Conceptions of Language and Grammargeneral, which tends to think of itself as scientific. We include a chapter on
Usage in Book II.
Exercise
Many people think of dictionaries as the final arbiters of usage issues,
particularly regarding words. Read the front matter (i.e., all the text
before the list of words) of your dictionary and find out how its editors
view usage issues. Then look up some words whose usage is controver-
sial, such as hopefully as a sentence adverb, e.g., Hopefully, a solution
will be found for the problems in the Middle East; unique as a gradable
adjective, e.g., His writing style is very unique; demagogue as a verb,
e.g., He demagogued his way into the White House; and lifestyle to
mean culture, e.g., The San people of Southwest Africa enjoy a hunt-
er/gatherer lifestyle. How does your dictionary treat these controver-
sies? Is the treatment consistent with the editors’ front matter claims?
When was your dictionary published? Do you think that the publication
date might have an effect on these controversies? Our Usage chapter
explores these issues in more detail.
NOTE: For a fascinating story about the OED, you might read Simon
Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity,
and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. For an excellent his-
tory of the development of the dictionary see Winchester’s The Mean-
ing of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary.
the roles of the english teacher.
Standard English
We recognize that teachers are caught between apparently irreconcilable
forces. They must ensure that their students master the forms of English
that are regarded as acceptable, correct, educated, and expected in formal
communication, i.e., as standard. However, educational linguistic research
demonstrates that students will not learn the conventions of standard Eng-
lish unless teachers respect their native ethnic, regional, and social varieties.
So how might this impasse be resolved?
First, we must know what is and what is not currently acceptable. Sec-
ond, we must have a framework of concepts and terminology that will allow
us to understand and teach about language. Third, we should adopt the be-