the changing profession

SaysWho? Teachingand Questioning theRules of Grammar

ANNE CURZAN

ANNE CURZAN is associate professor of

English at the University of Michigan, Ann

Arbor, where she also holds an appoint-ment in the School of Education. Herprimary research areas include historyof the English language, language andgender, lexicography, and pedagogy.

[PMLA

ONE WINTER MORNING, THE STUDENT SCANNING CARDS AT THE

FRONT DESK OF THE UNIVERSITY GYM NOTICED THE "FACULTY" LABEL

on mine and asked which department I was in. I replied that I teachin English. A middle-aged man who checked in behind me chasedme down the hall. When he caught me, he exclaimed with frustra-tion, "English, eh? Well, could you please get students to stop us-ing plural pronouns when they need singular ones? Everyone-they,someone-they. It's just terrible English."

A few weeks after the gym incident, an esteemed senior col-league stopped me in the hallway. She said, "One of my students hadthis footnote in her paper about using 'they' as a singular genericpronoun, and it said that you said that students could do this andreference you." She then said with a look that combined disbelief andsomething close to horror, "You don't really say that, do you?"

In fact, I do. I tell students they may choose not to follow theprescriptive usage rule that forbids treating they as singular as longas they demonstrate audience awareness in explicitly recognizingtheir choice if need be (hence the footnote). I tell students a lot ofother "heretical" things about grammar too. I do so because I believethat students, like all speakers of English, have the right to knowwhere the prescriptive rules of written Standard English come from.I also believe that all speakers have the right to make informed deci-sions about when those rules are appropriate for their writing.

Both the man at the gym and my colleague probably think thatI am abandoning my job as an English teacher. English departmentsare, after all, one of the centers of "language authority," where theprescriptions in usage books and style guides are enforced, if notwritten. As an English teacher, I am, at least in name, one of the"language mavens" that the linguist Steven Pinker writes about-thatloose network of language authorities who, in theory, steer this shipwe call the English language. What kind of English teacher am I tocontradict the prescriptions oflanguage authorities like William Sa-fire and encourage the inclusion of impertinent grammar footnotes?

[ © 2009 BY THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION 01" AMJ::!RICA 1

124·3 1

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LA 124.3 1 AnneCurzan 871

I will argue that we abandon our job as tend to believe Truss, a self-proclaimed non- ..•::r

English teachers if we do not ask students to specialist, over someone like me, a linguist who (1)

1'\question how they are expected to write in specializes in English grammar? I fear that lin- ::r

CIschool and other institutions. We must simul- guists have not effectively made the case to En- ::l

taneously teach the prescriptive grammatical glish teachers. To paraphrase John McWhorter,(/\l

:Irules and empower students to think criti- if I weren't a linguist, I might not believe me (/\l

cally about them. It is intellectually dishonest either (7). But we must fundamentally rethink'0

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and pedagogically irresponsible to pretend how we teach grammar in the writing class- ..•.t1l

that written Standard English is above ques- room. We and our students should not accept '"'"tion-to put it on a pedestal and leave it there "Because" as an appropriate answer if a student Q

THE ::lunchallenged and largely unexamined. We asks, "Why do I have to write this way?" We

ABEL say to our students, "Question everything. must have a better explanation for them.

:each Except Standard English." That is not fair or

lased in keeping with the kind of critical pedagogyDefining Grammar

.stra- that most of us espouse .

p us- An important caveat: In making this Native speakers of any language "know gram-

.they, argument, I am not arguing that we should mar " in the sense that linguists use the term.not teach students Standard English and the Descriptive grammar describes what speak-

r col- prescriptive usage rules of formal, edited ers actually do-the rules we follow to ere-

shad academic prose. Students are often judged ate coherent, well-formed utterances. As

.neric by their control of Standard English and of English speakers, we know to put articles be-

sand specific usage conventions, particularly in fore nouns, and we know that some singular

efand their writing, and we have a responsibility to nouns can be modified by an indefinite articlegive them access to these grammatical and (a book) while others cannot (*a stuff). In En-

