Toward an Understanding of Language: Charles Carpenter Fries in Perspective

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TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF LANGUAGE

AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE General Editor E.F. KONRAD KOERNER (University of Ottawa)

Series IV - CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY

Advisory Editorial Board Henning Andersen (Copenhagen); Raimo Anttila (Los Angeles) Thomas V.Gamkrelidze (Tbilisi); Hans-Heinrich Lieb (Berlin) J.Peter Maher (Chicago); Ernst Pulgram (Ann Arbor, Mich.) E.Wyn Roberts (Vancouver, B.C.); Danny Steinberg (Tokyo)

Volume 40 Peter Howard Fries (ed.) Toward an Understanding of Language Charles C. Fries in Perspective

TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF LANGUAGE CHARLES CARPENTER FRIES IN PERSPECTIVE

Edited by

PETER HOWARD FRIES in collaboration with NANCY M. FRIES

JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY Amsterdam/Philadelphia 1985

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Toward an understanding of language. (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series IV, Current issues in linguistic theory, ISSN 0304-0763; v. 40) Bibliography 1. Fries, Charles Carpenter, 1887- — Criticism and interpretation. 2. Linguistics. 3. English language-Study and teaching. I. Fries, Peter Howard. II. Fries, Nancy M. III. Series. P85.F73T68 1985 410'.92'4 85-9168 ISBN 90-272-3534-1 (alk. paper) © Copyright 1985 - John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher.

TO AGNES C. FRIES and In Memoriam Raven I. McDavid, Jr. and William D. Page

1887-1967

PREFACE

In these days of looking back to one's roots, it seems only fitting that a book be dedicated to evaluating the work of Charles C. Fries. He was a major figure in American linguistics and language education during the first half of the twentieth century, and the one hundredth anniversary of his birth will take place in 1987. Like most people with ideas and energy, he was controversial. Some people regarded him as the founder of a brand new school of linguistics. In 1966 the University of Michigan awarded him a medal as one of the 150 most outstanding alumni. On the other hand, Jacques Barzun (1961:241) called him "the man who engineered the demise of English grammar in the American schools." Marckwardt (1964:1) took a more measured view when he said ...Charles Fries stood head and shoulders above his colleagues simply because in the course of a fruitful academic life he had three or four first-rate ideas, which is three or four more than fall to the lot of many of us. What is more, he has had the vitality and persistence to see to it that these ideas have had a powerful impact upon the profession, These two aspects of work, theoretical innovation and practical implementation, were certainly important threads which ran throughout Charles Fries' work. If one looks at his interest in practical implementation, one sees that he devoted considerable time to the organizational aspects of

viii

PREFACE

the language education of his time. He served on numerous committees and commissions of organizations such as the American Council of Learned Societies, the Linguistic Society of America, the Modern Language Association, and the National Council of Teachers of English. Many of these commissions and committees developed policy statements concerning language education in the United States. He was president of the Linguistic Society of America and the National Council of Teachers of English, and first vice-president of the Modern Language Association. Charles Fries consistently attempted to create a climate which encouraged development. His energetic support was one factor which led to the reestablishment of the Linguistic Society summer institutes. In the belief that people who held a Ph.D. degree would contribute more to the summer L.S.A. institutes than they received, he also helped establish the policy that they did not need to pay tuition or fees to attend those institutes. He persuaded the administration of the University of Michigan to allow students to receive Ph.D. degrees from Michigan using credits taken only during the summer terms of the years that Michigan hosted the summer institutes of the L.S.A. His argument was that the strongest linguistics faculty were on campus during the summers of those years. Charles Fries was seriously interested in the application of linguistic theory to practical problems. Gomes de Matos has described Charles Fries as the originator of applied linguistics, on the grounds that he quite consciously attempted to apply constructs derived from theoretical linguistics to language learning and learning to read. But this description captures only part of his approach, for he believed that the attempt to deal with practical problems was a vital part of developing

PREFACE

ix

linguistic theory. Clearly, the development of a useful theory was one of Fries' main interests. Historical accounts of the earlier years of this century often refer to Bloomfield, Sapir, and Fries as the main developers of the structural approach of the time. Surprisingly, one of the best accounts of the history of the linguistic theory of that time, Hymes and Fought (1975), does not discuss Fries' work, though some of his work is quoted. Fought, in conversation, said that two reasons accounted for this omission: First, Fries did not seem to fit into the general pattern of linguistic theory that they were describing, and second, they ran out of time as they were writing their work. Indeed one must be sympathetic with their view that his work did not fit the general pattern of linguistic theory of the times. Superficially, one can see this in the fact that during a period which has the reputation of focussing on phonology while ignoring grammar and meaning, Fries spent most of his effort exploring grammar as a tool for communicating meaning. On a deeper level, Fries' signals approach to grammar was significantly different from the approaches of younger men such as Harris, Bloch, Trager, and Smith, men who are now regarded as the center of the structural approach of the time. (See Fries 1983 for further discussion of this point.) In light of this paradoxical position, it seemed useful to examine and evaluate the views of Charles Fries, who, on the one hand, was quite influential in the development of linguistics in the United States, and yet, in some ways remained outside the mainstream of the linguistics he helped to develop. We therefore asked our authors to take some aspect of Charles Fries' work and to present it and evaluate it. They were also encouraged to bring the field

x

PREFACE

up to date, and show how similar ideas are being used today. Since the chapters were written by different authors, it is only natural that the views of C.C. Fries' work presented in the various chapters are not totally consistent. No attempt has been made to present an 'authorized' version of C.C. Fries' views, although Peter Fries did attempt to bring relevant passages from Fries' work to the attention of various authors. Sometimes these suggestions were accepted, and sometimes not. Acceptance of those suggestions was not a criterion for inclusion of an article in the book, and indeed, some readers may find their recollections of Fries and his approach challenged at various points. As with most books, this book is the result of the efforts of many people. Its origins lie in a celebration in 1981 of the fortieth anniversary of the teacher training program at the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan, and the seventieth anniversary of the first English course offered by an American university (the University of Michigan, in the College of Engineering) specifically for its foreign students. This celebration had two phases: first, Joyce Zuck and Peter Fries cotaught a seminar on the work of Charles Fries at the 1981 TESOL Summer Institute at Columbia University; second, a panel, consisting of William Crawford, James Downer, Peter Fries, William Norris, James Stalker and Joyce Zuck, discussed Charles Fries1 work at the 1981 TESOL summer meeting. The members of the seminar, the guest speakers at the seminar (Robert Lado, Eugene Winter, Louis Zuck, Fred Bosco), and the panel members all had their influence on the book and should be thanked. Our authors must be thanked for the very large jobs which they assumed. We

PREFACE are grateful

for

their

patience

xi

and f o r

J o y c e a n d L o u i s Zuck w e r e a l s o p a r t

their

of t h e

abilities.

initial

planning

of t h e b o o k , b u t w e r e u n a b l e t o c o n t i n u e w o r k on t h e The r e s t

of t h e F r i e s f a m i l y

Agnes F r i e s

has been very

( M r s . C h a r l e s C. F r i e s ) ,

g i v e n of h e r t i m e m o s t g e n e r o u s l y . f r o m many p e o p l e , Koerner,

give p a r t i c u l a r stant

supportive.

in p a r t i c u l a r , E.F.

and James S t a l k e r .

t h a n k s t o R i c h a r d W. B a i l e y f o r

a d v i c e and e n c o u r a g e m e n t he h a s g i v e n u s

the production

of t h i s

has

A d v i c e h a s come t o

including Robert Kaplan,

Sidney Greenbaum,

book.

us

Konrad We w i s h the

to

con

throughout

book.

F a r w e l l , Michigan 1984

P.H.F. N.M.F.

REFERENCES Barzun, Jacques. 1961. The House of Intellect. New York: Harper & Row. F r i e s , P e t e r H. 1983. " C . C . F r i e s , Signals Grammar, and the Goals of L i n g u i s t i c s " . The Ninth LACUS Forum ed. by John Morreal, 146-58. Columbia, S.C.: Hornbeam P r e s s . Hymes, Dell & John Fought. 1975. "American S t r u c t u r a l i s m " . Current Trends in Linguistics ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, v o l . X I I I : Historiography of Linguistics, 903-1178. The Hague: Mouton. Marckwardt, Albert H. 1964. "Charles C. F r i e s - an a p p r e c i a t i o n " . Studies in Languages and Linguistics in Honor of Charles C. Fries ed. by Albert H. Marckwardt, 1-3. Ann Arbor, Mich.: The English Language I n s t i t u t e , Univ. of Michigan.

TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE

vii

INTRODUCTION Richard W. Bailey: Charles C. Fries: PART I:

The Life of a Linguist. . . .

1

ENGLISH EDUCATION

Harold B. Allen: Education of English Teachers

19

Archibald A. Hill: Charles Carpenter Fries and the Teaching of Literature

27

† William D. Page: Charles Fries and Reading

33

Robert C. Jones: American English Grammar

51

PART II:

LINGUISTICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Peter H. Fries: C.C. Fries1 View of Language and Linguistics . .

63

Sidney Greenbaum: C.C. Fries' Signals Model of English Grammar . .

85

xiv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Kenneth L. Pike and Peter H. Fries: Slot in Referential Hierarchy in Relation to Charles C. Fries1 View of Language.

105

Carolyn G. Hartnett: Signals of Sequence and Thought

129

William W. Crawford: Charles C. Fries on 'Meaning' in Structural Linguistics and Language Pedagogy

143

Janet Duthie Collins: The Impact of C.C. Fries' Work in Historical Linguistics

161

Richard W. Bailey: Charles C. Fries and the Early English Dictionary

171

Modern

James C. Stalker: C.C. Fries on Standard English t Raven I. McDavid, Jr. and Virginia G. McDavid: Fries and Linguistic Geography Mackie J.V. Blanton: Fries' Functionalism PART III:

2 05

221

237

ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

James W. Ney: Charles C. Fries and Jerome S. Bruner: Common-Sense and Cognition in Learning

259

Marcel Danesi: Charles Fries and Contrastive Analysis

277

TABLE OF CONTENTS Frederick J.

