTIONS 9 Subordination One: Building & Combining Sentences 10 Subordination Two: Sentence Combining With Adjecti Part III English Verb and Its Properties 11 Verb: An Introduction13 Progressive aspect: past, present, and future 16 Subjunctive Mood 17 Modality 19 (A) infinitive 19 (B) infinitive 19 (C) infinitive 21 Ving 22 (A) Ved 22 (B) Ved