·w thestylistic rules. I am saying that it is unfair to glish we can grammatically say none of them is

s longencourage our students to critically question or none of them are, even if some usage guideseverything except the very conventions in object to the subject-verb agreement in the lat-

iizingwhich they are asked to write. ter; but we would not say "none of them am in

lot ofielieve

This piece considers what happens when any variety of American English. These are all

knowwe apply to usage rules and stylistic conven- descriptive rules of English grammar, rarely

: from.tions the same kinds of critical questioning captured in usage guides because this knowl-that we encourage with other topics. For ex- edge is considered too basic and rarely trips

:l deci- ample, who first said that two negatives make a up speakers or writers. In sum, descriptiver

positive (in language) or that he can function as grammatical rules capture the grammatical"ik that a generic? And why have people believed such knowledge that allows speakers to communi-tments claims? What happens if we open this door and cate systematically and meaningfully.ere the let students question the status of Standard En- When most teachers of English refer to, if not glish and logic of prescriptive rules? grammar, however, they mean prescriptive: of the In making this argument, I am battling grammar or usage rules-often includingIt-that popular usage books such as Lynne Truss's run- punctuation. Prescriptive grammar refers tolis ship away best-seller Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The the rules in most grammar or usage booksam I to Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, which that tell writers (and speakers) what theyiam Sa- confidently assert that some kinds of English should and should not do. It is about languageitnotes? are better and some constructions we might etiquette ("table manners," as some linguists

naturally say or write are wrong. Why do read- put it), and more often than not it's what weers, including those in English departments, . shouldn't do: don't split infinitives, don't end

-

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Says Who? Teaching and Questioning the Rules of Grammar

sentences in prepositions, don't use doublenegation, don't use between you and I. As thisbrief list makes clear, prescriptive rules coverboth Standard English grammatical struc-tures (e.g., how to express negation) and styleissues or how to write "good, effective En-glish" rather than simply Standard English(e.g., where to put a preposition).' For thisreason, we could use the cover term points ofusage to talk about the prescriptive rules ofwritten English typically enforced in writingclassrooms, because some of these points arenot really about grammar at all.

Prescriptive rule making tends to fo-cus on points of variation in the language,whether they arise from differences in dialector expressive style or from language change.There is little variation in how American dia-lects use articles, and so articles are not cen-tral in English usage guides. However, somenonstandard dialects of American Englishuse "me and _" constructions as subjects,and in the face of this variation, usage guidesprescribe the "_ and I" subject constructionfound in Standard English. Prescriptive rulesabout the "correct" use of the auxiliary verbdo have not been canonized because this con-struction is currently stable in English; usageguides do, however, focus on the "correct" useof can and may because can is expanding itsterritory in present-day English, well into therealm of permission.

The contested use of singular they, high-lighted in the opening anecdotes, provides auseful example of both kinds of grammaticalrules. Current usage manuals typically tellwriters that with a singular generic anteced-ent such as anyone or a student, they shoulduse he or she, avoid any pronoun, or recast thestatement in the plural. Until the 1980s, usageguides generally prescribed he, but there isnow consensus that generic he is sexist. That isthe prescriptive perspective. Despite it, mostspeakers of American English use singularthey (see Newman), including many speakerswho preach against the construction. In con-

[PMLA

versation, most speakers of American Englishwould not notice, let alone object to, singularthey in the utterance "If a student fails the fi-nal exam, they must retake the course." Thatis the descriptive perspective.

This contrast between written usagerules and spoken usage should lead all speak-ers, including students, to the question, Whosaid we can't write they? In this case, thereis a concrete answer: Lindley Murray. At theend of the eighteenth century, Murray, in hisbest-selling English Grammar, took a sentencewith a singular generic they, labeled it an er-ror, and replaced they with he. Subsequentprescriptive grammarians accepted this judg-ment as a rule for correct or good English foralmost two centuries. For several centuriesbefore Murray's grammar, speakers and writ-ers had been using singular generic they, andthey have continued to do so ever since, de-spite the usage guides.'

Why do we as speakers let people likeMurray tell us our use of language is wrong,in writing if not sometimes also in speech?Pinker writes that saying language users' spo-ken grammar is wrong is like telling a whalethat it has the whale song wrong (370). And"wrong" has come to encompass everythingfrom typos to nonstandard grammaticalforms to ineffective style.

