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AUTHOR,'
PUB 17-VrimiOr I
Toulirsson sr ter rigidDeveloping aild devouring tia arsWar TES12p.; Paper presented at the AnWestern College 'Reading esoclaBeech, Callforwais; Hatch 16-19, 1 78)
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MRS TRIM 11F-SO4-40 1C-$1.61 Plus loststege;-DESCRIP/ORS CospositAot SkilLs (L.iterarry; egErtglist Instruction ;11,8-xpositori Writing ; Eicher Edu&at-ion; Kernel-
Sentencem; Language 'Development; 'I easusesentTetbnieuess ',Sentence Coebining: Sentesce Structure s*S Anti 2: Tekohing Tecindqxsets; *writing -skille
-St uden se abilities LS,eariputatrlost brad Conte 1 ofsyfrtaz ea y be increased. thr,oagi a sequence of instmuctlors invaalliAgthe nee of Isareiegets tensed Vor-Semritence Practica;-,*11 lionsense- Sentences Practice, 1, and ",Syntacti c Pttiter:ling PracticeTte final step in the Anstruction seaguesice is to sake the syntactfce*erc*ses pertinent to students, writing by haying thee a,pp_ly 'Meselessons to t heir s to ideal exp ositery eseig meats . To deter refineiitether or not students have natured in tkeix use of uritter eyntaiseveral te-thods -lay be used: clause kengtlt suboirdlnatton irdlcestypo. of sulondination, and alit lesagth, std.- imdices ofseentence-combining transform-tic:1m. Methods Such as incidence .ofusage errors and length of sentences are not as eaLuable. Tte lostuSefil_ index is leingth of r-ntlit (Minimal lexulneil Unit) Aimee it iseasy to count, simple to use, objective, and demonstrates a clearptogressior toyard_.-maturit in syntactical control. (FL)
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DEVELOPING AND WASURING NATURPSYNTAX
by paarbara Tani 1 riSOn, University of Cal ifornia, Irvine'and Hard a Straehley, Univer'sity of California, Berkeley
The -inEterecrional aim be discussed is thi. paper i the
facilitation of increased coatro , flexibility, and complexity of4
- students' syntax;
exploration
discussion of this aim will be followed by an
uMber of methods{ determining wheber
thh am has been met. Before students a provided with exercises
to develop their syntactic, control, it is advisable
an awareness of the knowledge of syntax implicit in their use of
language. The teacher then may capitalioe on a basis linguistic
them to gain
skill that IS learned implicitly as laagUage is learned; if students
gain cootcimusneas of their use of this skill they realize that
intentional control syntactic patterning further refines a skill
that otherwi se remains at a less effective, subliminal level. This
initial instructional approach is based on:Chommicy's designation
between,"performance and "compet " in linguistic skills
(Choinsky, 1965); specifically, the introductory devices to be
delineated employ students' basic competence levels in order to
develop their performance levels. The diectepancy between an
ability to recognize and understand correct: syntax
and:Us/her inability to employ maiure syntax c be made useful.
As students extend conscious control of their competence they are
able to develop increased facility with syntactic 'patterns in the
written perfOrMance.. A
Presgu ex izt_tmt Age ible filinIner to, Notivete liadts
Students may achieve-imariedinprovement in vocabuleri, and in
oiganliational'and i batorical tec iques, but still employ only an
elementary level of syntax. The consequence
of fluidity and. complexity of students' ezp
relational subordination and mcidification
of this is the impediment
on. The subtle inter-
80 made po Bible by --
mature syntactic patterns are d to students who caziwield Only
simple arraftgements. Students often acknowledge this sense of
limitation in talking bout their writing; the possibility of
increased-facility in the communication of. difficult ideas serves
self-motivation
selves with practicer
A presentation
'rude
Yntax.
have to
to elicit students' as; fausss
begin to involV. them-
Sentence Practice" serves
t syntactic knowledge. When
presented with a ce,disorgsnized into an a-syntactic pattern
in the following, tudents note the crucial infl6ence that syntax
exerts in
threw and pieces crowd the all shouted of wine whistling up the then
ring bull
ordering words` into sensible relationships: Ex. 1) "time
and keeping bottles into bread down liether cush=ions the."
It is common for students to attribute "meaning "" or --e ntle'value
°nil), to the lexicon of a sentence, since they can define easily the
words in the sentence. As tudenti grapple to make sense of a dis-
ordered sentence they recognize that the syntactic order is as
significant to meaning as the individual words, and in fact is
tial to semantic value. After students twee attempted to re-.
