The other day I posted a link from our cousins at the UCL Englicious project, together with a response from acclaimed author Michael Rosen. There's inevitably a lot that could be discussed here, and it's probably worth noting that I feel a broad sympathy with both perspectives. Nevertheless, for the moment, I wanted to focus on a particular connection made by Professor Aarts - that between grammar and metaphor. In his original post, Professor Aarts redrafts one of Michael Rosen's critical comments thus:
That all seems fairly sensible to me. What is most striking for present purposes, however, is the actual connection between grammar and metaphor itself, even if only because it taps into something that has been on my own mind of late. Specifically, I don't think any teacher would feel instinctively antipathetic when it comes to teaching metaphor. In fact, I'd wager this is something they think important, and probably a substantial part of the reason they got into English-teaching in the first place. Yet, if you think about it, this readiness is a little odd. After all, metaphors are pretty abstruse things; and you needn't take my word for this: the philosophical record on metaphor makes its own case here. (Please do, however, feel free to take my word that really you don't want to worry too much about Philosophy of Language; it's far less interesting than grammar). And I'd also wager you could say much the same thing about other stuff that we take to be valued parts of a writer's repertoire, such as similes or iambic pentameter or some other rhetorical trope. Yet, I've never come across a teacher who felt hugely antipathetic about the very thought of having to teach such tropes. Indeed, even the word "having" here seems out of place: these are not things that teachers have to teach; they are something teachers want to teach, curriculum be damned.
Turn to grammar, however, and suddenly everything feels different, as if two incompatible worlds were colliding: that of the teacher and that of the grammarian (and if Seinfeld has taught me anything, it's that worlds should never ever collide). This is no doubt for a number of good reasons, both pragmatic and practical; the most prominent of these being a lack of confidence when it comes to grammatical terminology and a lack of perceived relevance to the art of quality speaking and writing. And, of course, grammarians have to hold up their hands here, and acknowledge their own historical role in this antipathy.
For me, however, such an antipathy to grammar is fundamentally about as odd as a teacher's willingness to teach metaphor. Certainly, the former is not necessarily more abstruse than the latter, and there is increasing evidence showing that grammatical development can be just as substantive a part of becoming a good writer (e.g. Myhill, 2011). In other words, I'm not at all sure why grammar couldn't, even shouldn't, be just another part of a teacher's repertoire: something to be approached with the same rationale with which you'd approach metaphors and similes and iambic pentameters; hence, something to be approached with just the same verve and confidence. Of course, there's a lot that needs doing in order to tease out the brass tacks of such an approach; and I see our project as a substantive part of that work. Nevertheless, I'm confident that this is a much more practical question than many might think; a question of "what" grammar to teach and "how" and "when", rather than any "if" or "whether". So, by all means, if rhetorical tropes are the sorts of monsters that keep you awake at night, then you might as well add grammar to the horde; but if not, then you have no more to fear from grammar than you do metaphors...
Original Version: So, if I say, something is a ‘conjunction’ – all that tells us is that it conjoins two things. It doesn’t tell me anything about the resultant meaning or why I would want to conjoin anything.
Revised Version: So, if I say, something is a ‘metaphor’ – all that tells us is that it compares two things. It doesn’t tell me anything about the resultant meaning or why I would want to compare anything.Professor Aarts's own point, if I have it right, is that there is nothing inherently evil or useless about terminology, whether grammatical or otherwise; on the contrary, some sort of reasonably consistent terminology is part-and-parcel of helping children get a purchase on the language they are using. This isn't to claim that such terminology is the be-all and end-all of helping children develop their linguistic skills, of course. After all, being able to define (or even identify) a metaphor won't of itself tell you what a particular metaphorical instance means, or why you might generally want to use a metaphor (or even when; a critical question that is at the heart of our project, and which I'll visit properly when I get the chance). And obviously there is the matter of how you want to introduce particular pieces of terminology with students. But it's surely something you'd want in the mix.
That all seems fairly sensible to me. What is most striking for present purposes, however, is the actual connection between grammar and metaphor itself, even if only because it taps into something that has been on my own mind of late. Specifically, I don't think any teacher would feel instinctively antipathetic when it comes to teaching metaphor. In fact, I'd wager this is something they think important, and probably a substantial part of the reason they got into English-teaching in the first place. Yet, if you think about it, this readiness is a little odd. After all, metaphors are pretty abstruse things; and you needn't take my word for this: the philosophical record on metaphor makes its own case here. (Please do, however, feel free to take my word that really you don't want to worry too much about Philosophy of Language; it's far less interesting than grammar). And I'd also wager you could say much the same thing about other stuff that we take to be valued parts of a writer's repertoire, such as similes or iambic pentameter or some other rhetorical trope. Yet, I've never come across a teacher who felt hugely antipathetic about the very thought of having to teach such tropes. Indeed, even the word "having" here seems out of place: these are not things that teachers have to teach; they are something teachers want to teach, curriculum be damned.
Turn to grammar, however, and suddenly everything feels different, as if two incompatible worlds were colliding: that of the teacher and that of the grammarian (and if Seinfeld has taught me anything, it's that worlds should never ever collide). This is no doubt for a number of good reasons, both pragmatic and practical; the most prominent of these being a lack of confidence when it comes to grammatical terminology and a lack of perceived relevance to the art of quality speaking and writing. And, of course, grammarians have to hold up their hands here, and acknowledge their own historical role in this antipathy.
For me, however, such an antipathy to grammar is fundamentally about as odd as a teacher's willingness to teach metaphor. Certainly, the former is not necessarily more abstruse than the latter, and there is increasing evidence showing that grammatical development can be just as substantive a part of becoming a good writer (e.g. Myhill, 2011). In other words, I'm not at all sure why grammar couldn't, even shouldn't, be just another part of a teacher's repertoire: something to be approached with the same rationale with which you'd approach metaphors and similes and iambic pentameters; hence, something to be approached with just the same verve and confidence. Of course, there's a lot that needs doing in order to tease out the brass tacks of such an approach; and I see our project as a substantive part of that work. Nevertheless, I'm confident that this is a much more practical question than many might think; a question of "what" grammar to teach and "how" and "when", rather than any "if" or "whether". So, by all means, if rhetorical tropes are the sorts of monsters that keep you awake at night, then you might as well add grammar to the horde; but if not, then you have no more to fear from grammar than you do metaphors...
- MB