Usage rules for formal written Englishoften presuppose the concept of Standard En-glish. Standard English is a slippery term, andmuch ink has been spilled trying to pin downa definition. One common fallback answer issomething like "Walter Cronkite's English"or "BBC English." Or not the English spokenin the South or in New York City.

Standard English, despite the pedestal onwhich we put it (to create an awkwardly for-mal but prescriptively correct construction),is one dialect among many-not the sourceof all the others. It is a dialect that has beenelevated to the standard for social and politi-cal reasons, not because it is grammaticallymore logical or better.

124.3

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Written Standard English can be easier toidentify than spoken Standard English, whichallows more variation, from accent to syntaxto lexicon. Written Standard English is the va-riety generally used in education, bureaucraticpublications, reference works, newspapers (ex-cept perhaps sports sections), and other formaldocuments. The written standard is the focusof most educational efforts and high-stakestesting, and it does change, but more slowlythan the spoken language. Usage rules oftenfunction as a gatekeeper, slowing the entryof new forms into written Standard English.Some usage rules preserve older forms of spo-ken English in writing. But some usage ruleshave never corresponded particularly well tothe spoken language. We should discuss thesefacts with students as we teach usage rules.

The Stakes

When it comes to language, the stakes arehigh. Language, as J. L. Austin reminds us,is how we do things. Language creates andmaintains our communities. Through lan-guage, we assert our identities. And we judgeothers on language.

Aks for ask? "Ignorant" (people say).Ain't? "Lazy." Double negatives? "Sloppy." I,along with all my linguist colleagues, will as-sert with full confidence that there is noth-ing grammatically wrong, in the descriptivesense, with these constructions. But peoplewho make these responses are not judging theconstructions-they are judging the speakerswho use them.'

In fact, aks predates ask in the historyof English and used to be a literary form.Shouldn't used to be as condemned as ain't.Chaucer used double negatives (as well as axefor ask). How does it happen that we con-demn speakers who use these forms now asignorant, while holding the same forms up asliterary in earlier periods?

Some will argue that language is more ofa choice than other aspects of identity. Yes and

Anne Curzan

no. We can choose to acquire new languagesor language varieties, which we can masterwith differing levels of competence, often de-pending at least in part on how old we are. Butour home language will always be part of ourcognition and, arguably, part of who we are.We grow up speaking the way those in ourhome community speak. For some Englishspeakers, that language is close to StandardEnglish. For others, it is not. For all speak-ers, the home language carries meaning andpower in that community. The linguist Ge-neva Smitherman reminds us, "See, when youlambast the home language that kids bringto school, you ain just dissin dern, you talk-ing about they mommas!" (99). For all speak-ers, the written English they are expected toproduce at school is stylistically, if not gram-matically, different from what they speak. Noone should feel they have to give up what theybring to school in order to acquire a new set ofgrammatical rules.' 111eteaching of grammarand usage conventions should follow an addi-tive model-an expansion of students' reper-toires-rather than a replacement model.

Says Who?

Whether they feel they know grammar ornot, English teachers are supposed to upholdprescriptive rules of English usage. Most En-glish teachers rely on the "they" who writeusage guides and dictionaries to tell themwhat these rules are. Teachers may not knowexactly who "they" are, but they tend to be-lieve them anyway. After all, we have a longtradition of prescriptive grammarians tellingus that our habits in the spoken language arewrong and should not be written down, sowhy stop believing them now?

Most English teachers also know onlysome of the many prescriptive usage rules outthere. The enforcement of prescriptive gram-mar is a haphazard enterprise. Everyone haspet peeves (I certainly do) and catches theviolations of the prescriptive rules they know.