Bosco:

Pattern-Practice Virginia French

Revisited

297

Allen:

L e g a c y From a L a s t C h a p t e r Robert

xv

319

Lado:

Native Speaker Performance and the Cloze Test, A Quest for Validity Lynn E. Henrichsen: Listening Comprehension in C.C. Fries' Oral Approach

331

343

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CHARLES C, FRIES

359

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

373

INTRODUCTION

CHARLES C. FRIES:

THE LIFE OF A LINGUIST

Richard W. Bailey The University of Michigan

Born November 29, 1887, Charles Carpenter Fries was an early and eager learner. He attended the public schools in his native Reading, Pennsylvania, where his enthusiasm for scholarship was nurtured and encouraged. Enrolling at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Fries received his A.B. (and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa) in 1909, studied at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago in 1909-10, returned to Bucknell to receive his M.A. in 1911, and was thereupon made a member of Bucknell's faculty. At first, he was attached to the classics department and taught Greek and rhetoric until 1915 when, in a move that his senior colleagues viewed as an astonishing reduction in status, he was appointed to the English Department as Assistant Professor. (That change of affiliation was almost certainly the consequence of his first summer of study at the University of Michigan in 1914. )

2

RICHARD W. BAILEY

Just two years later he was promoted to the rank of Professor of English, but in 1920 he left Bucknell to complete his graduate work in English at the University of Michigan. Having earned his Ph.D. in 1922, Fries was given a faculty appointment in the Department of English where he repeated his rapid advancement through the ranks: instructor in 1921, assistant professor in 1922, associate professor in 1925, and professor in 1928. All of his subsequent academic career was based in the Department of English at Michigan; in 1958, he retired as Professor Emeritus. Two of his universities acknowledged his achievements: Bucknell by awarding him the honorary D. Litt, degree in 1946, and Michigan through a Sesquicentennial Award in 1967. Fries served as President of the National Council of Teachers of English (1927-28), an organization to which he continually devoted his energies and from which he received the Wilbur W. Hatfield Award;2 just a few days after his return from the annual convention of that organization in Hawaii, he died on December 8 , 1967. 3 Though he first thought of seeking ordination as a minister (and continued that vocation for a time as a teacher and occasional preacher at the First Baptist Church in Ann Arbor), Fries' imagination was captured by his linguistic studies of ancient and New Testament Greek at Chicago. Subsequently, while enrolled in the graduate program at Michigan, his interest in Old and Middle English was aroused in classes taught by J.S.P. Tatlock. That historical background struck him—as it did not always strike his contemporaries4—as germane to the teaching of English composition, and he became intrigued with the idea of "correctness" as he labored to instruct Bucknell students in the arts of rhetoric. While his first publications were appreciations of literary tradition, he

INTRODUCTION

3

also began to take notes for influential works that appeared a decade later: four chapters which he contributed to The Teaching of Literature (1925) and his The Teaching of the English Language (1927). In 1916, he met two near contemporaries who were to give shape to American linguistics for the next fifty years, Leonard Bloomfield and Edward Sapir. Like Fries, they were trained in the traditions of philology and comparative linguistics, but all three were to transcend the narrow boundaries of those historical studies as they confronted the contemporary scene. For Bloomfield and Sapir, the contemporary scene meant the languages native to North America; for Fries, it meant the English language of his own day and the language culture fostered by schooling and by popular opinion. When Fries arrived in Ann Arbor for his doctoral studies, he was much influenced by Fred Newton Scott, then past president of the National Council of Teachers of English and of the Modern Language Association and an advocate of studies of contemporary American English and of effective methods of teaching composition. (Scott's book The Standard of American Speech and Other Papers,5 a collection of essays he had published over the previous decade, articulated many of the ideas that Fries would later extend and publicize.) Scott was eager to help Fries develop linguistic interests and encouraged him to pursue work on a topic that was, in that time, relatively unconventional. Fries1 dissertation was titled "The Periphrastic Future of Shall and Will in Modern English"-—it formed the basis for a lengthy article Fries subsequently published in PMLA (1925)—and was grounded, like much of his later work, on a foundation of empirical data. Fries examined shall and will as they were used in a selection of British plays from 1560 to 1915 and supplemented that primary study with a comparison of British and American

4

RICHARD W. BAILEY

English as reflected in early twentieth-century drama. In collecting the data from these plays, Fries worked long hours in the University Library, assisted then as on many later projects, by his young wife Agnes Carswell Fries. Together they gathered citation after citation to show just how these two words had come into competing use. At the same time, they examined fifty-six grammars dating from 1530 to 1839 to see what the learned observers and schoolmasters had said about the usages. They confirmed the hunch that the prescriptive rules distinguishing shall from will--still proclaimed today by the American Heritage Dictionary among other "authorities"-—were fabricated by grammarians who wished that English made a distinction that English had never made. As Fries later expressed his conclusion, "the general usage of shall and will did not at any time during the history of Modern English agree with the conventional rules."6 Because of his interests in the practice of Englishteaching in the schools, Fries was soon given responsibilities for supervising candidates for certification as English teachers. Though he continued to teach Old English and the history of the language, he was also assigned to teach and to chair the English Department at University High School, a laboratory school then operated by the University through its School of Education. This post put him under the supervision of the Principal of the school, and in a letter written in. January 1927 he explains his heavy workload while protesting two of the tasks for which he had been designated by that administrator: Your assigning me to a period of duty in the University High School during the noon hour and to policing the halls at five o'clock to see that all the pupils have left the building at that time raises several questions upon which I must, in fairness to you, express my opinion in some definite fashion.

INTRODUCTION

5

In the letter that follows, he does express the opinion in a "definite fashion": "the routine machinery of that school cannot be allowed to sap the energy which should go to the larger task..., the responsibility for the training of teachers of English." Copies of the letter went to the chair of the English Department, Louis A. Strauss, and to the Dean of the School of Education; as a result, Fries was permitted to forgo the obligation of "policing the halls." By the mid-1920s, the rift was already wide between teachers appointed in disciplinary departments and those in schools of education. Fries accepted a joint appointment that put him in the Department of English and in the School of Education but was distressed to find that his title had been changed from "Associate Professor of English" to "Associate Professor of the Teaching of English." This title did not please him, and he was successful in having it restored to "Associate Professor of English." While reluctant to be identified with the School of Education, Fries continued to dedicate his efforts to his department and to the School for a quarter century. (He founded and directed until his retirement the jointly-offered Ph.D. in English and Education and was "official representative of the English Division in the School of Education...in charge of all the English work connected with the School of Education.") As early as 1926, he praised the Dean of Education, A.S. Whitney, for having concurred with his idea for making a "vital liaison" between the two factions through Fries' own double appointment, but then and later he consistently allied himself with the Department of English on the ground that only through such affiliation could a faculty member "keep alive in his special academic field by continuing to teach and to contribute in that field." By the time of his promotion to Professor in 1928, the

6

RICHARD W. BAILEY

essential shape of Fries' career had been formed. Since the contributors to this volume detail his accomplishments and influence in the several areas to which he devoted his energies, there is no need to provide a comprehensive account of them here. It is useful, however, to identify themes that unify the diversity of his scholarship. All of them spring from the convictions that he formed early in life about people and their individual worth. In his teaching and writings directly concerned with education, Fries focussed upon the interaction of teacher and learner in the educational process: Although freedom is a condition which must be won by the individual, the efforts of that individual can be greatly aided or greatly hindered by the circumstances in which he is placed. In the schools the most important circumstance for the pupil is the teacher.... If we are to realize the aims of education just set forth the teachers became the most important part of the educational system."7

As he clearly explains here, Fries regarded teachers as inquirers rather than as masters of a subject and thus devoted a considerable share of his energies to their preparation and continuing education. In articulating his values, Fries was fond of establishing contrasts: between rote learning and freedom of inquiry in the classroom, between immediate pleasure and long-term happiness (the subject of one of his sermons preached at the Baptist Church), between training for a specific task and education for intellectual range, and— a contrast doubtless suggested by his studies of Greek— between 'knowing about,' dianoia, and 'knowing how,' nous. In each of these pairs, he asserted ideas that struck him as fundamental. Achieving freedom, happiness, education, 'knowing how' all involve "struggle"--discipline, hard work, and seriousness of purpose.

INTRODUCTION

7

From his exploration of classical rhetoric, Fries fastened upon the centrality of audience for a broad array of inquiries. Students—the audience for the teacher— need to be "motivated" to learn new skills generally and new dialects and new languages in particular; the only sound approach, he argued, emerges from a detailed analysis of the state of knowledge that students bring with them to the schools. Hence he argued again and again that teachers must be aware of the context in which they work. In the case of composition teachers, he wrote: The primary aim of the required work in English Composition i s not ' l i t e r a r y style,' nor rhetorical knowledge, nor language h a b i t s , grammar, and spelling; i t i s the developing of the stu dent's a b i l i t y to think eleavly through a subject, to choose and organize his material for communication, and such a control of language as will enable him to adapt his expression to the needs of particular readers. In order to impart that knowledge, teachers needed to complete their own analysis of "audience;" they need to know "the outlook of the students involved, which includes an estimate of the social pressures that account for their presence in our University, and their present educational development."8 From this basic notion emerged the idea of contrastive analysis that Fries saw as fundamental to learning of all kinds, most particularly the acquisition of new varieties of written and spoken English by native speakers and the knowledge of English to be gained by those who study English as an additional language. After his retirement, when he turned his attention to the way in which children learn to read, Fries once again made use of audience analysis, this time by studying children and describing the differences between the skills they had already acquired and the skills they needed to gain. Here, as in

8

RICHARD W. BAILEY

all of his scholarship and in his teaching, he continually insisted that teachers must be particularly attentive to the circumstances of learning as shaped by the prior behavior and practices of learners.9 The same concern for the circumstances of learning and for audience analysis led him to found English House as an adjunct to the English Language Institute. Though immersion is not usually regarded as one of the distinctive traits of Fries' method of teaching English as an additional language, that setting provided students with real-life occasions in which to use English—with each other and with American students hired to assist them. It is not true that Fries' methods of teaching employed only the sterile surroundings of the language laboratory and the artificiality of constant pattern practice; in second-language acquisition, as in other kinds of learning, he continually emphasized the context of actual practice. In making his views known to the public at large, Fries was not always successful in analyzing the audience and meeting the objections of pedants and skeptics. In the most widely publicized of the attacks on his position, Jacques Barzun of Columbia University described him as "the theorist who engineered the demise of grammar in the American schools." Extending his attack to the Commission on the English Curriculum of the National Council of Teachers of English, a body in which Fries and his former students were active, Barzun suggested that his readers need merely "scan" the 1952 report of that body in order "to appreciate the extent of the intellectual disaster brought on by the liquidation of grammar and to gauge the fanaticism, the bad reasoning, the incapacity to come to a point, [and] the self-righteousness of the antigrammarians. 10 Barzun does not attempt to document these

