Teach Secondary 13.8

DICTIONARY DEEP DIVE Join David Voisin on a rich, and sometimes surprising journey through the points at which literacy, language and vocabulary intersect... SAME ROOT, DIFFERENTWORDS PARDON MY FRENCH Pay a visit to your local supermarket and you may come across a few items with a French name. Starting with dairy, ‘ fromage frais ’ literally means ‘fresh cheese’, while ‘ crème fraîche ’ features the feminine form of the same adjective. ‘ Crème de la crème ’, which is used to describe an elite group, is based on the same word. Ironically, in haute cuisine circles, Michelin-starred chefs may substitute the term ‘custard’ for the more chic appellation ‘ an Anglaise ’ – which is short for ‘ crème anglaise ’, the French for custard. When French words are adopted in English they can take on a more specific meaning. In French, ‘ gateau ’ and ‘ bonbon ’ are both generic terms. LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS What is grammar? Perhaps we should ask, what is it not ? Many see grammar as an arcane discipline, the preserve of privately educated people well-versed in the classics. If you’re not among that group, however, I have good news – you’re already an expert in English grammar. In fact, virtually every native speaker wil be. People assume grammar rules concern recondite terminologies, but they conflate prescriptive grammar and descriptive grammar . ‘Descriptive’ is the term used by linguists when observing how people use language, and in this sense, as Steven Pinker puts it, “ The lunatics are running the asylum! ” There are some set rules, though. James Forsyth has observed that adjectives before nouns follow a strict sequence: opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose. There are some famous infractions of this rule – ‘big, bad wolf’ – but these usually adhere to other rules (of a phonological nature, in that particular case). Grammar rules go beyond standard English. ‘Gonna’, for example, may be short for ‘going to’, but no fluent English speaker would ever say ‘ He’s gonna the cinema ’. Linguists of the Chomskian school argue we’re genetically programmed to internalise grammatical structures, acquiring most grammar orally and naturally, long before formal schooling. TEACHING TIP: WORD VARIATIONS According to the American writer, George Saunders, writing requires “Thousands of tiny adjustments, hundreds of drafts.” The process of redrafting does indeed make demands of both syntactic flexibility and lexical wealth. There’s one particular activity that’s beneficial for both. Ask pupils to draw a four-column table with the following headings: ‘noun’, ‘verb’, ‘adjective’ and ‘adverb’. The goal then is to fill each column with one or more entries starting with a particular word. For instance, starting with the noun ‘construction’, students can enter ‘ construct ’, ‘ constructive ’, ‘ constructively ’ and so on. There will be many possible variations for them to choose from, which could entail synonyms, antonyms and alternative affixes ( deconstruct / reconstruct ). Depending on the choice of word, manoeuvring across columns may require a change of lexical root. The noun ‘hand’, for instance, may trigger the adjective ‘ handy’ but also ‘ manual ’. The same goes for ‘back’ (N), from which comes ‘ dorsal ’ (Adj), ‘ beautiful’ (Adj) / ‘ embellish ’ (V), ‘ easy ’ (Adj) / ‘ facilitate ’ (V), etc. This can be a great way of exploring word depth, morphology, semantic fields and grammar. David Voisin is a head of MFL The Pan th eon was a building dedicated to ‘all the gods’ in the poly th eistic Roman era An a th eist does not believe in any god A th eologian studies religion(s); a th eocracy is a formof government where a deity is the supreme ruler 17 teachwire.net/secondary