874 SaysWho?Teachingand Questioningthe Rulesof Grammar [PMLA 124.3

!: Few if any know all the constructions that of hopefully. It is justified by analogy to the hopefu0III "they" have said are wrong or unacceptable. unexceptionable uses of many other adverbs, are pre'"ill For example, a good number of English as in Mercifully, the play was brief TIle wide prefere.•..0 teachers might circle hopefully as unaccept- acceptance of the usage reflects popular rec- ions abloQ. ognition of its usefulness; there is no preciseable in the following sentence in a formal pa- individOJ) substitute. Someone who says Hopefully, thee per: "Hopefully, the peace talks will lead to DoM a resolution of the year-long conflict." Some

treaty will be ratified makes a hopeful pre-have toc diction about the fate of the treaty, whereasII: English teachers would undoubtedly catch the front mJ: someone who says I hope (or We hope or It is

\J split infinitive in this sentence: "The diacrit-ill hoped) the treaty will be ratified expresses a DictionJ: ics used to formally capture pronunciation in bald statement about what is desired. Only the.•..

dictionaries are different than those used in latter could be continued with a clause such ThEthe International Phonetic Alphabet." Prob- as but it isn't likely .• Even though the usage aca

ably fewer English teachers would identify a is well established, critics appear to have be- disj

problem with grow in this sentence: "Hyundai come more adamant in their opposition. Only En!

must grow its business in the United States to 34 percent of the Panel accepted the usage of 18t

survive." And how many of you caught differ- hopefully in our 1999 survey, down from 44 est,

ent than, used instead of different from, in thepercent in 1969. Bycontrast, 82 percent in the inn1999 survey accepted the comparable use of gro

second sentence? Some teachers feel strongly mercifully as a sentence adverb. Thus it is not ity Iabout the prescriptive rule that dictates differ- the use of sentence adverbs per se that bothers absent from. So how many of these constructions the Panel; rather, the specific use of hopefully ma.are really errors and by whose definition? in this way has become a shibboleth. usa

To begin with hopefully, prescriptive programmarians assert that it is wrong to use In other words, prescriptivists are clampinghopefully as a sentence adverb-to use it to down on hopefully, making it a shibboleth But dOE

mean "it is hoped" or "I1we hope." Of course, between the highly and less educated. If this tionarispeakers of American English use hopefully censure seems based largely on personal pref- ing a glthis way all the time. And other sentence erences, that's because it is. standaradverbs, such as mercifully or frankly, are ac- Who is this Usage Panel? It is part of the A closeceptable. In the middle of the twentieth cen- "they" that writers and English teachers rely revealstury, however, grammarians latched on to on to tell us what we should and should not do. questiothis relatively new use of hopefully as wrong, The panel consists of more than two hundred referen

because of its ambiguity; and they have had well-known writers, critics, and scholars. The betwee

striking success with English teachers, al- front pages of The American Heritage College and "is

though not with English as it is spoken. Dictionary provide a list of their names. It in- NoThe usage note in The American Heritage eludes writers such as Sherman Alexie, Max- "they" I

College Dictionary on hopefully is illuminating ine Hong Kingston, Annie Dillard, Calvin English

about the who and how behind usage rules: Trillin, and Pat Conroy; Harold Bloom and glish isHenry Louis Gates, [r., are on the list; David A stane

hope-ful-ly (hopfo-Ie) adv. 1. In a hopeful Sedaris and Garrison Keillor have a say on us- comrnumanner. 2. UsageProblem It is to be hoped. age, as do Nina Totenberg, Robert Reich, and useful,

USAGE NOTE Writers who use hopefully as a Antonin Scalia. And as of fall 2006, so do 1.5 standar

sentence adverb, as in Hopefully, the measures Eighty percent of the panel, reject grow a sharer

will be adopted, should be aware that the us- as a transitive verb, as in "grow its business." I been ellage is unacceptable to many critics, including myself have fully accepted grow as a transitive rect th.a large majority of the Usage Panel. But it is verb; it would never occur to me to call atten- being anot easy to explain why critics dislike this use tion to it in a paper. I would, however, circle dard Er

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124·3 1

hopefully. The critical point is that not onlyare prescriptions sometimes about personalpreferences but our awareness of-and opin-ions about-the prescriptions can be highlyindividual as well.