INTRODUCTION

9

remarkable assertions, and his wide approbation among the public—his book was selected by one of the mail-order book clubs for its membership—was painful to Fries personally and an obstacle to a better appreciation of his work. Barzun appealed to the widely-held belief that Schoolbook "grammar," no matter how far removed from the actual practice of standard English users, was an essential part of the curriculum of sound learning; an attempt to convert the study of grammar from rote memorization to hands-on inquiry was, he wrote, "progressive" education carried to "a ludicrous extreme." Attentive readers of Barzun's book must have recognized that Fries was no "antigrammarian" but rather a grammarian who wished to share his own delight in the study of English with as many other students as he could reach. But such attentive readers were probably a distinct minority. A similar bias informs two other popular treatments of Fries and his work for a mass audience. In one, the author acknowledges that "many in the field of linguistics regard Dr. Fries as the most outstanding grammarian in the English language today," yet he (or his editor) titled the essay "How Bad is Your English?," a formulation that runs directly contrary to the statements he quotes from Fries about the antiquity of variant usages and the systematic nature of language behavior.11 In the second, opening with a quotation from Barzun's attack, the writer acknowledges that "even in this Age of Science, there are areas of our culture about which the disclosure of the cold facts is unwelcome, and our language is one of those areas." 12 While generally sympathetic to Fries and his work, this essay stressed his curiosity about the history of usages without explaining any of the fundamental concepts of descriptive grammar and characterized his

10

RICHARD W. BAILEY

Structure

of

English

conceived notions hallowed

labels

a s an e f f o r t

toward

about E n g l i s h grammar,

for

the parts

"junking a l l including

of s p e e c h . " 1 3

u a l l y t h w a r t e d F r i e s was t h e p o p u l a r bad,

c o r r e c t or i n c o r r e c t .

e n c e s of u s a g e among n a t i v e

from i t

this

or t h a t

explain

"that the

differ "14

taste

of d e s c r i p t i o n for mandarin

form c o r r e c t

ran

directly

pronouncements

and a l l

departures

errors.

I n a s e t of n o t e s p r e p a r e d in 1953, F r i e s

"language,

sketches his

b r o a d l y and f u l l y

the realization

of

a unified,

for

an a u d i e n c e of

"belief

conceived,

and f a i t h "

a d e p a r t m e n t of

Michigan,15

and h i s

linguistics

letter

that

organiza

at the University

scientific

and h e n c e

to

of the

Noting t h a t

kymograph and o s c i l l o g r a p h had b o t h b e e n a p p l i e d s o u n d s - - t h e Dean was a m i n e r a l o g i s t

to

society."

t o h i s D e a n i n s u p p o r t of

an a c c o u n t of h i s c o n v i c t i o n s . 1 6

s y m p a t h e t i c t o t h e u s e of

teach

h o l d s t h e key

c o o p e r a t i n g human

As e a r l y a s 1 9 3 7 , h e h a d p r o p o s e d t h e s e p a r a t e

idea is

to

and

s p e a k e r s of E n g l i s h a r e much

in the n e u t r a l i t y

counter to the national declaring

t i o n of

matters

a n d much m o r e i n t r i c a t e t h a n i s u s u a l l y b e l i e v e d .

His b e l i e f

ers

contin

of good

What h e a t t e m p t e d

a g a i n and a g a i n was s e l d o m u n d e r s t o o d : greater

What

idea that

concerned with language are simple b i n a r i e s

pre

its

the

speech

likely to

apparatus--Fries

be

as

serted: Such i n s t r u m e n t s and t h e techniques of t h e p h y s i c a l s c i e n c e s do serve t h e purposes of l i n g u i s t i c s but only when t h e study i n cludes t h e mental consequent produced by speech sounds in a l i n g u i s t i c community. External p h y s i c a l s t i m u l i a r e not f a c t s of language u n l e s s they s e r v e , when p e r c e i v e d by members of a group, t o mediate meaning. L i n g u i s t i c s c i e n c e , t h e r e f o r e , has i t s c o n n e c t i o n s : 1. with t h e s t r u c t u r a l study of languages both a n c i e n t and modern, and e s p e c i a l l y t h e i r h i s t o r y and r e l a t i o n s h i p ;

INTRODUCTION

11

2. with the physical techniques of the accurate measurement of sound and movement; 3. with such human sciences as psychology, sociology, and anthropology.17

This broad view of linguistics characterized his scholarship and teaching, and he was thus not an enthusiastic supporter of the more ardent structuralists who wished to confine the study of language to narrow bounds that would establish it as a science quite apart from other disciplines. In an appreciation written by his student and colleague, Albert H. Marckwardt, Fries is celebrated for his work in a wide range of professional organizations: It is doubtful that anyone whom we can remember ever did more in bringing linguistics to bear upon every kind of language teaching activity, in insisting that linguistics was not merely for the linguists but that it belonged in every curriculum designed for students who were preparing for a professional career in which language activities play a significant role.

As part of that effort, he was a visiting professor at the universities of Puerto Rico, Mainz, Georgetown, and Pennsylvania, and he served as a consultant to language teaching programs in Germany, Japan, Pakistan, and Poland. In addition to being President of the National Council of Teachers of English, Fries was President of the Linguistic Society of America in 1939, First Vice-President of the Modern Language Association in 1958, and Vice-President of the Ninth International Congress of Linguists in 1962. 19 As this volume eloquently testifies, he is remembered by many with great affection and gratitude. In his personal life, Fries was robust and vigorous in all that he did. As an undergraduate, he was an enthusiastic participant in wrestling, fencing, football, and baseball. At a picnic in 1918 at which his future

12

RICHARD W. BAILEY

wife was a guest, he astonished her and others by ascending high in a huge tree to whose lower limbs he had reached by clambering up the twisted vines of a wild grape. He was fully prepared to supervise the construction of a summer home on an isolated island in Georgian Bay, and he found time in an extraordinarily busy life to undertake major home repair and improvement projects. Though several sports attracted his interest, he was most enthusiastic about swimming and taught each of his children the basics of the aquatic arts at successively earlier ages. With Matt Mann II, swimming coach at the University of Michigan, he wrote a book called Swimming Fundamentals (1940) and participated enthusiastically in a water polo group for Michigan faculty and Ann Arbor civic leaders. Their style of water polo more closely resembles rugby football than the intercollegiate and Olympic sport; it was a game in which he continued to participate--his skill little diminished by age—until his eightieth year. In atonement, perhaps, for trifling with drowning, he spent some years as a water safety instructor and as a director for the local Red Cross. The essays that follow in this volume deal circumstantially with Fries' ideas. It is a testimonial to his achievements and to his influence.

FOOTNOTES

1

Some thirty years later, Fries wrote: "In the early days of my graduate study I suddenly came upon what was to me a 'new world,' a discovery that eventually changed my whole view of language and grammar. This discovery-—this 'new world' to me--was 'modern linguistic science'..." ("Implications of Modern Linguistic Science," College English 8 [1947], p. 314.)

INTRODUCTION 2

13

Named after the Executive Secretary of NCTE from 1921 to 1954, the Hatfield Award was given in recognition of exemplary service to the profession of English; it is now called the NCTE Distinguished Service Award. Various sources have provided me with information for the preparation of this biographical sketch. In addition to the works cited, I have found much of value in the unpublished Fries papers, in a collection of "reminiscences" privately published for her family by Agnes Carswell Fries in 1978, and in the posthumous biography published in the N a t i o n a l Cyclopedia of American Biography (Clifton, NJ: James T. White & Co., 1973), vol. 54, pp. 98-99. Other information was generously supplied by James W. Downer, Agnes Carswell Fries, Warner G. Rice, and by the editors of this volume, Peter Howard Fries and Nancy Fries. My introduction to Fries' work came from his former student and my teacher, Kenneth G. Wilson of the University of Connecticut. During the last two years of his life, I worked with Fries toward the revival of the Early Modern English Dictionary and enjoyed games of water polo with him. One testimony to the prevailing insularity of linguistic studies is found in the eloquent memorial tribute written just after Fries' death by his long-time colleague and friend, Warner G. Rice: "Cheerful vigor, the ability to innovate and guide, were of course among Charles Fries' most notable qualities. Myself a product of the severe but narrow philological disciplines taught at Harvard in the early '20s, I was introduced by him to the new linguistics at Michigan, and watched almost from its inception the development of a curriculum for linguistic study in Ann Arbor."

5

Boston:

6

American English

Allyn and Bacon, 1926.

Grammar, p. 154.

7

"The Training of Teachers:

Matter," Educational

The Problem of Professionalized Subject

Administration

and Supervision

13 (1927): 186.

8

Quoted from an undated typescript, "The Required Course in English Composition." The italicized phrases are underlined in the original. 9

Thus there is no reason to suppose (as the late Raven I. McDavid, Jr., does in the opening paragraph of his essay in this volume) that Fries would have been in any fundamental disagreement with the linguists who testified in the so-called "Ann Arbor Black English Case" that the schools need to take account of the prior linguistic experience of elementary school students in formulating strategies for teaching reading or in testing for "speech impairments" or "learning disabilities." Such description was for Fries a natural beginning point for instruction in "good English." The judge in that case, though

14

RICHARD W. BAILEY

innocent of any knowledge of Fries' work, articulated the same goal for teaching that Fries championed: "Children need to learn to speak and understand and to read and write the language used bysociety to carry on its business, to develop its science, arts and culture, and to carry on its professions and governmental functions" (Charles W. Joiner, "Memorandum Opinion and Order," reprinted in Black English and the Education of Black Children and Youth, ed. Geneva Smitherman [Detroit: Wayne State University, 1981], p. 337). 10

The House of Intellect (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959), p. 243. A prior attack on Fries that did not reach so wide an audience was Harry R. Warfel's Who K i l l e d Grammar? (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1952). Warfel had attended the same high school from which Fries graduated, was a member of the same college fraternity, had been Fries' student at Bucknell in 1918, and claimed at the time he published his book thirty-four years of "cordial friendship" with him. Unlike Barzun's treatment, Warfel's analysis of Fries is a thoroughly informed argument in which he asserts that Fries' attack on the old grammar was essentially valid but that he failed to recommend a sound pedagogy based on the innovations of The Structure of English. While Warfel was concerned about the rejection of any sort of grammatical study in schools as a result of Fries' criticisms, he was not above name-calling—"the disease of non-science and non-sense" (p. 59)—and an appeal to popular reluctance to adopt reforms in the teaching of English. Warfel later became an enthusiastic convert to Fries' views of these matters, according to James W. Downer (who heard him expatiate on usage and grammar at professional meetings in the late 50s).

