Abstract English Profile (EP) is an ongoing empirical exploration of learner English initiated by Cambridge University Press and Cambridge English, among others. EP aims to create a set of empirically-based descriptions of language competencies for English. ‘Reference Level Descriptors’ already exist as part of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) but are intuitively derived and not designed for one specific language. The English Grammar Profile (EGP, www.englishprofile.org/english-grammar-profile ) is a sub-project of EP which aims to profile learner competence in grammar. This paper details the rationale for the study and the methodology that was developed to investigate the Cambridge Learner Corpus to arrive at over 1,200 grammatical competence statements. Key findings which link to existing corpus-based second language acquisition work are also presented. 

/pdf/the-english-grammar-profile-of-learner-competence-2kbhsarf.pdf

The English Grammar Profile of learner competence

The syntactic complexities of English sentence structures induced the Indonesian students’ sentence-level accuracies blurred. Reciprocally, the meanings conveyed are left hanging. The readers are increasingly at sixes and sevens. The Sentence Crimes were, therefore, the major essences of diagnosing the students’ sentence-level inaccuracies in this study. This study aimed at diagnosing the 2nd-year PNP ED students’ SCs as the writers of English Paragraph Writing at the Writing II course. Qualitatively, both observation and documentation were the instruments of collecting the data while the 1984 Miles & Huberman’s Model and the 1973 Corder’s Clinical Elicitation were employed to analyse the data as regards the SCs produced by the students. The findings designated that the major sources of the students’ SCs were the subordinating/dependent clauses (noun, adverb, and relative clauses), that-clauses, participle phrases, infinitive phrases, lonely verb phrases, an afterthought, appositive fragments, fused sentences, and comma splices. As a result, the SCs/fragments flopped to communicate complete thoughts because they were grammatically incorrect; lacked a subject, a verb; the independent clauses ran together without properly using punctuation marks, conjunctions or transitions; and two or more independent clauses were purely joined by commas but failed to consider using conjunctions. In conclusion, the success of the Indonesian and or other EFL students constructs sentences rests upon the knowledge, sensitivity and the mastery of complex syntactic structures through transformational/structural grammar.

/pdf/sentence-crimes-blurring-the-boundaries-between-the-sentence-4600soyed3.pdf

‘Sentence Crimes’: Blurring the Boundaries between the Sentence-Level Accuracies and their Meanings Conveyed

The ability to use modal devices appropriately is an area of language learning apparently impervious to naturalistic acquisition by L2 learners (Kasper & Blum‐Kulker, 1993). However, the high frequency of such devices encourages us to believe their meanings are unproblematic and they often remain unanalysed by teachers. One example of this in English is quite. The precise meaning of this word is fuzzy, particularly in British varieties of English, and often creates interpretive difficulties for both native speakers and learners. This paper takes a close look at quite to discover how it is used and understood. To do this it (a) examines published pedagogic materials, (b) investigates reader interpretations of authentic samples, and (c) analyses the practices of experienced writers. The analysis shows that quite is highly context‐sensitive and has an essentially indeterminate epistemic meaning. It can function to express certainty or to convey a tentative and deliberative tone to either a proposition or an ...