Do speakers of English or English teachershave to believe or follow the Usage Panel? Thefront matter of The American Heritage CollegeDictionary provides this important reminder:

TIle Usage Panel should not be thought of as anacademy empowered to rule on all questions ofdisputed usage. That is an expedient that theEnglish-speaking world has rejected since the18th century, and in a world where English isestablished as the language of a heterogeneousinternational community, the idea that anygroup or individual might arrogate the author-ity to fix standards seems not only illiberal butabsurd .... Ultimately, readers will want tomake up their own minds about each of suchusage issues, but the opinions of the Panel mayprovide a useful point of reference. (xii)

But does anyone read the front matter of dic-tionaries? Do people really believe that giv-ing a group the authority to create languagestandards is not only illiberal but also absurd?A close look at the usage note for hopefullyreveals a fairly descriptive approach to thequestion. But many if not most users of thisreference book probably do not distinguishbetween "is unacceptable to many critics"and "is unacceptable."

None of this critical questioning of the"they" behind usage rules of written StandardEnglish is meant to imply that Standard En-glish is not valuable and should not be taught.A standard variety of a language facilitatescommunication across dialects and provides auseful written medium for publications. Likestandard weights or measurements, it providesa shared form. However, Standard English hasbeen elevated to the status of being more cor-rect than anything else rather than simplybeing a shared standard. As a result, nonstan-dard English becomes substandard, illogical,

Anne Curzan

sloppy, wrong. But it ain't so. I will make thatcase by debunking three myths about Stan-dard English and prescriptive grammar.

First myth: language change involvesthe corruption of the language, and prescrip-tive rules will stop that corruption. All livinglanguages change, and change is not decay-although older speakers often like to blameyounger speakers for it. Prescriptive rulessometimes condemn a new construction:hopefully as a sentence adverb, impact as averb, or anxious to mean "eager." Over time,some of these prescriptions will be abandonedand forgotten, much like Jonathan Swift'seighteenth-century concerns about the vul-garity of the relatively new words mob andbubble. Standard English, like all living lan-guages, is changing. This fact, combined withour own often arbitrary knowledge of usagerules, should make all English teachers waryof "zero-tolerance" policies about grammati-cal "errors/" Not that I do not (generally) fol-low prescriptive rules when Iwrite academicarticles or make notes on my students' papers.But Idon't have a zero-tolerance policy. I cir-cle questionable constructions, adding a clari-fying note or question, rather than cross themout-which sends a very different message: itis not about the absolute replacement of oneconstruction with another but about makinggrammatical and stylistic choices. I also ac-knowledge for students my own "hypocritical"position, as someone who is fundamentallyinterested in language change but whose job itis to ensure that they control the written con-ventions of Standard English and prescriptiveusage rules in their writing if they choose todo so. In my experience, this position makescomplete sense to students. So I note wherethey are breaking prescriptive rules, but I amcareful about the words right and wrong.

Second myth: prescriptive grammar al-ways makes sense. Some prescriptive conven-tions can usefully clarify ambiguity, but someare relics. For example, English speakers hadbeen splitting infinitives for hundreds of

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876 Says Who? Teaching and Questioning the Rules of Grammar [PMLA 124.3 1

c years before nineteenth-century grammar- form does not clearly correspond to the forms reflexive'0<1\ ians latched onto this feature as an imperfec- that, with not, make up the contraction (am, bination I<1\~ tion in English. Why? The origins of this rule is, are, has, have, and in some dialects does, and self(n.•..0 are not completely known. It may be linked to do, and did). However, one could make a Standard.10CL

the historical privileging of Latin grammar. similar point about won't. Ain't also fills a gapOIl cation of tc While English is clearly not Latin, parts of in Standard English. In Standard English, irregular.OIl English prescriptive grammar are still based speakers accept aren't I? as grammatical. How eluding AcIII on Latin. In Latin, infinitives are one word in the world is aren't I? more grammatical- rule (poss.cIJ and therefore cannot be split. But full infini- or logical, for that matter-than ain't ]?7 througho~.c tives in English are two words, and users of Multiple negatives used to be standard in hisself/her ..•..

