Word of the Year: "They"!

If you hadn't noticed, the American Dialect Society released their annual Word of the Year on January 8th. This year's winner was the singular "they".

I'm excited about this. The singular pronoun "he" used to refer to a single person of any gender has been out of favor for a long time. It belongs to a more gender biased era. Since then, writers and speakers alike have had to employ the clunky "he or she" pronoun pair or try to do things like alternate masculine and feminine pronouns. Too much mental gymnastics. Oh the perils of a language without a non-gendered third person pronoun appropriate for humans! Enter singular "they".

Singular "they" has long been used in common speech to refer to a single person when gender is either unknown or unspecified. Prescriptivist grammarians, however, have long stuck up their noses at the use of singular "they" in any form, but especially in writing. I know I have often simply advised students to use plural subjects as often possible, thereby avoiding both the wrath of overly prescriptive readers or hearers and the awkward "he or she" constructions. Could that time be coming to and end?

Will the American Dialect Society making singular "they" the Word of the Year suddenly lead to a widespread shift in opinion about singular "they". Absolutely not. Language change (and acceptance thereof) doesn't happen that quickly. The prescriptivist tradition will continue to maintain the status quo for the foreseeable future and perhaps beyond. Nevertheless, I can at least hope that this might accelerate the shift so that we can all enjoy the wonders of singular "they" in all areas of life.

Grammatical nit-picking

See this photo and others at The Huffington Post.

I was conversing with a young professional in academia a few days ago. The topic related to and English program, no less. A question was asked; by whom, I do not recall. Out came a wonderfully grammatically "incorrect" phrase:

"I'll try and find out..."

For those of you who may not see the problem. The "correct" form should be, "I'll try to find out..." Think about it: Was the speaker going to try something and find out something? No. The speaker was going to make an attempt to do something: try to do. Yet the try and form is quite widespread, and few notice it when used in conversation. Therein lies the problem which leads to the topic of this post: Does focus on "correct" grammar during assessment disadvantage English language learners (ELLs).

Of course grammar is a necessary component of language assessment, and I have called a "grammar nazi" more times than I can count. Nevertheless, one must keep in mind that "correct" grammar is not always a matter of rules but of conventions. That is, English includes many grammatical conventions that do not precisely correspond to rules. Often these are referred to as exceptions. Or in this case, what native speakers say and understand in actual practice is different from what is considered "correct".

Take double negatives as an example: "I don't want to pay no taxes."  Today we would say this is grammatically incorrect. Yet in English's distant past it was acceptable. Yet even today, despite the a fact that the grammar and the semantics reveal a logical contradiction, people use this type of structure, and no one misunderstands the intent.

Does any one misunderstand this grammatical error? From smartphowned.com.

Why then do we penalize ELLs for the same errors?

I've seen speaking assessment rubrics that have grammar components such as "near native-like use of grammar" paired in the same grade band with "virtually error-free usage". So which is it? Are ELLs to be assessed based on native-like speech, which is commonly filled with grammatical inconsistencies? Or should ELLs be assessed based on grammatical precision, a standard to which we rarely hold native speakers?

What are your thoughts about grammar and assessment for ELLs?

When language professionals don't know the grammar

How well do language professionals know and understand grammar? How well could we perform what we expect of our students? I've often chafed under the grammatical accuracy criteria given to assess oral English ability. How many of you have seen criteria that, if strictly enforced, even native, educated English speakers would be penalized?

Now what if even the professionals don't know the grammar they're supposed to teach?

In the article  Cutting to the Common Core: Decoding Complex Text, Rebecca Blum-Martínez attempts to demonstrate differing language complexity by breaking down the grammar in two texts. Unfortunately, I believe she has not done this decoding well. Below I will show the examples texts, quote Blum-Martínez's explanation (in red) and then provide my take.

In this first example, we can see two compound sentences joined by the conjunction “and.” All three sentences are in the simple past tense, and the only more “complex” tense is the “would read” in the conditional past. (Blum-Martínez)

Here's what I see: The first sentence is not a compound sentence; it is a simple sentence with a compound predicate, no different in essence from "John ate and drank". The second sentence is likewise a simple sentence with a compound predicate, but the "complex" would read should probably also be simply read so as to maintain parallelism. Of course, if a compound sentence is desired, the first and second sentences could be joined by replacing the period with a comma; it is generally poor practice to begin a sentence with but unless it is being used for emphasis.

As in the previous example, there are three sentences. However, the third sentence consists of two clauses, with each clause containing several phrases that provide us with additional information (lexical density). In the first sentences [sic], the adjective phrase “less than a year” provides us with information about the length of Lincoln’s education, and thus adds to the sense of time in this “past tense” paragraph. ...And we find two different uses of “so.” In the first usage, “so” functions as an additional adverb that adds the scarcity of paper to that of books. In the second usage, “so” functions as a linking adverbial of result or inference that signals that the second unit, “he could use it again,” is the result of the former, “cleaned the board.” Thus, “so” changes its meaning because its function has changed. (Blum-Martínez)

Here's what I see: In the first sentence, I'm not sure that the whole phrase less than a year is an adjective clause as I believe a year to be an object (head noun) in this case. However, I'm not positive about that. The last sentence does, indeed, consist of two clauses, but perhaps not as in the way Blum-Martínez thinks. If she means that and separates two clauses, she would be wrong. In fact, the second so (which is really so that) is a subordinate conjunction that connects the first clause " He worked... and cleaned...knife" with the second clause "he could use it again." If I am not mistaken, in order for so to be a linking abverb(ial), is would have to take the meaning of therefore.

This should highlight a very significant problem: language professionals who themselves do not know "correct" forms. How can we teach what we ourselves do not know?

In any case, Blum-Martínez and I cannot both be correct, though we might both be wrong. Do you see problems that I've missed or mistakes that I've made?