1l

Hugh Wray McCann, "How Bad is Your English?" Science (April 1961):43-47.

12

Digest

Ethel Strainchamps, "The Man Behind the New Grammar," Review 44 (March 18, 1961), p. 54.

49

Saturday

13

Strainchamps, p. 64. In the Fries papers is a draft of a letter to Saturday Review laying out Fries' objections to the essay; it was apparently not submitted for publication. A subsequent issue of the magazine carried an array of letters expressing support, antipathy, and a muddled middle position; see Saturday Review 44 (April 15, 1961), p. 53. "Usage Levels and Dialect Distribution," prefatory essay to The American College Dictionary, ed. Clarence L. Barnhart (New York: Random House, 1947), p. xxix. 15

This objective was not achieved until 1963.

16

In it he quotes the views of Bloomfieid and Sapir, both of whom were

INTRODUCTION

15

faculty members at the Linguistic Institutes of the Linguistic Society of America that Fries had sponsored at Michigan from 1936 to 1941. 17

Fries to Edward H. Kraus, September 29, 1937.

18

"Charles C. Fries," Language 44 (1968):206-07. See also a similar tribute by Harold B. Allen, TESOL Quarterly 1.4 (1967):3. Fries was continually active in a wide range of professional activities. In 1941, for instance, he served on four committees that reflect the diversity of his interests: The Humanities in American Education (American Council of Learned Societies); Committee on Modern Languages (American Council on Education); Commission on Educational, Trends (Modern Language Association); and Committee on the Education of Teachers of English (National Council of Teachers of English).

About 18 96

1909 At Bucknell University

PART ENGLISH

ONE: EDUCATION

EDUCATION OF ENGLISH TEACHERS

Harold B. Allen

It is not given to all teachers, excellent though they may be, to be also effective research scholars in their discipline. And of those who are both teachers and research scholars it is given to only a few to develop a philosophy of education that they apply dynamically to the preparation of teachers in that discipline. One of those few was Charles Carpenter Fries. Fries believed in education rather than in training— in a liberal education of the individual leading to the individual's intellectual development rather than or prior to functional limitation to a specific task or occupation. Without down-grading the role of the schools in preparing students to become citizens in a democratic society, he held, as he once wrote, that "development of individual members of our society is the goal toward which we strive." (nd, b:18) Although a graduate of a small liberal arts college, I had not there had this philosophical tenet so cogently presented to me as it was by Fries in two courses I took from him, "The Teaching of English in High School: and "The Teaching of English in College" in the summers of 1924 and 1925. Particularly in the latter, with its focus the work

20

HAROLD B. ALLEN

in Freshman E n g l i s h , did h e draw attention t o this p h i l o s o phy's kinship with the views of Cardinal N e w m a n in The

Idea

of a University and with Matthew Arnold's concepts of liberal and useful knowledge defined in Culture and Anarchy. Indeed, it was because central portions of those books were included in Frank Aydelotte's Materials for the Teaching of English Composition and Literature that I readily followed Fries' suggestion to use Materials as a challenging textbook in the first-year rhetoric course in the college where I was to teach. This basic educational philosophy Fries held throughout his life. Inevitably it underlay the central position he always maintained with respect to the content of the training of teachers. A teacher, he insisted, must have a grasp of the subject beyond that of the demands of the courses. The prospective teacher, therefore, has to have more than methods courses and more than practice teaching. In Fries's own words: "The prospective teacher [when visiting a class as a student observer] must center attention not on what the teacher is doing but on what is going on in the minds of the students. He must be stimulated not only to seek teaching methods but also to feel keenly the play of mind on mind; he must learn to sense at once when teacher and pupils are not in contact, and the causes of any failure to do so" (Greene et al, 1943:96). Especially in regard to his own discipline, English, did Fries place foremost the "play of mind on mind," the spirit of free inquiry into the subject itself and into its relationship to kindred disciplines. He succinctly pointed to this emphasis in a question outline he once prepared as a critical approach to a proposed teacher education program for New York State. In literature, he asked, does the program provide for study of literary history in relation to

EDUCATION OF ENGLISH TEACHERS

21

important movements and intellectual and spiritual periods, for close reading of the great masterpieces, and for reading of contemporary literature in the framework of concomitant social and economic development? In language, does the program require emphasis upon clear writing that reflects clear thinking, and does it demand an understanding of the problems of meaning and communication and of the social basis of language? Elsewhere, in a manuscript "The Education of the Teacher of English," Fries both clarified and expanded these concepts. From the premises that the ultimate goal of education is freedom of the individual and that this freedom is to be won through struggle, Fries argued that the prospective teachers who would help students to move toward this freedom must themselves be equipped not only with subject-matter to be passed on but also with a foundation for constant independent subsequent growth, for continuing self-education. With respect to literature, this argument called first for "an actual literary experience of a wide range of materials of more or less maturity until the prospective teacher has developed a sense for the diversity of the aspects of literature to be realized." In his words, "Such a variety of approach...is essential if students are to develop a power of further experiencing in literature after they leave the guidance of an instructor." Fries, consistently enough, looked negatively at the traditional survey course unless the relationships it describes are based upon the "concrete specific experiences" of reading the literary documents themselves. It follows that the historical study of literature has value only when it is related to some understanding of the culture of a given period—of its social and economic conditions and its

22

HAROLD B. ALLEN

dominant philosophy, such understanding itself having worth insofar as it helps one more effectively to evaluate the life of the present as well as that of the past. With respect to composition, Fries's philosophical thrust toward the intellectual growth of the individual in society led him to insist that the prospective teacher must have some understanding of the processes of thought and belief and communication [today probably including interdisciplinary psycholinguistics]. Such a foundation alone, he believed, can enable the future teacher to look forward to effectively developing students' ability to write well. As he himself put it: "For successful productive communication there must be the ability to think clearly through a subject; that is, to bring to bear a wide range of experience upon a problem, to force out to view the general assumptions by which that experience is evaluated, and to scrutinize the connections established between that experience and a conclusion. Second, there must be the ability to choose and organize material so that it will be brought within the experience of the reader. Third, there must be such a control of language as will enable him to adapt his expression to the needs of particular readers" (nd, a:29). Clearly, for him the mere ability to collect and present information was insufficient. But, although Fries was deeply concerned with English teacher preparation as a whole, it was particularly with preparation in the language that his name is more frequently associated. From an early academic background in Latin and Greek and close study of the work of the historical linguists, especially Otto Jespersen, Eduard Mätzner, and Henry Sweet, he moved to the conclusion that much of what schools taught about the English language was unsound. This realization he expressed at length in the influential

EDUCATION OF ENGLISH TEACHERS

23

The Teaching of the English Language in 1927, a book that was instrumental in his being elected president of the National Council of Teachers of English in 1928. [In 1949 a revision with an added section on teaching literature was published as The Teaching of English.] In The Teaching of the English Language Fries focused upon the prospective teacher's need to understand the nature of acceptable usage if the current unsound ideas and prescriptive practices were to be eliminated. In this, the first salvo fired in what some have called the Battle of Usage in the 1930s, appears his now well-known statement "...the spontaneous usage of that large group who are carrying on the affairs of the English-speaking people is the usage to be observed and to set the standard." Thus, drawing directly upon the living language, he was able to show how the traditional rules of school grammar lacked validity and to define standards of acceptability in grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary. Inevitably the emphasis in teacher-training would have to be less upon methods and classroom techniques than upon inculcating a philosophy upon which subsequent classroom activity could be founded. The prospective teacher, he maintained, should learn to refrain from item correction of students' use of English and instead help them to master new habits of acceptable English. True, he offered no specific counsel on just how this help could best be provided, either for the prospective teacher or for the students in the schools. He did, however, acknowledge that students will not acquire good language habits if they are not motivated. In the chapter on developing attitudes Fries shunned the usual motivation, a desire for financial gain, and instead relied upon beginning with an appeal to the students' desire to function most effectively in a variety of social situations in their own environment.

24

HAROLD B. ALLEN B u t F r i e s w e n t on t o r e c o g n i z e t h r e e " t o o l s " t h a t t h e

future E n g l i s h t e a c h e r m u s t b e g i n t o a c q u i r e b e f o r e h e u n dertakes to teach English:

an introduction to phonetics

and p h o n e m i c s , a solid core of k n o w l e d g e of E n g l i s h g r a m m a r , and some u n d e r s t a n d i n g of v o c a b u l a r y g r o w t h and semantic change.

This recognition clearly then

influenced

h i s fellow E n g l i s h l a n g u a g e s p e c i a l i s t s o n a s p e c i a l comm i t t e e of t h e N a t i o n a l C o u n c i l of T e a c h e r s of E n g l i s h .

Their momentous report, published in the English Journal in December, 1928, described the minimum essentials of linguistic knowledge for the prospective teacher and outlined a course that would supply those essentials. The committee called for "adequate study of the historical development of English pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary," but added that "a knowledge of the principles of general linguistics is of greater value to the teacher of English than a knowledge of the details of the history of the language" (1928:827) . Fries was, indeed, so concerned about the acquisition of sound linguistic knowledge that he sought support for his conviction that English teachers were not being adequately prepared. In the fall of 1934 he suggested that I undertake a national survey of the language preparation of English teachers, and he influenced the National Council of Teachers of English to underwrite the cost of the survey. Published in the English Journal in 1938, the summary of the survey did indeed expose the grievous inadequacy in language preparation. A replication of the survey in 1960, summarized in 1961 in the National Council's The National Interest and the Teaching of English, revealed measurable improvement over the intervening quarter century, an improvement almost surely due in significant measure to Fries1 dynamic leadership and to the significant research

EDUCATION OF ENGLISH TEACHERS support he provided in his American

Structure

of

English

25 Grammar

and

The

English.

In the meantime the international situation had aroused Fries's energetic concern with the teaching of English as a foreign language and hence with the preparation of teachers in that special discipline.

But the

founding of the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan "is another story."

REFERENCES

Allen, Harold B. (1938). Teacher-Training in the English Language, The English Journal (College edition) 27:422-430. Arnold, Matthew. (1875). Culture MacMillan Co.

and Anarchy

(2'nd ed.), New York:

Aydelotte, Frank. (1914). Materials for the Study of English Literature and Composition, New York». Oxford University Press. Fries, Charles C. (1927). The Teaching of the English York: Thomas Nelson and Sons.

Language.