English continue to happily split them (as I most varieties of English-as they are in many The interrdid right there). The rule may also reflect the other languages, such as Spanish and French. surpassescanonization of an idiosyncratic preference by Multiple negatives appear in Beowulf and the 'Ihe qisome grammarians. In 1998, in a progressive works of Chaucer. In the early modern period, himself orlinguistic move, the Oxford American Desk some varieties of English, including the variety cal in diffDictionary rescinded its prohibition against that became Standard English, came to favor meaningfsplit infinitives. Eleven years later, those who constructions with single negation, but many effective i:don't notice split infinitives probably still varieties continued to employ multiple nega- Standard 1don't notice them, and those who dislike split tion. The grammarian Robert Lowth, in his more effecinfinitives probably continue to circle them Short Introduction to English Grammar (1763), ters. Kn01no matter what Oxford says. insisted that double negatives cancel each dents to u:

Third myth: Standard English is better other, as they do in some mathematical opera- choice, withan other varieties of English. Standard En- tions (139). Of course, this is absurd: no one pose in miglish certainly has higher social status. Writ- would interpret "I can't give you no money" as The faten Standard English has a more extensive a speaker's willingness to fork over cash. But scriptive l

formal vocabulary and set of stylistic conven- the notion that double negatives are illogical and wronftions, given its use in formal writing, includ- and therefore wrong slowly took hold. There of gramming academic writing. But Standard English is nothing grammatically wrong with double everyone iis not structurally better than other varieties negatives. In fact, some language comrnenta- works, anof English. Nonstandard varieties are not il- tors even lamented their loss. Fitzedward Hall this fact (logical or any less rule-governed, in the de- includes the following quotation in Modern tions abouscriptive sense, than Standard English. Three English (1873): "[Ilf we examine the history of age conveiexamples usefully demonstrate this point: the language, we perceive, that, since the date while beinain't, multiple negatives, and hisself. of the authorized translation of the Bible,- appropriat

The use of ain't is condemned as igno- the finest example of English,-the alterations tive gramrant, uneducated, and worse. Why is ain't that have taken place have been, generally, power to Fconsidered so much worse than, say, don't or for the worse. The double negative has been process. Ifcan't? The word first appeared at the end of abandoned, to the great injury of strength of and diversthe seventeenth century as an't, a contracted expression" (qtd. in Bailey 241). Most English talk aboutform of am not and are not. In 1781 John teachers, not to mention most speakers of En- as any oth.Witherspoon condemned a list of "vulgar glish I know, are surprised to hear the loss ofabbreviations," including "an't, can't, han't, this condemned form lamented.don't, should'nt, would'nt, could'nt, &c." (qtd. The reflexive pronoun hisself usefully A Modest I

in "Ain't"). Over time, most of these contrac- illustrates how nonstandard varieties are So now a Itions have redeemed themselves, but not ain't. as rule-governed in the descriptive sense as this argunAin't may have been so criticized because its Standard English. In Standard English, most Our classrc

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1 2 4 ·3 1

reflexive pronouns are formed by the com-bination of a possessive personal pronounand self (myself, yourself, ourselves). However,Standard English is inconsistent in the appli-cation of this rule: himself and themselves areirregular. In some nonstandard varieties, in-cluding African American English, the samerule (possessive pronoun + self) is followedthroughout the paradigm: myself, yourself,hisselflherself, ourselves, yourselves, theirselves.The internal logic of the nonstandard systemsurpasses that of the standard system.

The question, then, should not be whetherhimself or hisself is right. Both are grammati-cal in different dialects of English. Both aremeaningful, and both can be appropriate andeffective in different contexts. Himself is theStandard English form, and as such it will bemore effective in most formal written regis-ters. Knowing this information allows stu-dents to use Standard English as an informedchoice, with a particular audience and pur-pose in mind.

The fact that Standard English and pre-scriptive usage rules are not as easy as rightand wrong is exactly what makes the teachingof grammar and usage interesting. Almosteveryone is interested in how their languageworks, and English teachers do not exploitthis fact enough. If we open up conversa-tions about "who says," students learn the us-age conventions of written Standard Englishwhile being given the tools to challenge themappropriately. Standard English and prescrip-tive grammar are about who has the socialpower to prescribe and who is silenced in theprocess. If we want to talk about social justiceand diversity in our classrooms, we need totalk about language. It is as pressing an issueas any other we could possibly address.

A Modest Pedagogical Proposal

So now a proposal for moving forward fromthis argument to produce better learning inour classrooms. This proposal aims to erier-

AnneCurzan

gize the teaching of grammar (in the prescrip-tive and descriptive senses)-to transform itfrom behavior modification to engaged learn-ing, not only about language but about every-thing else that gets wrapped up in attitudestoward language.

