Abstract
The chapter sets out to discuss the challenges of teaching formal linguistics to non-native (Romanian) students majoring in English (undergraduate level) at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest. Within an international setting which lays less and less emphasis on formal (grammar) teaching, advocating for a more communicative approach to language learning, one that focuses on language function rather than form, our study argues in favour of the idea that – at least at undergraduate level and for students training to be teachers or translators – a sound familiarization with theoretical concepts and frameworks is a necessity which can make the difference between professionals and amateurs.
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Notes
- 1.
Romania does have a handful of private universities (tuition-based), but these have come into disrepute lately. Unlike with other EU member states, private higher education in Romania is not the norm and definitely less popular than state universities, not necessarily for financial reasons. The sometimes questionable admission policies, non-transparent student assessment methods, lack of trained teachers a.s.o. cast a negative light on these institutions, some of which have been even closed in recent years. Of course there are exceptions, but these are rather the exception to the rule. The differences between private and state higher education and the reasons why the latter has the better reputation do not make, however, the topic of the present paper and would take us too far afield.
- 2.
Of course many children may attend kindergartens which offer daily foreign language training (for one hour, with an in-coming teacher, generally undergraduate students) or whose profile is that of full-time teaching in a foreign-language.
- 3.
For ethnic minorities or bi-lingual schools, there is also a written examination in the(ir) maternal tongue.
- 4.
- 5.
Most of the manuals used are mono-lingual and issued by famous publishing houses such as Longman, Oxford, Cambridge, MacMillan
- 6.
Although I am mostly familiar with the university system, having been involved in EFL teaching for foreign language (under)graduates, I have had first-hand experience with manuals used in elementary schools by being a member in inspection committees, via personal use, as well as by acting as a coordinator of a foreign language teaching center (for adult learners), an initiative of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures within the University of Bucharest.
- 7.
Also, for a sensible approach to this topic and a list of arguments in favour of the re-introduction of Latin, see the link under References which directs you to a comprehensive and well-argumented article on the topic
- 8.
More information about the Olympiad, its aims, requirements, types of subjects and results can be found on the site of the Faculty of Letters, as well as on the official site of the International Olympiad (see References)
- 9.
While this method would be, logistically speaking, hard to adopt by faculties or departments attracting hundreds of candidates each year, it may be more reliable for smaller departments
- 10.
The department is one of the faculty’s oldest; it has functioned under various names and administrative structures ever since the establishment of the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, in the XIXth century. Its lecturers are also responsible for teaching Romanian to foreign Erasmus students who wish to study at the various faculties of the University of Bucharest.
- 11.
For many years, within the Department of German Languages and Literatures, Dutch or Swedish could only be chosen as the A language, unlike German. Dutch is now taught as a major also, but not Swedish. Students generally sit for a written exam; in case they choose a language, they are not at all familiar with (i.e., Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Swedish, Russian, Bulgarian, etc.), they may take an exam in one of the ‘major’ languages (e.g., English, German).
- 12.
More recently, the curriculum has been enriched to cater to students’ growing interests for related cultural spaces and literatures, i.e., Canadian, African, Australian. There is also a master program in Canadian Studies.
- 13.
To quote just a significant paragraph from the official site: Cursurile de lingvistică engleză au un profil distinct în comparație cu alte catedre similare prin componența teoretică și explicativă pe care o cuprind.”/ The English linguistics lectures have a distinct profile as compared to other such departments, due to the theoretical and explanatory approach that they embrace (translation mine)
- 14.
This distinction is reminiscent of Chomsky’s introduction, in 1986, of the distinction between I-language and E-language, though the two dichotomies do not necessarily overlap entirely. I-Language refers to the language in the mind of the speaker/learner, the internal(ized) language, the mental representation of his/her linguistic competence. Hence, it is the object of study for theoretical linguistics. Conversely, E-Language stands for ‘external/externalized’ language and it refers to language which is external to the learner, i.e., not an intrinsic part of his/her mind: actual production, the behavioural linguistic habits of a community, etc.
- 15.
“Indeed, a relatively small number of parameters might underlie the large number of possible human languages. If the parameters are also like chemical elements in that they interact with each other in complex and interesting ways, then the properties of the resulting languages might show striking variation.” (Baker 2002, p. 22)
- 16.
There may be genetic problems or other accidents (see the case of ‘feral children’) that may hinder proper language acquisition, but we do not discuss such cases here. They make the study of specialized branches in the field of language acquisition.
- 17.
This is particularly true for Letters majors. Not having taken an admission exam (or interview), their English proficiency cannot be measured in any consistent way. It is not clear whether they do not know or simply ignore that an advanced level is a pre-requisite, but the fact of the matter is that, on the whole, Letters series have very poor language abilities and are often extremely heterogeneous in this respect, which is a huge problem for them and for the teachers.
- 18.
Not only novice language students seem to have fallen prey to this idea, but many Romanians without a linguistic background, professionals even, who have a shallow command of the language but are nonetheless under the false impression that they do fairly well, precisely because there is so little (grammar) to be learned.
- 19.