New

Fries, Charles C. (nd, a). The Education of the Teacher of English. Fries, Charles C. (nd, b). To the Committee on Education Trends (of the Modern Language Association). Green, Theodore M., Charles C. Fries, Henry Wriston and William Deighton. (1943). Liberal Education Reexamined, New York: Harper and Brothers. National Council of Teachers of English, Committee on English Language Courses in College and Universities. (1928). Training in English Language for English Teachers. English Journal (College edition) 17:825-835. National Council of Teachers of English, Committee on National Interest.(1961). The National Interest and the Teaching of English. Champaign, IL: NCTE. Newman, John Henry. (1885). The Idea of a University. mans Green.

London,

Long-

1919 At Atlantic City with Agnes C. Fries

CHARLES CARPENTER FRIES AND THE TEACHING OF LITERATURE

Archibald A. Hill

As one rereads Fries' influential book, The Teaching of English, and thinks about the totality of his academic career, one realizes first of all, that his interests were unified in all his adult life, and were all directed towards closely related aspects of a single goal—the nature, importance, and use of language in ordinary communication and in literature, not only in English but in all languages. Fries' thus unified goal received its first formulation at the start of his teaching career, which began with the classics. This experience led him to a realization of the manner in which the teaching of both language and literature had been unduly influenced by the attitudes natural in the teaching of works in a long dead and no longer spoken language, the fossilized and unchanging forms of Vergil and Horace. A principal way in which this attitude affected classes in English, was that good style was thought of as freedom from errors in grammar, like the condemnation of all departures from the grammar of ancient Rome. A typical example of the attitude was part of my mother's experience at Vassar in the 19th century, where there was close study of the 'grammatical errors' made by

28

ARCHIBALD A. HILL

the best English authors.

The attitude is still with us,

unfortunately, and can be exemplified by a recent flurry of letters in the Yale

Alumni

Magazine

in which loyal alumni

defend the line from the Whiffenpoof song (ultimately from Kipling) 'Lord have mercy on such as we' from the purist John Simon, who had said that the use of we rather than us was a typical Yalean grammatical error.

To me the inter-

esting point is that even the defenders seem to feel that if there was a genuine error, it would have constituted an important artistic blemish. Fries 1 insistence that stylistic excellence is more than such details of grammar led him to a number of important conclusions.

First, that the purpose of literary

teaching is the realization of the total experience of the literary work.

Teachers all too often, particularly under

the influence of the new doctoral programs, confined themselves to teaching philological details and facts, just as still earlier they had used literature as a means of teaching grammar.

It is also true, again as Fries pointed out,

that some teachers revolted violently against a factual approach, and relied altogether on making the students like what they read.

Fries says;

Very, very frequently teachers confuse "the enjoyment and appreciation of literature" with giving the students a good time in the literature class. A vaudeville performance in the literature class over which pupils become wildly enthusiastic does not necessarily lead to appreciation of literature. (1949:211-212) Fries continued with other warnings; Nor can we afford to make literature the text from which to teach morals, ethics, high ideals, patriotism, international good will. Such a choice and use of literature substitutes the teacher's point of view for that of the author: the teacher instead of removing difficulties, thus interposes obstacles to allowing the mind of the literary artist to make by intimate contact its own impression on the pupil. (1949:213)

LITERATURE Fries

further

emphasized t h a t

l i t e r a r y works might h a v e ,

and t h e a c q u i s i t i o n

of r e c e i v i n g

a literary

full

experience

a s good s i d e e f f e c t s ,

a n c e of a l o v e o f g o o d l i t e r a t u r e , ideals,

29 of further

t h e development

of i n f o r m a t i o n .

experience

This

is further

t e r m s of t h e p u r p o s e of t h e l i t e r a r y

of

high

notion

defined

in

work;

I conceive t h e l i t e r a r y purpose t o be t h e use of language t o communicate not f a c t s and t h o u g h t s , but v i v i d r e a l i z a t i o n s of a c t i o n s , of emotions, of i d e a s , in order t h a t we may experience a l l of l i f e t o t h e f u l l . I t i s t h e s p i r i t which Browning v o i c e s in "I would h a t e t h a t death bandaged my e y e s , and f o r b o r e , And bade me creep p a s t , No ! Let me t a s t e t h e whole of i t . . . . " (1949:217-218) Fries concludes, carefully

further,

that the teacher

s e l e c t t h e one a s p e c t of t h e l i t e r a r y work

he w i s h e s t h e s t u d e n t s t o r e s p o n d t o most f u l l y . instance,

should

he u s e s P o e ' s Annabel

Lee,

t i o n a l background s u r r o u n d i n g i t s

that

As an

g o i n g i n t o t h e emo

composition.

Annabel Lee i s r i g h t l y , I b e l i e v e , connected with P o e ' s w i f e , V i r g i n i a . . . . I t i s then a p e r s o n a l poem a r i s i n g out of t h e emot i o n s of t h e p o e t . . . . I f , from t h e t r a d i t i o n s t h a t have grown u p , we t h i n k of Poe as one who weakly s a c r i f i c e d h i s g e n i u s , h i s w i f e , h i s family t o a s e l f i s h craving for l i q u o r , we must f e e l an i n s i n c e r i t y i n such a p r o t e s t a t i o n of l o v e . . . . I f , however, we b r i n g i n t o a t t e n t i o n t h e f a c t s as brought out b y . . . t h e most a c c u r a t e and thorough of h i s b i o g r a p h e r s , we experience t h e poem in e n t i r e l y d i f f e r e n t f a s h i o n . Edgar Allen Poe worshipped b e a u t y , e s p e c i a l l y t h e beauty of woman. His love for h i s young wife was p a r t of t h a t w o r s h i p . . . . After 11 y e a r s , when she was t w e n t y - f o u r , she d i e d . (1949:235) Fries is clearly right in demanding that students be given the proper background facts, even though (as he realized) final appreciation depends on much more. think any teacher would agree that knowledge of the

I

30

ARCHIBALD A. HILL

appalling

c i r c u m s t a n c e s under which William E r n e s t

c o m p o s e d Invictus

should be p a s s e d on t o s t u d e n t s ,

Henley but that

t h i s knowledge needs t o b e supplemented by knowledge of t h e language and s t r u c t u r e n o t only of t h e w r i t t e n t h e p o e m , b u t command o f t h e s p o k e n f o r m s

language of

as well:

As a step toward full control, the special aim of the second stage classroom teaching should; (a) demand continuing the emphasis upon oral production with i n creasing attention t o phonetic accuracy of the segments as they occur in the stream of speech rather than as isolated items, and t o recovering patterns of intonation and rhythm: (b) attempt t o achieve greater confidence in oral production and written production and reception, using larger units of discourse: (c) seek a balance between the a b i l i t y for oral production and written productions: (d) develop some degree of mastery of both u t i l i t a r i a n reading and the reading of l i t e r a t u r e . (1957:25)

It is true that the passage just quoted is aimed at the teaching of a foreign language, yet it clearly applies also to the teaching of English to native speakers. The essential point is that Fries is insisting that literature is based in speech, and that student and teacher should both be skilled in the relations of writing and speaking in study of literary text. In short, Fries is pointing out the fallacy of Augen Philologie in the study of the beauties of literature. The attitude is clearly in line with another passage in his writing, in which he gives a brief, but penetrating discussion of how English stress-timed rhythms differ from those of syllable-timed languages like Latin. The same passage also makes use of phonemic script to define the nature of English rhymes, like such a pair as institute-vesolute, or on call-in

fall

(1963:212-213).

LITERATURE Undoubtedly,

however,

t h e n e c e s s i t y of teaching

of

31

the most f o r t h r i g h t

a linguistically

l i t e r a t u r e was i n a l e c t u r e d e l i v e r e d

1955, and p r e s e r v e d anti-linguistic

only in n o t e s .

statements

The n o t e s r e f e r

of men l i k e L e o S p i t z e r

d o n M e s s i n g , who v i e w e d m o d e r n l i n g u i s t i c s derstanding

declaration

sound approach t o

of v a l u e s .

about to and

as lacking

F r i e s w e n t on t o s a y

of

the the Gor un

that;

The l i n g u i s t who has become very conscious of t h e long s t r u g g l e w i t h i n h i s d i s c i p l i n e t o develop i n c r e a s i n g l y r i g o r o u s procedures based upon c a r e f u l l y s t a t e d p o s t u l a t e s , f e e l s very unhappy with what seems t o him the very l o o s e , i m p r e s s i o n i s t i c and p e r s o n a l methods of l i t e r a r y d i s c u s s i o n , a n a l y s i s and c r i t i c i s m . (nd:3)

Of this lecture Peter Fries has written me that it contained a new term 'poemics' to designate a more exact method of study, that would focus on the "...predictably common responses" of a group of readers, and that would be based on full knowledge of the signals, written and spoken, of the English language, which both convey meaning and yield aesthetic pleasure. That is "I can not bare it" and "I can not bear it" are different sentences with different meaning, as are "What are you CRYing for?" and "What are you crying FOR?" As for aesthetic pleasure, lines like Longfellow's Lovely, and soft, and slow Descends the snow

are a very satisfying example of alliteration, marked by stress and pause. The line from Yeats He holds her helpless

is not since the four h's are not thus marked. Peter tells me his father delivered the term with 'a sort of puckish sense of humor1 and that the literary scholars in the audience 'were rather upset by the term.' The latter is a statement that I can well believe.

32

ARCHIBALD A. HILL As one of those who have tried to follow in the steps

of earlier linguists who were interested in literature, I think I can also say that the modern insistence that literary students, critics, and teachers should be well versed in what has been called 'signals grammar' is still needed

(some times desperately needed) in the literary

classroom.

The pendulum of literary study has swung very

far towards the anti-textual scholarship of the deconstructionist group, but for those whose attitudes towards literature were shaped by men like Charles Carpenter Fries, 'poemics' still lives.

REFERENCES

Fries, Charles C. (1949). The Teaching The George Wahr Publishing Co.

of English,

Ann Arbor, MI:

Fries, Charles C. (nd). "Structural Linguistics and Literary Criticism." Unpublished lecture notes. Fries, Charles C. (1957). "Introduction" and "The Aims of Language Teaching and Learning." In The Teaching of Modern Languages, Report on the UNESCO Regional Seminar Held in Sydney, Australia, January-February 1957, 7-27. Sydney: Australian National Advisory Committee for UNESCO. Fries, Charles C. (1963). Linguistics Rinehart and Winston. Yale Alumni Magazine. (1982). December, pp. 5-6.

and Reading.