The proposal: Teachers need to educatethemselves about the fundamentals of lan-guage and open up genuine conversationin their classes about prescriptive usagerules and grammar more generally.

It is not acceptable for English teachersto remain uninformed about the conven-tions of written Standard English that theyare enforcing. Teachers should know aboutresources such as descriptive grammar books(e.g., Biber et al.) and dictionaries of usage(e.g., Merriam- Webster's Dictionary of EnglishUsage), which provide the kind of informa-tion described in the grammatical examplesabove. Teachers should also know about poli-cies such as NCTE's "Students' Right to TheirOwn Language" and CCCC's position paper"The National Language Policy."

Grammar is not, and should not ever beframed as, a "Because I say so" subject. Teach-ers in composition and literature classroomsoften state that they want to address issues ofpower and social justice as part of discussionsof literature, writing, and culture. Languagemay work as well as or better than any othertopic to put those issues on the table. Whosays what is correct? Who gets discriminatedagainst? Why do we all acquiesce in such de-cisions? These questions require teachers toacknowledge explicitly their own position inthis hierarchy, and when they do, they openup a space for genuine conversation aboutlanguage rules and choices.

This conversation could take many forms.A discussion of literature could explore howstandard and nonstandard dialects (includingeye-dialect spellings) are used to type charac-ters. A discussion of usage in a compositionclass could become exploratory as students

877

c:e

Says Who? Teaching and Questioning the Rules of Grammar

weigh reasons for adhering to-or breaking-a given written convention, from the techni-calities of punctuation to including hopefullyas a sentence adverb to exploiting the expres-sive power of ain't in written prose. Studentscould be encouraged not simply to refer to abook like Eats, Shoots and Leaves as a guidebut to examine critically the social and moraljudgments that are attached to "incorrect"punctuation usage in it. Or an instructorcould write on a student paper "Come talkto me about this construction" rather thancrossing it out as an error,"

As a result of these conversations, stu-dents can be empowered to make gram-matical as well as rhetorical choices. Thereis a fear that if we open up Standard Englishand usage rules to questioning, students willsuddenly abandon the whole enterprise oflearning them. This seems unlikely. First,students understand what is at stake in theirmastering Standard English and written us-age conventions; they understand the gate-keeping function of this knowledge. Second,students are willing to master arbitrary rules.Consider the games that they enjoy. In theend, students are more likely to resist whengrammar or usage rules that contradict theireveryday experience with language are pre-sented as natural, logical, unquestionable,and inherently better than what they alreadyknow. Instructors who approach languagequestions descriptively and critically allowstudents to engage with language intellectu-ally and personally-as they must for lastinglearning. It is more intellectually honest andpedagogically effective to talk critically aboutwhat the grammatical cliche "sounds better"means in different contexts, from interactionswith friends to job interviews, from informale-mail to formal academic papers.

In asking students to question everything,teachers understand that students will not im-mediately overthrow power structures simplyby becoming more aware of how they work.We hope that they will be more informed citi-

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zens, striving for social justice. Language isno different. In public debates about language,we need more informed citizens, who do notcondemn nonstandard American dialects asbroken English, who understand that studentsdo not need to erase their home languages tolearn Standard English, spoken or written.We need citizens who understand that it is notfair to judge someone as inferior because theyspeak differently or break a prescriptive usagerule. To achieve this, we need teachers whoare willing to think differently about what itmeans to teach English grammar.

English teachers have a responsibility tofoster systematic, informed, and reflectiveknowledge about the English language. Oneplace to start is to encourage critical inquiryabout the rules of language, descriptive andprescriptive, so that students understand whatis at stake in the choices that they make. Weshould encourage our students and ourselvesto ask at every language turn, Says who?

NOTES1. Sidney Greenbaum usefully differentiates "correct"

English and prescriptive grammar from "good" English andeffective style: "Correct English is conformity to the normsof the standard language. Good English is good use of theresources available in the language. In that sense we can usea non-standard dialect well and we can use the standardlanguage badly. By good English we may mean languageused effectively or aesthetically: language that conveysclearly and appropriately what is intended and languagethat is pleasing to the listener or reader. ... By good Englishwe may also mean language used ethically" (17-18).