‘I don't quite follow’: Making sense of a modifier

This paper investigates an issue that I call the "pedagogic grammarian's dilemma": the choice facing writers of pedagogic grammars between being specific about grammar and risking being wrong, or hedging and risking being vague, as formulated by Henry Widdowson (1997). Using two corpora of grammatical description, it examines how a number of exponents of modality are used to hedge and finds firstly that they are far more common than in ordinary text. More importantly there is a link between the use of such modality and the approach to personality chosen in the grammars: hedging is more common when the more friendly YOU is used to address users than when WE is used; this suggests an interpersonal (as well as epistemic) motivation for the hedging. Overall the response of the grammars studied to the pedagogic grammarian's dilemma is to hedge, in order, it seems, to avoid being prescriptive. 1. Introduction In this paper I want to consider an area that is of great interest to me: the meta-language of pedagogic grammars. By "metalanguage" I understand any kind of language about language (e.g. as defined in Johnson--Johnson 1998), rather than the logician's ideal and distinct system for talking precisely about language. (For a more detailed discussion of the meaning(s) of "metalanguage" see Berry 2005a). I am not so much interested in what such grammars say (the content) as in how they say it (the style), though there is a strong connection between the two. My reasons for studying this field are two-fold. Firstly, I have been engaged personally, in a modest way, in the writing of pedagogic grammars--having written two books in the Collins Cobuild English guides series (Berry 1993, 1997). While doing this I was aware of being subject to a number of constraints that affected what I could say: --space. Publishers do not have endless resources to accommodate their writers' verbosity; even scholarly grammars (which nowadays approach the 2000 page mark) are subject to constraints on space. --learner level and maturity. This involves a number of factors which affect the complexity of concepts that can be presented and the kind of language that can be used in description (including terminology). Swan (1994) discusses such criteria, in particular what he calls "conceptual parsimony". --in-house style. Certain terms and features of style have to be used to conform to that of other publications. In Cobuild publications this meant using terms like "noun group" instead of "noun phrase", and you to address the readers (more on this below). And all this comes before we start to consider the possibility of incomplete knowledge on the part of the writer. These constraints, along with the tensions and resulting trade-offs they impose, are at the root of what I am calling the "pedagogic grammarian's dilemma". I will return to this central issue in Section 3. The second reason is that it seems to me that such writing is a valid object of investigation from a linguistic or discourse analytic point of view. However, it does not seem to have attracted the attention of linguists or discourse analysts so far, perhaps because it is too close to the linguist's bone. It seems to be acceptable to study any genre (e.g. academic writing, political speeches, journalism, and so on) so long as it is not in the linguist's backyard. A rare example is Van Leeuwen's (2004) study of three texts written by linguists (including one he co- wrote) examining political interviews from a critical discourse perspective. When it comes to pedagogic metalanguage, there is another dimension which is more applied in nature, namely the way the readers (teachers and learners) react to the text and to its metalingual features. This is an issue that I have considered elsewhere (Berry 2000, 2004), finding that features such as modality and personality do make a difference and do need to be taken into consideration by grammarians: The style used and the metalingual choices made do have an effect on learners; writers need to consider what form (or forms) of personality to adopt and what effect the use of qualification will have on their readers (2004: 15). …

/pdf/the-pedagogic-grammarian-s-dilemma-modality-and-personality-4rwslf9v00.pdf

The pedagogic grammarian's dilemma: modality and personality in grammatical description

This research aimed to find out kinds of errors in the use of active and passive English causative in writing is made by the sixth-semester Students English Department at the Muhammadiyah University of Makassar. The method of this research was a correlation with the descriptive quantitative method. The instrument of this research was the writing test. This research took population was the sixth-semester students of English Department at Makassar Muhammadiyah University. This research used the random sampling technique. It is the ideal way to take sample objectively. The researcher took 5 to 6 students from each class by lottery. The total samples were 56 students. The result of the study signs students' error in two categories. They were students’ error in using active and passive English causative. The findings indicated 1107 errors in using active English causative, which the most dominant error is misformation with 578 times of appearances or 52.22%. Addition occupied the second place of the most dominant error with 430 times of appearances or 38.85%. Omission took the third place of the most dominant error with 80 times or 7.22%. Misordering occupied the last place of the most dominant errors with 19 times of appearances or 1.71%. While, the error in using passive English causative indicated 1194 error, which misformation is the most dominant error with 575 times of appearances or 48.16%. Addition occupied the second place of the most dominant error with 394 times of appearances or 33.00%. Furthermore, omission took the third place of the most dominant error with 127 times or 10.64%. Misordering occupied the last place of the dominant error with 98 times of appearances or 8.20%. Based on the research, the researcher concluded that students made the most dominant errors is misformation and the students rarely made misordering errors both are in using active English causative or passive English causative.

/pdf/students-writing-error-in-using-english-causative-1di68e4gyu.pdf

Students’ writing error in using english causative

An intermediate ELT grammar reference and practice book which includes examples and explanations of form and usage, units that contrast different structures, revision units, and a 32-page test section.

The Heinemann English Grammar

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The Heinemann English Grammar