order the words themselves into a mesn --ful order, proQide them the
corrected version of the non-sentence: "Keeping up whistling, the
crowd shouted all the time, enethrew pieces of bread down into the
-ffishions ant leather vine bottles "" In our Tine,
Zoreinforce syntactic :understanding and to aid the transfer
impliclt knowledge into explicit practice, exercise termed
"Nonsense - Sentences Practice "" is useful. In this exercise,
observe the direct inverse of the previous exercise this practice
offers sentences with correct syntax, but without _recognizable Words:
Ex. 2) "Tomas brillig, and the sllthy toves/Did gyre and gimble in the
Thejabberwock.. e whiffling through the tulgey voodt And
burbled as it came" ("Jabberwocky," Lewis Carroll). The syntactic
pattern i.s emphasized by the employment n_ ease words. Students
recognize that they can decipher more __caning", tore 'interchange
d relational interaction, from these nonsense words than from the
disordered sentence of easily recognizable words in Ex. 1. The
further advantage of this exercise is that students can le grammar,
and practice recognizing parts of speech, more effectively than
ordinary sentences. They recognize the subject and predication, the
modifying phrases and cfauses,,,theAubordination of sentence elements,
being forced to address only the grammatical relationships without
nouns, verb acting as rkera to guide them; thus increased
ivity to purely grammatical interchange and syntactic patte
is reinforced readying stud
patterning.
Trai
actual ,practice iu syntactic
of Competence into Performance:
A brief session co
tactic_Patertini
-tactic rearrangement provides the initial
g
step into syntactic patterning. The same nonsense-sentence demonstrates
how the syntactic units can be shifted and rearranged: Ex. 3) :13urbling
as it the Jabbe through the lulgey wood."
Students may experiment with them own nonsense-sentences by writing
and rearranging them. Lest Skeptical instructors feel that this ex-
erogee is somewhat whimsical or ontlandith, it is useful to remether
that. when students encounter new words in thei_ reading, or attempt
to employ unfami.liar vocabulary intheir writing, they experience a
situation very similar to this encoanter with nonsense-sentences,
"Syntactic Patterning Practice" is one of the develdpmental ex-
ercis that should be emphasized 4 instruction 'After being presented
word definitions, examples, and recognition-practice of,the,four kinds
of sentence (detailed explanations of phrases and clauses
ial ), students will begin syntactic transformations. The
should first provide an example of, and
0%.sentence, or syntactic unit:
E. 4: The storm brewed ominously
Then add a prepositional uni
Exr 5: The storm brewed ominous
Then add modification.
Ex. 6: Throughout the night/desert.
is assent-
instructor
ask them to write, a kernel
y over the desert.
he storm brewed ominously /over the
Then add a second independent clause:
Then
Ex. 7: Throughout the night the storm brewed ominously over thethe desert/and concerned inhabitiants began to evacuate
the area:\
add a subordinate clause:
Students
St Throughout the night the storm brewed ominously over thedesert; the concerned inhabitants began to evacuate thearea when hurricane warnings were broadcast.
should repeat thin transformational sequence beginning with
a new kernel unit each time until tb gain facility in adding syn-
lexibility in rea-
d Secombin S ud nts St istic Develofinent
The final application necessary to make syntactic exercises
pertinent to students ' regular writing activities is to have them
apply these lessons to their standard expository assignments. At this
stage they should employ their omn syntactic pattern_ ( ;t may be
advisable to provide an exemplary sequence of sentences that can be
recombined and embedded. See Sentence Combining, W. Strong, 1973
for numerous examples.) Students should attempt to combine and
arrange the synta c units .within, sentend s for more subtle and fluid
ordering of ideas; further, series of shorter, broken sentences should
be embedded and recombined into more complex syntactic arrangeMents.
By employing their own past written work as a basis for syntactic
-exercises, studentstransfer their previous practice-with syntactic
patterning to their own,styl)ti performance, thus effecting direct
development in their on Ling effort.
Indices of Ma :turity in Written Syntah
The authors feel that this sequence of exercises presents aped=
ogically sound method for encouraging maturity of written syntax. Some
tors nay desire to evaluate changes in their students' syntact-
le performance; others may desire to explore information on the devel-
opment of'written syntax further. This portion Of the paper is de-
voted an exploration of methods for determining whether or not
students- have "matured" in their use of written syntax. Methods
`include these which relate to bringing grammatical usage under control,
those which relate to increasin
those which explore extent. -d type
orasentence-comblaing traamforattions.
usage Errors as Index
tactic subdivisions,
nation, and those based
Umagwepors are a traditibnal but invalid method s of determining
.yrktac _-urity. First, there i a large subjective component on
any determination of what is to be cOasidered-Scceptable usage (pool-fi
y, 1974), so that classification becomes rather arbitrary. In add-a.
ition, students developing their writing ski s are cons aatly,bring-
ing new, pOtential sources of flexibilitk Co,
structures. It is possible that a low rate of
is syntactic
rs reveals
failure to incorporate new, more mature syntactic ategies. high
rate may accompany new syntactic experiments which will cult in in-
creases syntactic control. The total language compete' in the
student's repertoire may riot be revealed by his performance at any
particular tine; many stude when waked to "reread and edit" papers
d will correct thosei errors;for sentence and/or usage errors,
fi
the students are not increasing their competence, but their performance.
Clause Length _as an Index
Another traditional measure easing increasing comple
and maturity of language use is mean nuns er of words per clause. Re-
cent research indicates that clause length can be used as a easbre
of growth, but that the lengthening odours with "glacial slowness" in
the early grades (Hunt, 1979. Harrell. 1957). Nevertheless, as stud-
ents move through the grades they do write longer clauses (Hunt, 1965,
1970; O'Donnell. 1968; O'Donnell et al,' 1967, from their data computed
by Hunt).