2. Ann Bodine's groundbreaking article is an excel-lent discussion of the early prescription on singular ge-neric pronoun use. For more on the history of genericpronoun use, see Curzan, Gender Shifts, and Balhorn.

3. Rosina Lippi-Green argues that discriminationbased on language is so common and so accepted that itshould be seen as the "last back door to discrimination"(73). Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee similarly as-sert that "usage rules are the conventions of written En-glish that allow Americans to discriminate against oneanother" (283). Arguing that language is the "last" backdoor to discrimination, as Lippi-Green does) may op t i-

124.3

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mistically overestimate the extent to which other doorsto discrimination have been closed.

4. Throughout this article, I employ singular genericthey for the reasons explained above.

5. There are several other linguists on the panel, and Ihope that our perspective helpfully counterbalances someof the more prescriptive perspectives that may guide thevoting of other members. That said, even as a descriptivelyminded linguist, I am put in a difficult position when Iam asked to decide, yes or no, if a particular constructionis acceptable. While Imay deem a new construction ac-ceptable, I sometimes know that the majority of my col-leagues do not-and may deem it incorrect in student orprofessional writing. My tendency in such a case is still tochoose acceptable, since the Usage Panel ruling may helpmy colleagues accept the change in the language.

6. Typos and other mistakes that result from the lackof proofreading can be relatively easily distinguishedfrom grammatical and stylistic issues.

7. Students should ask why writers can insert ain't intootherwise standard prose for emphasis without being con-demned. Many prescriptive rules are far from absolute,and stylistic choices can override grammatical proscrip-tions. These are exactly the conversations we should behaving openly with our students in writing classrooms.

8. For more discussion about opening up questions oflanguage authority in the classroom, see Curzan, "Lexi-cography" and "Teaching."

WORKS CITED

"Ain't." Merriam- Webster's Dictionary of English Usage.1994 ed. Print.

'Ihe American Heritage College Dictionary. 4th ed. 2002.Print.

Bailey, Richard W. Images of English. Ann Arbor: U ofMichigan P, 1991. Print.

Anne Curzan

Balhorn, Mark. "The Rise of Epicene They." Journal o(EII-glish Linguistics 32.4 (2004): 79-104. Print.

Biber, Douglas, et al. Longman Grammar of Spoken andWritten English. Harlow: Pearson, 1999. Print.

Bodine, Ann. "Androcentrism in Prescriptive Grammar:Singular TIley, Sex-Indefinite He and He or She." Lan-guage in Society 4.2 (1975): 129-46. Print.

Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetoricsfor Contemporary Students. 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn,1999. Print.

Curza n, Anne. Gender Shifts in the History of English.Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. Print.

--. "Lexicography and Questions of Authority in theCollege Classroom." Dictionaries 21 (2000): 90-99.Print.

--. "Teaching the Politics of Standard English." Jour-nal of English Linguistics 30.4 (2002): 339-52. Print.

Greenbaum, Sidney. Oxford English Grammar. London:Oxford UP, 1996. Print.

Lippi-Green, Rosina. English with an Accellt: Language,Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States.London: Routledge, 1997. Print.

Lowth, Robert. A Short Introduction to English Gram-mar, with Critical Notes. London: A. Millar, R. and J.Dodsley, 1763. Print.

McWhorter, John. Word 0/1 the Street: Debunking theMyth of a "Pure" Standard English. Cambridge: Per-seus, 1998. Print.

Newman, Michael. Epicene Pronouns: TIle Linguistics of aPrescriptive Problem. New York: Garland, 1997. Print.

Pinker, Steven. TIle Language Instinct. New York: Mor-row, 1994. Print.

Smitherman, Geneva. "Ebonies, King, and Oakland:Some Folk Don't Believe Fat Meat Is Greasy." Journalof English Linguistics 26.2 (1998): 97-107. Print.

Truss, Lynne. Eats, Shoots and Leaves: A Zero ToleranceApproach to Punctuation. New York: Gotham, 2003.Print.

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