New York: Holt,

May, p. 12; October, pp. 12 and 14;

CHARLES FRIES AND READING

William D. Page

At the outset in this brief paper, any attempt at exhaustivity is disclaimed; for Charles Carpenter Fries spent nearly 20 years developing his theories of reading instruction; and in doing so, he created a rich tapestry of interrelated ideas based on his linguistic background, a tapestry that defies full treatment here. By all evidence in his written work, Charles Fries would celebrate an evaluation of his work in reading* in the light of new knowledge not despite findings that conflict with his views, but because of them. In his influential publication, Linguistics and Reading (Fries, 1963:vii), he states, "For many years I have held the view that, in order to achieve basically sound solutions to educational problems, we must, in some way, learn how to bring to bear upon the pressing problems of education all the knowledge that has been won, and all the new knowledge that is continually being won, in every one of the 'subject-matter' disciplines." Impossible as his goal may seem, Fries' work struggles to achieve it in the application of linguistic principles to reading instruction. To get Fries' general approach out in the open, we turn to his attempt to put reading instruction into

34

WILLIAM D. PAGE

perspective from an historical viewpoint. In his brief but insightful history of reading instruction, he approaches reading for meaning, criticizing the various accounts of it in the literature. Fries (1963:4) concludes, "In fact, the discussions of methods and public opinions of reading 'experts' seem often to ignore the limitations given in the research studies themselves, and, in the spirit of 'science fiction,' project claims to knowledge far beyond anything the studies are prepared to deliver." He cites Nila Banton Smith (1955:5) who says of the period prior to approximately 1920 and the scientific study of education that, "No attempt was made to teach pupils to read for meanings nor to check their reading after it was done to find out how much of the content they had absorbed..." Any literal interpretation of Smith's statement must confirm Fries' criticism after even a cursory reading of Huey (1908). Fries goes on to document the absurdity of such claims, citing Hart (1570), Putnam (1836), McGuffey (1838), Farnham (1881), Butler (1883), and others who describe earlier efforts to teach pupils to read for meaning. Fries' approach is always couched in the method and spirit of science, a search for the best guesses humans can make about themselves and the world around them. Fries does not favor teaching linguistics to children in order to facilitate their learning to read. Here, Fries makes a point that fits today's views well, but one that must be considered somewhat courageous, or at least an invitation to controversy and criticism in relation to what many of his colleagues thought at the time he wrote it. Rather than teach linguistics to youngsters to help them learn to read, he recommends that teachers become aware of linguistic knowledge to aid them in making educational decisions. His view is in contrast with a long, inappropriately honored tradition in psychology, linguistics, and

READING

35

some other disciplines, of scientists, outside of education, capitalizing on the unwary educational market by authoritatively using basic research paradigms in educational materials for consumption by children before the paradigms have undergone adequate testing under the real life conditions of classrooms in schools. An example of this tradition is the movement to teach youngsters transformational grammar supposedly to improve their composition. Other examples exist, but this one illustrates the point nicely because it bears directly on Fries' position on the inadvisability of teaching linguistics to youngsters, and it was popular when Fries was writing about reading. Fries (1963:viii) states of his work and his approach to reading instruction, "It is concerned with the teaching of reading and it seeks to analyze and restate a number of fundamental questions about reading not in terms of the procedures of linguistic science but against the background of knowledge concerning human language which linguistic science has achieved."

Fries' Stages

Fries (1963) outlines three stages he believes readers should go through in learning to read. The first he calls the "transfer" stage. The second he calls "productive reading" and the third, "vivid imaginative realization." The transfer stage stresses that, "Learning to read in one's native language is learning to shift, to transfer, from auditory signs for the language signals, which the child has already learned, to visual or graphic signs for the same signals" (Fries, 1963:188). The productive stage "...covers the period during which the reader's responses

36

WILLIAM D. PAGE

to the visual patterns, the bundles of graphic shapes, become habits so automatic that the significant identifying features of the graphic shapes themselves sink below the threshold of conscious attention"(Fries, 1963:205). The stage of vivid imaginative realization is reading that "... stimulates a vivid imaginative realization of vicarious experience..." that "...fulfill the 'literary' purpose" (Fries, 1963:208). Although Fries identifies three stages, clearly most of his work in reading done after 1940 focusses on beginning reading. Very little of his book, Linguistics and Reading, is devoted to either the productive stage or the imaginative realization stage. [See Fries, Hanford and Steeves (1926) for a more extensive description of 'imaginative realization.' Editor.] This is true of his reading materials also. Wardhaugh (1969:24) states, "The materials written by Fries and his co-workers have concentrated on the beginning reading stages and are not really designed for use in the later stages."

Beginning Reading

Fries' view of when to begin reading instruction is especially interesting because of the rationale he provides to support it. Fries (1963:187) states, "From the evidence available, we believe that we can assume that any child can learn to read within a year after he has learned to 'talk' his native language satisfactorily." By satisfactorily, Fries indicates he means talk that is free of baby talk, that the child can "...report what he has consciously experienced, and that he can understand 'talk' to him which uses only the materials that lie within the range of his

READING

37

linguistic and social-cultural experience. Fries (1963:202) sets the point at which youngsters have learned to talk satisfactorily at about four or five years of age, when, he concludes, most of the grammatical signals have been learned. Today, many reading researchers would set the age for beginning reading earlier. Staying within the lists of words youngsters are assumed to have in their oral vocabularies, Fries recommends teaching spelling patterns with whole words. His approach involves presenting minimally contrasted pairs of words such as "AT" and "CAT" and then moving to groups of minimally contrasted words such as "BAT A FAT RAT," but notice that the words form a sentence. The groups of sentences often, but not always, form stories. During beginning reading, Fries represents words to youngsters in capital letters to reduce the number of graphemic contrasts required to discriminate among letters and words.

Habituation and Relevant Reading

Fries (1963) makes an interesting distinction between reading and writing with particular respect for the beginning stages of learning to read. For Fries (1963:189) writing involves "productive spelling habits" which are not necessary for reading; while reading "...centers upon developing the habits of high speed recognition responses to English spelling patterns, that constitute the process of reading." His view is in accord with modern views of expressive verses receptive aspects of using language and that reading is likely to be considered by many to be easier to learn than composition. His view breaks with modern viewpoints in that today neither reading nor writing is likely to be viewed as a habit. A habit is usually con-

38

WILLIAM D. PAGE

sidered to be some kind of automatic response, while it is generally recognized today that, "Readers' purposes vary and, as such, criteria of comprehension also change as a function of the particular task" (Brown, 1980:454). Brown (1980:471) maintains that young children "...are less conscious of the workings of their own mind, less facile with the introspective modes necessary to reveal their mental states, and, therefore, less able to exert conscious control over their own cognitive activity," presumably than older individuals. Even so, Brown (1980:454) also maintains that, "The goal of reading instruction is to achieve understanding of the text." Brown (1980) is echoing Goodman (1970:28) who states, "Essentially, the only objective in reading is comprehension." Fries certainly would not deny this view, see his letter to Jeanne Chali (Chali, 1967:343), but his writing suggests greater emphasis on habituation than the work of Brown or Goodman does. In some sense, the conflict between Fries and today's views may be a matter of emphasis with respect to habituation and automaticity. Fries appears to offer differing views from time to time, and, after all, what person with any imagination does not. He is drawn to the popular psychology of his day that focussed on habituation and association, but then, in contrast, he is pulled by his conflicting insight that meaning is at the heart of the reading process. From some of his writings, it might be discerned that Fries' view on habituation is in contrast with both the view of reading as comprehension and concerns for reader's strategies or metacognition as it is fashionably termed today. In fact, Fries goes so far as to discourage both metacognition and focus on comprehension in one instance in his description of learning to read and how to facilitate the process. For

READING

39

instance, Fries (1963:199) states in relation to the development of high speed responses to spelling patterns, "Seeking an extraneous interest in a story as a story, during the earliest steps of the transfer stage is more likely to hinder than to help the efforts put forth by the pupil himself."

Fries provides no empirical evidence for this con-

clusion which is in direct contrast with many of his statements that suggest that meaning is at the center of the reading process. Fries expresses the belief that youngsters will share his enthusiasm for exercises that center on associating individual sequences of letters with words they can say and understand.

Fries (1963:199) states that a youngster's

"...success in each step of making such a connection will build up the interest of a pupil at this stage."

Although

many disagree with Fries' idea that interest in a story, the author's message, "...is more likely to hinder than help..." (1963:199), Phillip Gough and others tend to agree.

Gough (1972:350) states, "...the various so-called

Linguistic Methods (like those advocated by Blcornfield (1942) and Fries (1963) appear to be optimal, for they offer the child a sequence of message pairs in which only one element is varied at a time.

What is surprising, at

least on first inspection is that this method has not been shown to be superior."

Gough's surprise is not shared by

most reading educators today who tend to focus on the reasons youngsters, or anyone for that, matter, have for reading or learning to read.

Goodman

(19 70:21) suggests,

"Though reading and the application of the fruits of reading are separable, it must always be remembered that reading is never pursued for its own sake, even in literature." Fries' two stages that follow transfer, productive reading and vivid imaginative realization, indicate his awareness

40

WILLIAM D. PAGE

of the broader relevance of reading; but his approach in the transfer stage seems to inconsistently preclude r e l e vant reading for beginners. Fries' productive stage focuses on oral reading, with emphasis on the significance of intonation, p a t t e r n , and stress, and on the reconstruction of the author's message. His recommendations for oral reading are in contrast with a long tradition, before and after his w o r k , of emphasizing silent reading.

Fries

(1963:207) s t a t e s , "The case for a

considerable amount of properly directed and properly used oral reading from the very beginning throughout the t r a n s fer stage and through the second stage of development rests primarily on the need to d e v e l o p , along w i t h the automatic responses to the bundles of contrastive graphic shapes that are actually present in w r i t i n g , the ability to supply or produce the appropriate, or at least an appropriate, set of intonation and stress patterns that fit and display e v i dence of a total cumulative understanding."

H e r e , Fries

bridges both h i s transfer and productive stages with the overarching recommendation for oral reading, a key d i s t i n guishing characteristic of the productive s t a g e , thus diminishing the discreteness of both stages.