Extent --d T a of Subo- nation a% Indic-
Exploring extent and type of subordination as indices for syatac
is maturity is based on the rationale that change43 aocu due to the
development,of ability to think in a different and more mature tanner
about the relation* between veil() concepts being considered,--as.well
[
as due to the deveopment cE ability to control syntactic strucfurd
Subordination allow the writer to explore more complex propositions
with a more coherent ization. Hunt (1965) proposes a ratio of
al clauses (subordinate. and mein) to main clauses as a measure of
extent of subordination.- This and other subordination counts have
shown distinct increasesvith4tareasa in grada,levelIDautertan,
1970; Frognst
O'Donnell, at al,
also changed over
333 Harrell, 1957; LaBrant, 1933; McCarthy, 1946;
1967). The proportion of each type of subordination
time, with an increase in number of noun, adject-
Dial, and adverbial claUses (Harrell, 1957; Hunt, 1965; 1970; laBrant,
1933).)
dentence length as an Index
Sehtence length as ari indek of maturi while apparently use-
'ful, suffers form issues both of definition and of application.
searchers h e not always defined sentences by the same "rules"
(O'Donnell, Griffin, 6 Norris, 1967). Hunt's definition of "whatever
the write puts between a capital letter and,a period or other terminal
Mark" solves this lefinitional problem, but leaves open the question
of how to deal with dipcourse abounding w11 sentence fragments, such
as that of fourth grade students who tend to run together, what would
,otherwise Be considered many sentences without puriCtuation and oftn
even without coordination. Because of these problems, the tendency
for sentences to lengthen over the grades is obscured; the most im-,
nature writers- who fail to recognize and co ol.basic syntactic
divisionb, will receive the 4ghest score on this index of maturity
S
The rationale for, use of mean number of sentence- shining trans-
formations is based onithecirles of tranaformational gramme . Braun
and Klassep (1973) measured syntactic maturity by a method "essentially
Of reversing the ,normal generation cf a sentence... (and Vigatifying)
the frequency and complexity of transformations employed in producing
a sentence.. p. 315). The use of sentence-combining transformations
does increase over time, but Hunt,(1970) notes that it is not just the
increase in use of, sentence-combining constructions which characterizes
older writers, it s also the use of a wider variety of such trans-
formations.
T-Unit Length as n Index
The T-unit, a nickname for "Aiinimal Terminal Unit", was defined
by Hunt as "one main clause plus any subordinate clause or non-claus
structure that Is attached to or embedded in it...c_-utti,ng a passage
into T-unics will t7 e cutting it into the shortest units which it is
grammatically allowable to punctuate as sentences. In this sense,
)it is minimal and terminable" (Hunt, 1970, p. 4). He feels that IL
unit length is better than single indices such as average length of
main clauses or i crease in number of subordinate clauses, becalise it
"preserves all the subordination achieved by the student, and all his
coordination between words and phrases and subordinate clauses," but
devalues the coordination between clauses which makes fourth grade
icing immature. Hunt also reports that there was co ete agreetent
of identification of T-units "so long es the judges were. confronted
Al well-formed sentences either declarative or interrog tive." A
large number of studies using, T-unit length have verified 1.ts
ability to show evidence of maturation-{Braun IClassen, 1973('Brya_
1971; Dauterman, 1970; Hunt; 1965; O'Donnell et IL 1967). We must con-.
clude with O'Donnell at al that T-unit length i. ndeed. a i valid
indicator of development of. Syntactic contrOL-':
SUMMARY
This paper has attempted to provide a sequence instruction
which may result in increasing students' abilities in aanipula-
tion and control or syntax. It has also attempted to provide an over-
view of methods which may enable the instructor to determine the
effects can student writingof instruction in syntactic flexibility./-
Evidence from this review implies that a number of measures may pro
vide clues about the maturation in con col of written syntax: clause
length, subordination indices, type .of subordination and unit length,
indices of sentence-combining transformations. Other methods,
such as incidence of .usage errors and -length of sentences, are _ot as
valuable. Certainly the index presently most useful to the teacher
assessing change and maturation in written syntax is length of T-unit
since it is easy to eount, simple tb use, objective, and 'demo rates
a clear progression 'toward maturity'in syntactical, control.
fi
10
REFERENCES
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Oxford. University Press, 1975.lied linguistics London:
Braun, C. and B. Klassen, A transfromational amilySis of written tarntactic.structures of children representing various ethno-linguisticcomMunities. Research in the'Teaching of Eh fish, 1973, 7. 312323.
Bryant, T.L.L. Language achievement of fifth, eighth and eleventh gradestudents as determined by ana analysis of written compositions.(Doctoral dissertation, North. Texas State University, 1970)`.:Dissertation Abstracts e ational, 1971, 3'1, 5024A.(Order No,71-8664)-
Chomsky, N. pacts of the theory of syntax. Cambridge: 1.T. Press
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Frogner, E. Problems 'of:Sentence structure in pupil's themes. EnglishJournal, 1933,,22, 742749.
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