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The English Patient: English grammar and teaching in the twentieth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2005

RICHARD HUDSON  and
JOHN WALMSLEY
RICHARD HUDSON
Affiliation:
University College London
JOHN WALMSLEY
Affiliation:
University of Bielefeld
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Abstract

In the first half of the twentieth century, English grammar disappeared from the curriculum of most schools in England, but since the 1960s it has gradually been reconceptualised, under the influence of linguistics, and now once again has a central place in the official curriculum. Our aim is not only to document these changes, but also to explain them. We suggest that the decline of grammar in schools was linked to a similar gap in English universities, where there was virtually no serious research or teaching on English grammar. Conversely, the upsurge of academic research since the 1960s has provided a healthy foundation for school-level work and has prevented a simple return to old-fashioned grammar-teaching now that grammar is once again fashionable. We argue that linguists should be more aware of the links between their research and the school curriculum.

Type
Notes and Discussion
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , November 2005 , pp. 593 - 622
Copyright
2005 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

The first part of the article's title refers to a film, popular around the turn of the millennium, whose plot turns on the identity of a wounded combatant who turns out to be less English than his speech suggested. We argue that the fate of grammar-teaching has been linked to the crisis of identity through which the subject called ‘English’ has passed during the last hundred years. We should like to thank Andrew Philp, Ron Carter and Janet White, as well as two anonymous JL referees, for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.