Introduction to Teaching Grammer

Grammaticality and Standardness

To understand the answer to the questions of why American teachers should study grammar, it is necessary to understand the meanings of the technical terms used, what grammatical language is and what ungrammatical language is, and what standard language and nonstandard language are. Grammatical language is language that may be produced by and accepted as normal by native speakers.  Ungrammatical language is language that is unlikely to be produced by or accepted as normal by native speakers. Standard Language is language that is deemed appropriate to formal, written, public discourse.  Nonstandard Language is language that is used in discourse situations that are informal, spoken, or limited in scope (family, friends, regional, ethnic group).  A visual depiction of the interrelationships between these divisions of language is presented in Fig. 3.

Figure 3 shows that both standard and nonstandard language are grammatical forms of a language.  That is, native speakers are likely to produce and accept as normal both standard and nonstandard forms of their language.  Nonstandard language is simply deemed inappropriate in certain contexts, namely public contexts, such as public speeches, business meetings, television commentary, and the like; written contexts, such as newspaper articles, magazine articles, or nonfiction books; and formal contexts, such as ceremonies, rituals, and job interviews.  Standard language is what is considered appropriate to these contexts, and it is what is taught in schools as “proper English.”  Nonstandard language, then, is what is often produced by native speakers, and is considered normal, until it has been “unlearned” at school.  A familiar example is the word ain’t.  Many native speakers of English all over the world produce utterances with this word, but at school it is identified as unacceptable, and students are even told it isn’t a word.  A more accurate way to characterize this word, though, is to label it as nonstandard but grammatical.

Fig. 3: Defining the subtypes of language

Activity 1.1: Grammatical or not? Standard or Not?

Use the definitions of Grammatical, Ungrammatical, Standard, and Nonstandard below to determine the status of each sentence in exercise 1.  Write two answers in each blank, one for each question in the title of this exercise.

Grammatical Language: Language that may be produced by and accepted as normal by native speakers

Ungrammatical Language: Language that is unlikely to be produced by or accepted as normal by native speakers

Standard Language: Language that is deemed appropriate to formal, written, public discourse

Nonstandard Language: Language that is used in discourse situations that are informal, spoken, or limited in scope (family, friends, regional, ethnic group)

Exercise 1: Click on the question mark to select whether the sentence is grammatical or ungrammatical and standard or nonstandard.