The English subjunctive comes to mind. Teaching it may be quite a challenge, as it requires for students to understand that modality and modal systems that characterize all human language have different manifestations from one language (family) to the other. The fact that the English subjunctive mood does not have a (morphological!) face of its own makes it, in my experience, one of the most difficult topics to learn and to teach. To properly master this structure, students must shake the urge to look for verb inflections or mood particles (as in their mother tongue) and analyze instead whole sentences and main clause triggers. They need to acknowledge that what often looks like an innocuous (indicative) past tense may actually be a modal past, i.e., a subjunctive – if the structure so requires (e.g., I wish I had a villa at the sea). Likewise, infinitive forms or ‘bare forms’ can also take on modal meaning, regardless of whether a ‘should’ may be available or not (e.g., the mandative subjunctive or old synthetic subjunctive forms). Without systematic explanations, continuous practice and an understanding of the concept of modality (vs. mood), no amount of peer or group work, debates or discussions will ensure that students have internalized the structure, even though they may be using it correctly.
Interestingly, a similar conclusion is reached in a recent article by Geană (2013). Discussing (via an experimental study on two batches of foreign students) whether the communicational or the grammar approach is best when teaching the Romanian conditional to foreign students, the author concludes that the former is not productive: “Even if most students do not like grammar, no grammar puzzles them. Although not always explicit, they need formalisation (at least of some sort), they need frames to structure any new information they learn” (2013, p.6)
- 20.
The comparative approach poses difficulties for teachers and students alike: while teachers are familiar with the English data regarding a certain linguistic phenomenon, they may not know its manifestations in the other language, regardless of whether they speak (i.e., know) it or not. This means that they have to find relevant bibliography and read it themselves before deciding what is useful and what not, what is to be included in the paper and what not or how well the student(s) have understood the main research claims. This is a rewarding experience, but also wearisome and time-consuming.
- 21.
Most books or manuals which offer an introduction in linguistics often contain a practice section after each chapter, where this type of exercise might be featured (see Adger (2003), Pinker (2000); also Radford (2004), Haegeman (2006), Carnie (2006, Carnie 2013)). For Romanian students who are English majors there is a syntax 1 manual structured in much the same way (i.e., practice section after each chapter), authored by Professor Larisa Avram (2006).
Sentences like the following, from Pinker’s The Language Instinct, are telling examples of such structural ambiguities: “Two cars were reported stolen by the Groverton police yesterday”; „We will sell gasoline to anyone in a glass container”. Students should laugh upon reading these, but they should also explain the source of ambiguity, and this can only be done in linguistic terms. Those who do not ‘get it’ will likely be all the more motivated to understand what lies at stake. Other illustrative examples are (noun) phrases of the type [adjective-noun-noun], like “old car dealer”, “frozen yogurt jar”, etc., where the adjective can modifiy either the first or the second noun. This, again, can only be explained if each meaning corresponds to different structural relations among the words. Finally, the distinction between particles and prepositions in English – a sensitive matter which may remain a mystery even to the advanced learner – can be greatly helped by constituency rules. Students will understand that structures whose make-up is identical do not necessarily rely on the same structural dependencies (e.g., the difference between “pick up some words in English” vs. “pick up some pens from the floor”, “pick up the ladder” vs. “climb up the ladder”, “squeeze in a lie” vs. “squeeze in the closet”, etc.)
References
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Avram, L. (2006). English syntax. The structure of root clauses. Bucureşti: Oscar Print.
Baker, M. C. (2002). The atoms of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Carnie, A. (2013). Syntax. A generative introduction (3rd ed.). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT press.
Chomsky, N. (1995). The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cornilescu, A. (1995). Concepts of modern grammar. A generative perspective. București: Editura Universității din București.
Geană, I. (2013). Teaching the Romanian conditional to students of other languages. In Procedia-social and behavioral sciences by ELSEVIER. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042813001833
Haegeman, L. (2006). Thinking syntactically. A guide to argumentation and analysis. Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
Pinker, S. (2000). The language instinct: How the mind creates language. New York: Perennial Classics.
Radford, A. (2004). Minimalist syntax. Exploring the structure of English. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Swan, M. (1985a). A critical look at the communicative approach (1). ELT Journal, 39(1), 2–12 Available at https://academic.oup.com/eltj/article-abstract/39/1/2/488669/A-critical-look-at-the-Communicative-Approach-1?redirectedFrom=fulltext.
Swan, M. (1985b). A critical look at the communicative approach (2). ELT Journal, 39(2), 76–87 Available at https://academic.oup.com/eltj/article-abstract/39/2/76/443215/A-Critical-look-at-the-Communicative-Approach-2?redirectedFrom=fulltext.
Useful Links:
http://www.edu.ro/index.php/articles/20638; http://www.unibuc.ro/facultati/litere/Olimpiada_Nationala_de_Lingvistica.php; http://www.ioling.org/
http://www.unibuc.ro/depts/limbi/literatura_engleza/index.php:
https://republica.ro/ministerul-care-ne-scoate-limba-limba-latina
htt0ps://www.petitieonline.com/sustin_introducerea_gramaticii_in_licee
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Cotfas, M.A. (2018). On Some of the Challenges of Teaching Formal English Linguistics. In: Grosu-Rădulescu, LM. (eds) Foreign Language Teaching in Romanian Higher Education. Multilingual Education, vol 27. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93329-0_3
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