Reading and Listening

The relationship between reading and listening interests Fries

(1963:xv) w h o s t a t e s , "Learning to 'talk'

(learning to produce and receive oral signals of his language) constitutes the basis upon which a child m u s t build to learn to

read."

related to Bloomfield's

In some s e n s e , F r i e s ' idea is (1933:285) insight t h a t , "Actually,

the writer utters the speech-form before or during the act

READING

41

of writing and the hearer utters it in the act of reading; only after considerable practice do we succeed in making these speech-movements inaudible and inconspicuous." Mattingly (1972:134) remarks, "Thus Bloomfield (1955), Fries, and others assume that the production and perception of speech are inversely related processes of encoding and decoding, and take the same view of writing and reading." Others; Stevens and Halle (1967) for instance, focus on listening in relation to reading in differing ways. Goodman (1967) and Chomsky (1965) emphasize the process of reconstructing the speaker's or author's message, an emphasis which is properly called comprehension. Mattingly (1972:134) claims that Fries (1963) assumes "...a simple parallel between reading and listening..." (1972:132) and stresses that the assumption is wrong because, "...listening appears to be a more natural way of perceiving language than reading..." (1972:135). Because spoken language is generally acquired without instruction, and many fail to learn to read even with instruction; reading is treated as being hard and unnatural while listening is considered to be easy and natural by Mattingly. Mattingly's (1972) position on Fries is flawed in a number of ways. First, Mattingly puts great stock in the term, natural, as it is applied to listening; repeating it in his writing as though it is an understandable term indicating a clear distinction between the natural and the unnatural. Mattingly (1972:135) states, "The apparent naturalness of listening does not mean it is in all respects a more efficient process." The term, natural, refers to nature which logically includes everything, thus rendering the term useless for distinguishing anything from anything else. Second, even a cursory reading of Fries' work shows that the parallels he draws between listening

42

WILLIAM D. PAGE

and reading are not simple and not common sensical. Third, the idea that listening is easy and reading is hard requires distinctions between the two not only on the basis of extant performance, but on the basis of the conditions of availability and function in society as we know it, and on the psychological characteristics of the processes. It is possible that reading is as easy as listening psychologically, and that what generates poorer, later performance of reading is the fact that oral language is available to children earlier, that it is deeply involved in the processes of both linguistic and social development, and that it is the prevalent mode of communication which children have available to them to sense what the people around them are thinking. Until the difficulties of learning to listen and read are tested while controlling the availability of information that is important to the learner, the proposition that reading is hard and listening is easy is an unwarranted claim and hardly a challenge to Fries' insightful, detailed probe into the area.

Terminology

Fries is concerned with distinguishing phonics, phonetics, and phonemics, which he maintains are nearly hopelessly confused in the literature of reading instruction and reading research. Phonics, Fries (1963:156) states is "...a way of teaching beginning reading..." consisting of "...attempting to match the individual letters by which a word is spelled with the specific 'sounds' which these letters 'say'." In contrast, phonetics is "...a set of techniques by which to identify and describe, in absolute terms, all the differences of sound features that occur in

READING

43

any language." Phonemics is distinguished from both phonics and phonetics in that phonemics is "...a set of techniques by which to identify and to describe, especially in terms of distribution, the bundles of sound contrasts that constitute structural units that mark the word patterns." Confusions of these terms in literature on research and instruction in reading are probably as prevalent today as they were when Fries made his criticisms. In fact, today, it may be the case that the confusions Fries points out have become common usage because so many people have learned to use the terms as they were misused in the literature of reading instruction, and, in the future, it may become the case that only historically oriented linguists will use these terms in the ways Fries describes them. In most reading literature today, a phoneme probably still is defined as the smallest unit of sound in language when, in fact, it probably is understood better as "...a single functioning or signaling unit of our word patterns..." (Fries, 1963:65); a group of sounds that are treated as one sound in language. Similarly, a grapheme probably is understood best as a group of marks that are treated as one in written language rather than the smallest unit of writing. Both dialect variation and variation in type fonts and handwriting can be described more accurately using the latter.

Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis is the fashionable term for examining whole text made up of interrelated sentences. Linguists, cognitive psychologists, and reading researchers are turning their attention to discourse analysis in a

44

WILLIAM D. PAGE

search for structure in whole text. Much discourse analysis that relates to reading is focussed on comparing the structure of the text of a passage read with the structure of the text of a free recall, a retelling, or a composition about the passage read in an effort to describe and assess reading comprehension. At this point in the history of discourse analysis, the process exhibits considerable error, but remains a promising research pursuit. Fries' work in reading exhibits little relationship to the theories of discourse analysis of Danes1 (1974) ideas of micro and macro structure, of Kintsch's (1972) probes into memory, or of van Dijk's (197 2) focus on grammatical characteristics of text. However, Morgan and Sellner (1980: 166) state, "The first American linguist to attempt the analysis of connected discourse as discourse was probably Fries (1952) . This work, an analysis of telephone conversations, explored connections among sentences in texts and, in a limited way, the distribution of sentence types within a text but did not propose any theoretical schemes of text analysis." Fries was ahead of his American colleagues in this enterprise. Although Fries' purpose in analyzing whole text was not directly related to reading, or to printed text for that matter, he was facing the question of how the meaning of text can be described in a way that can be shared with other scientists unambiguously, a question that commands the attention of today's scientists.

Conclusion

A degree of inconsistency is evident in Fries' work with respect to his concern for meaning or comprehension.

READING

45

Although he maintains that interest in the story hinders learning to read in the early parts of the transfer stage (Fries, 1963:199), he also maintains he is interested in meaning throughout the process. Jeanne Chall (1967:343) provides an interesting insight on this point in the presentation of an excerpt from a letter she received from Charles Carpenter Fries. "Our approach is certainly not a phonic approach. It is not an approach that gives primary emphasis to decoding.... We should have to insist that our type of approach gives primary emphasis to reading for meanings. Notice also we have said 'reading for meanings1 for we are concerned from the very beginning with not only situation meanings but with lexical meanings of the words, the structural meanings of the sentences, and the cumulative meanings of the succession of sentences as connected by sequence signals to a unit...." Here, Fries seems to be using the concept of synthetic fusion, a synthetic syntactic approach to describing meaning in relation to reading, but, nevertheless, his emphasis is on meaning. Fries' approach to reading instruction, particularly beginning reading, is heavily dependent on the principle of minimally contrasted pairs of stimuli through a series of introductions and drills beginning with letters and then moving to spelling patterns. He recommends that letters be broken down into parts. In the case of letters the parts are strokes, and to avoid confusion, he restricts initial introductions of letters to capital letters. Fries (1963: 191) states," "The child will of course eventually need to learn to respond to 'lower-case' or 'small' letters, and to the letter shapes of 'cursive' or 'hand' writing. But the capitals, if made with the simplest strokes, have the fewest significant contrastive features, and make a much easier first step for the child who wants to read." From letters, Fries (1963) moves to spelling patterns in his

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WILLIAM D. PAGE

recommendations which include a rejection of the common sense approaches that are often called phonics. Fries (1963:195) notes, "Superficial observers who seek to find simple one-to-one correspondences between the individual letters of our alphabet and the separate 'sounds' of our pronunciation often conclude that English spelling is a 'mess.'" Fries1 approach is not superficial. He maintains that once the contrasts among letters can be automatically and rapidly recognized, the next task is to develop high speed recognition of spelling patterns. Here, he is concerned with reading, not writing, with recognition not production. Fries (1963:198) observes, "For the reader, then, the chief problems in learning the major spellingproblems concern the vowels rather than the consonants." As in the case with letters which are grouped into minimal contrastive pairs and groups in Fries' approach, Fries (1963:200) remains true to his principles and recommends, "Instead of the approach through trying to match individual letters and separate sound units, we must develop the automatic habits of responding to the contrastive features of spelling patterns as identifying the word patterns they represent." Fries' transfer stage focusses on minimally contrasted pairs and groups of strokes in capital letters, and then on spelling patterns. His underlying learning theory is associationism, with generalizations as an assumed outcome resulting in high speed recognition. His teaching theory, which is not fully explicit, seems to be one of organizing drills and practices by manipulating the stimuli or materials presented to youngsters. Fries (1963:204) struggles to soften his structuralistic teaching view when he says, "The handling of even these beginning materials need not be mechanical, but it must be systematic, leading by the easiest sets of contrasts

READING

47

through all the major spelling-patterns and some of the minor patterns. Even from the beginning there must be complete meaning responses, including the spontaneous socialcultural responses of realizing the near absurdity or humor of a situation of 'a cat at bat.'" Clearly, there are inconsistencies in Fries' approach. On one hand, focussing on the strokes of the letters breaks written language down into meaningless marks, but on the other hand, he maintains that "even from the beginning there must be complete meaning responses" (Fries, 1963:204). Meaningless marks are not "...complete meaning responses..." Another inconsistency is represented in his repeated recommendations for practice and drill while struggling to maintain that the approach "...need not be mechanical..." The terms Fries uses suggest a mechanical metaphor; 'high speed' and 'automatic.' Smith, Goodman, and Meredith (1970:270) point out another inconsistency, in this case a conflict with psychology, when they state "Fries' focus on minimal contrasts conflicts, however, with evidence from psychology that children can best learn items that have maximal contrasts." In some sense, Fries' recommendation that youngsters be taught to read by presenting them with minimally contrasted pairs of letter strokes and minimally contrasted families of word spellings is the application of a technique of linguistic description to the teaching of reading. This is in contrast with his statement that his book on teaching reading "...does not seek to provide for the teaching of linguistics as such..." (Fries, 1963:viii) for in fact, the use of minimally contrastive pairs is a structural linguistic tool used by linguists to describe language, one which psychologists also recognize as a scientific tool. Gibson and Levin (1975:89) state, "The simplest way to identify phonemes is through a series of minimal contrasts: bit,

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WILLIAM D. PAGE

hit, sit, lit."

The important distinction to be considered

is that identification and learning are not the same. If Charles Fries were alive today he would probably be in the thick of the controversies, holding out for his scientific views and continuing to teach his ideas about linguistics to help teachers in reading instruction improve their efforts.

Although some of his ideas appear incons-

sistent with what we know today, many of his concerns remain at the frontiers.

Wardhaugh's

(1969:21) statement of

Fries' work provides some perspective when he says, "With his (Fries) interest in applied linguistics, it is not surprising that he should have published what undoubtedly is the most influential book on linguistics and reading to date.

Today, 20 years after Fries 1

Linguistics

and

Reading,

(1963) publication of

his work remains among the most

influential and can not be ignored by any serious scholar in reading.

REFERENCES

Language.

Bloomfield, Leonard.

(1933).

New York: Henry Holt.

Bloomfield, Leonard. English Review,

(1942). Linguistics and Reading. 19:125-130 and 183-186.

