The first english language faculty the department of english phonetics and phonology

3.2 The Content of Teaching Grammar

Before speaking about the selection of grammar material it is necessary to consider the concept “grammar”, i.e., what it meant by “grammar”.

By grammar one can mean adequate comprehension so correct usage of words in the act of communication, that is, intuitive knowledge of the grammar of the language. It is a set of reflexes enabling a person to communicate with his associates. Such knowledge is acquired by a child in the mother tongue before he goes to schools.
This “grammar” functions without the individual’s awareness of technical nomenclature; in other words, he has no idea of the system of the language, so to use all the word-endings for singular so plural, for tense, so all the other grammar rules without special grammar lessons only due to the abundance of auding so speaking. His young mind grasps the facts so “makes simple grammar rules” for arranging the words to express carious thoughts so feelings. This is true because sometimes little children make mistakes by using a common rule for words to which that rule cannot be applied. For example, a little English child might be heard to say Two mans comed instead of Two men come, because the child is using the plural “s” rule for man to which the rule does not apply, so the past tense ed rule for come which does not obey the ordinary rule for the past tense formation. A little Russian child can say ножов instead of ножей using the case-ending “ов” for ножи to which it does not apply. Such mistakes are corrected as the child grows older so learns more of his language.
By “grammar” we also mean the system of the language, the discovery so description of the nature of language itself. It is not a natural grammar, but a constructed one. There are several constructed grammars: traditional, structural, so transformational grammars. Traditional grammar studies the forms of words (morphology) so how they are put together in sentences (syntax); structural grammar studies structures of various levels of the language (morpheme level) so syntactic level; transformational grammar studies basic structures so transformation rules.
What we need is simplest so shortest grammar that meets the requirements of the school syllabus in foreign languages. This grammar must be simple enough to be grasped so held by any pupil. We cannot say that this problem has been solved.
Since graduates are expected to acquire language proficiency in aural comprehension, speaking so reading grammar material should be selected for the purpose. There exist principles of selecting grammar material both for teaching speaking knowledge (active minimum) so for teaching reading knowledge (passive minimum), the main one is the principle of frequency, i.e., how frequently this or that grammar item occurs. For example, the Present Simple (Indefinite) is frequently used both in conversation so in various texts. Therefore it should be included in the grammar minimum.
For selecting grammar material for reading the principle of polysemia, for instance, is of great importance.
Pupils should be taught to distinguish such grammar items which serve to express different meanings.
For example, -s (es)
The selection of grammar material involves choosing the appropriate kind of linguistic description, i.e., the grammar which constitutes the best base for developing speech habits. Thus the school syllabus reflect a traditional approach to determining grammar material for foreign language teaching, pupils are given sentences patterns or structures, so through these structures they assimilate the English language, acquire grammar mechanisms of speech
The content of grammar teaching is disputable among teachers so methodologists, so there are various approaches to the problem, pupils should, whatever the content of the course, assimilate the ways of fitting words together to form sentences so be able to easily recognize grammar forms so structures while hearing so reading, to reproduce phrases so sentences stored up in their memory so say or write sentences of their own, using grammar items appropriate to the situation.
As was mentioned above one of the functions of words is to denote things, concepts so so on. Users of a language cannot have any knowledge or thought of the objects or phenomena of the real world around them unless this knowledge is ultimately embodied in words which have essentially the same meaning for all speakers of that language. This is the denotational meaning, i.e. that component of the lexical meaning which makes communication possible. There is no doubt that aphysicist knows more about the atom than a singer does, or that an arctic explorer possesses a much deeper knowledge of what arctic ice is like than a man who has never been in the North. Nevertheless they use the words atom, Arctic,etc. so understso each other.
The second component of the lexical meaning is the connotational component, i.e. the emotive charge so the stylistic value of the word.

Words contain an element of emotive evaluation as part of the connotational meaning; e.g. a hoveldenotes ‘a small house or cottage’ so besides implies that it is a miserable dwelling place, dirty, in bad repair so in general unpleasant to live in. When examining synonyms large, big, tremendousso like, love, worshipor words such as girl, girlie; dear, deariewe cannot fail to observe the difference in the emotive charge of the members of these sets. The emotive charge of the words tremendous, worshipso girlieis heavier than that of the words large, likeso girl.This does not depend on the “feeling” of the individual speaker but is true for all speakers of English. The emotive charge varies in different word-classes. In some of them, in interjections, e.g., the emotive element prevails, whereas in conjunctions the emotive charge is as a rule practically non-existent.

The emotive charge is one of the objective semantic features proper to words as linguistic units so forms part of the connotational component of meaning. It should not be confused with emotive implications that the words may acquire in speech. The emotive implication of the word is to a great extent subjective as it greatly depends of the personal experience of the speaker, the mental imagery the word evokes in him. Words seemingly devoid of any emotional element may possess in the case of individual speakers strong emotive implications as may be illustrated, e.g. by the word hospital. What is thought so felt when the word hospitalis used will be different in the case of an architect who built it, the invalid staying there after an operation, or the man living across the road.
Words differ not only in their emotive charge but also in their stylistic reference. Stylistically words can be roughly subdivided into literary, neutral so colloquial layers.
The greater part of the literаrуlayer of Modern English vocabulary are words of general use, possessing no specific stylistic reference so known as neutral words. Against the background of neutral words we can distinguish two major subgroups – stsoard colloquial words so literary or bookish words. This may be best illustrated by comparing words almost identical in their denotational meaning, e. g., ‘parent - father - dad’.In comparison with the word fatherwhich is stylistically neutral, dadstsos out as colloquial so parentis felt as bookish. The stylistic reference of stsoard colloquial words is clearly observed when we compare them with their neutral synonyms, e.g. chum - friend, rot - nonsense, etc. This is also true of literary or bookish words, such as, e.g., to presume (to suppose), to anticipate (to expect)so others.
Literary (bookish) words are not stylistically homogeneous. Besides general-literary (bookish) words, e.g. harmony, calamity, alacrity,etc., we may single out various specific subgroups, namely: 1) terms orscientific words such as, e g., renaissance, genocide, teletype,etc.; 2) poetic words so archaisms such as, e.g., whilome - ‘formerly’, aught - ‘anything’, ere - ‘before’, albeit - ‘although’, fare - ‘walk’, etc., tarry - ‘remain’, nay - ‘no’; 3) barbarisms so foreign words, such as, e.g., bon mot - ‘a clever or witty saying’, apropos, faux pas, bouquet, etc. The colloquial words may be subdivided into:

1. 
   Common colloquial words.
   

1. 
   Slang, i.e. words which are often regarded as a violation of the norms of Stsoard English, e.g. governorfor ‘father’, missusfor ‘wife’, a gagfor ‘a joke’, dottyfor ‘insane’.
   

2. 
   Professionalisms, i.e. words used in narrow groups bound by the same occupation, such as, e.g., labfor ‘laboratory’, abusterfor ‘a bomb’ etc.
   
3. 
   Jargonisms, i.e. words marked by their use within a particular social group so bearing a secret so cryptic character, e.g. a sucker – ‘a person who is easily deceived’, a squiffer– ‘a concertina’.
   
4. 
   Vulgarisms, i.e. coarse words that are not generally used in public, e.g. bloody, hell, damn, shut up,etc.
   
5. 
   Dialectical words, e.g. lass, kirk,etc.
   
6. 
   Colloquial coinages, e.g. newspaperdom, allrightnik,etc.
   

Stylistic reference so emotive charge of words are closely connected so to a certain degree interdependent. As a rule stylistically coloured words, i.e. words belonging to all stylistic layers except the neutral style are observed to possess a considerable emotive charge. That can be proved by comparing stylistically labelled words with their neutral synonyms. The colloquial words daddy, mammyare more emotional than the neutral father, mother;the slang words mum, bobare undoubtedly more expressive than their neutral counterparts silent, shilling,the poetic yonso steedcarry a noticeably heavier emotive charge than their neutral synonyms thereso horse. Words of neutral style, however, may also differ in the degree of emotive charge. We see, e.g., that the words large, big, tremendous,though equally neutral as to their stylistic reference are not identical as far as their emotive charge is concerned.