Elementary

Bloomfield, Leonard. (1955). Linguistics and Reading. Language Learning, 5:94-107. (Reprint of Bloomfield, 1942.) Brown, Ann. (1980). Metacognitive Development and Reading. In Rand J. Spiro, Bertram C. Bruce and William F. Brewer (Eds.) , Theoretieal Issues in Reading Comprehension, 453-481. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Butler, E.H.

(1883).

The First

Chall, Jeanne. (1967). Learning York: McGraw-Hill.

Reader. to Read:

Philadelphia, PA: Sherman. The Great Debate.

New

READING Chomsky, Noam. (1965). Aspects MA: M.I.T. Press.

49

of the Theory of Syntax.

Cambridge,

Danes, František. (1974). Papers on Functional Sentence Perspective. Prague: Publishing House of the Czech Academy of Science. Dijk, Teun van. Mouton.

(1972).

Some Aspects

of Text

Grammars.

The Hague:

Farnham, George L. (1881) . The Sentence Method of Teaching Reading, Writing, and Spelling, A Manual for Teachers. Syracuse, NY: C.W. Bardeen. Fries, Charles C. (1952). court, Brace.

The Structure

Fries, Charles C. (1963). Linguistics Rinehart, and Winston.

of English. and Reading.

New York: HarNew York: Holt,

Fries, Charles C., James Holly Hanford, and Harrison Ross Steeves. (1926). The Teaching of Literature. New York: Silver Burdett. Gibson, Eleanor, and Harry Levin. (1975). Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press. Goodman, Kenneth S. Game. Journal

The Psychology

of

Reading.

(1967). Reading: A Psycholinguistic Guessing of the Reading Specialist 4:126-135.

Goodman, Kenneth S. (1970) . Behind the Eye: What Happens in Reading. In Kenneth Goodman and Olive Niles (Eds.), Reading: Process and Program, 3-38. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. Gough, Philip. (1972). One Second of Reading. In James Kavanaugh and Ignatius Mattingly (Eds.), Language by Ear and by Eye: The Relationships Between Speech and Writing, 331-358. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press. Gray, William S., and Bernice E. Leary. (1935). What Makes a Book Readable. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hart, John. (1570). A Method or Comfortable Beginning for all Unlearned, Whereby They may bee Taught to Read English, in a very Short Time, with Pleasure. London: Henrie Denham. Huey, Edmund Burke. (1968) . The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press. (First published by the Macmillan Company in 1908).

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W I L L I A M D.

PAGE

Kintsch, Walter. (1972). Notes on the Structure of Semantic Memory. In Endel Tulving and Wayne Donaldson (Eds.) , Organisation of Memory, 247-308. New York: Academic Press. Mattingly, Ignatius. (1972). Reading, the Linguistic Process, and Linguistic Awareness. In James Kavanaugh and Ignatius Mattingly

(Eds.), Language by Ear and by Eye: Speech

and Writing,

133-147.

The Relationships

Cambridge, MA:

Between

M.I.T. Press.

McGuffey, William H. (1838). The Eclectic Third Reader, improved edition of 1838. Cincinnati, OH: Truman and Smith. Morgan, Jerry L., and Manfred B. Sellner. (1980). Discourse and Linguistic Theory. In Rand J. Spiro, Bertram C. Bruce and William F. Brewer (Eds.), Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension, 165-200. Hillsdale, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum. Putnam, Samuel. (1836). liam Hyde.

The Analytical

Reader.

Portland, ME:

Wil-

Smith, E. Brooks, Kenneth Goodman and Robert Meredith. (1970). Language and Thinking in the Elementary School. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Smith, Nila B.

(1955).

Why Do the Schools

Teach Reading

as They Do?

Summary of a presentation made at the Public Relations Seminar of the National School of Public Relations Association, July 14, 1955. Lake Forest, IL: National School Public Relations Association. Stevens, Kenneth N. and Morris Halle. (1967). Remarks on Analysis by Synthesis and Distinctive Features. In Weiant Wathen-Dunn (Ed.),

Models for

the Perception

Cambridge, MA:

Wardhaugh, Ronald. York:

of Speech and Visual

Form, 88-102.

M.I.T. Press.

(1969). Reading:

A Linguistic

Harcourt, Brace and World.

Perspective.

New

AMERICAN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

R o b e r t C. J o n e s

Miss Groby, Dear C h a r l e s :

t o Charles Carpenter

Fries.

I t h o u g h t o f y o u t h i s p a s t week a s I

take a l e t t e r

looked

t h r o u g h a new c o l l e c t i o n Editing

letters

of l e t t e r s

o f Raymond

Chandler.

s e e m s t o b e t h e new s c h o l a r s h i p t h e s e

V i r g i n i a Woolf's

l e t t e r s , William Faulkner's

days:

letters,

Ernest Hemingway's l e t t e r s - - a n d now Raymond Chandler's. The e d i t o r s a r e n ' t quite as i n t e r e s t e d in l e t t e r s the same way you used t o be (of course, in the f i f t i e s ,

you switched

to telephone conversations--but I suppose we must move with the technology); and, indeed, as I was reading Chandler's l e t t e r s , I found myself becoming more and more i n t e r e s t e d in the content and less aware of the forms Chandler was using.

But one of the l e t t e r s brought me up sharp and, as

I say, made me think of you, Charles.

I t was a l e t t e r

from

Chandler to Juanita Messick, h i s secretary for many years. I quote i t in

full:

The use of present participles to avoid relative clauses should be very cautiously approached. "A man wearing a green hat came up the steps." This is fine because a lot simpler and less cumbrous and doesn't make too much of the green hat. "A man who was wearing a green hat came up the steps." Seems to hit it too hard. It seems that Tidwell's trouble is not poor syntax (what he writes is correct enough) but lack of feeling for the weight of words. A statement as portentous should not

52

ROBERT C. JONES be made with such a light and passing construction. It's getting towards a thing like: "De Musset was thirty three years old that day, being guillotined at two in the afternoon." Obviously what is wrong with that is the style, not the grammar. His age is made more important than the fact that he had his head chopped off. I should say-—correct me if I am wrong-—that this, next to the cliche, is the greatest fault of writing, important enough in its content, which is turned out by scientists, some scholars, and technical writers generally, and is the result of the separation of the Humanities from the special departments of knowledge. Not true of the best, of course. A really first class mind can always express itself. Why do we go on wasting our school years the only years we have in which to learn how to use our brains and minds and tongues? Why? Is it a question of money, of politics in the schools, or are we really intellectually a second-class people? And if so, do we want to be? Do we think it more manly to stumble over simple syntax provided we can reassemble a Ford or throw a football 45 yards? (1981:300-301)

"Why do we go on wasting our school years the only years we have in which to learn how to use our brains and minds and tongues?" That still is the pertinent question, isn't it, Charles? You asked-or implied—it back in 1940, in American English Grammar. Chandler asked it again in 1951 (the date of the letter I just quoted). And it could, with justification, still be asked today, forty some odd years after you set down those thoughtful inferences for developing "a workable program in English language for the schools." Of course, a lot of funny things have happened to English language teaching since 1940. One of the first, obviously, was the war. I suppose I don't have to remind you about that, do I, Charles? You and the other structural linguists got some real momentum from the insights into language-learning that those war years provided. But after the war--particularly in the Fifties (the years of the Silent Generation, Time called them, in a fine blaze of nomenclature) with the Baby Boom, and the

AMERICAN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

53

Eisenhower administration, and Sputnik, and all those kids and veterans clamoring to be educated—as I say, after the war, priorities in language teaching seemed to get shifted around. From my vantage point of hindsight, I'd say that three things happened to cause that shift in priorities. The first was the "Teacher-proof Curriculum." The second was "New English." And the third was—and still is—the "Back to Basics Movement." "Teacher-proof Curriculum" is probably an easy one to figure out. Faced with all those students in the Fifties and Sixties, administrators needed a course of study that any idiot could present. Not too complimentary to the teaching profession, I'll admit; but those were hectic years, Charles. In 1954 I was in graduate school at the University of Texas (at Austin. Back then, that was the only University of Texas. Nowadays, Charles, you wouldn't dream what's happening to Universities. Would you believe "University of Texas of the Permian Basin?"); the joke going around then (not a very funny one, granted) was about some fellow who asked the English Department chairman for directions on how to get downtown and, ten minutes later, found himself enrolled as a graduate assistant and assigned to teach two sections of Freshman English. The point, of course, is that such stories were not peculiar to the University of Texas. Every university and public school in the country found itself desperate for teachers. The remedy was to find somebody—and any body—and give him or her a foolproof lesson plan to follow. You can guess what such a remedy did to the English curriculum. "New English" was a direct steal from "New Math." Do you remember "New Math," Charles? Tom Lehrer probably characterized it best: "It doesn't matter what answer you

54

ROBERT C. JONES

get—it's the concept that's important." The linguists and scholars who supplied the concepts for "New English" were people with very respectable credentials: George Trager, H.L. Smith, Jr., Archibald A. Hill, W. Nelson Francis, Paul Roberts, Charles C. Fries—among scores of others. But like "New Math," "New English" never survived the trip from the concept to the classroom. Public education got into a passel of problems in the late Sixties and Seventies. You don't really want to hear about them, Charles. And here we are now, in the Eighties: a period of time in education called "Back to the Basics." The government, big business, the professions, the parents, the school boards, the superintendents, the principals, even many of the teachers now demand of English teachers that we go "back" (wherever that is) to the "basics" (whatever those might be). If this were a Greek tragedy, I'd be tempted to call the "Back to Basics" demand a marvelous example of dramatic irony, because what people seem to be demanding that we do is what we've never stopped doing— not even when you tried to stop us in 1940, when you published American English Grammar. Just to refresh your memory a bit, Charles: In American English Grammar, you singled out what was then—and what I think still is today—the greatest problem English teachers have in developing a workable program in English language for the classroom: We assume "that the problem of language usage is a simple one of correct forms and mistakes which can easily be separated according to the rules." But you didn't stop there. You proved, in page after page of examples from the living language, that such an assumption is "fundamentally unsound. First, language usage cannot thus be separated into two simple classes. Instead, our usage presents a complex range of differing

AMERICAN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

55

and c h a n g i n g p r a c t i c e s w h i c h must be u n d e r s t o o d to the feelings Second,

of an i n d e f i n i t e

sensitiveness

number of

to usage—a richness

in

social of

assimilated

e x p e r i e n c e t h r o u g h w h i c h one becomes a w a r e of t h e tions

a t t a c h i n g t o w o r d s and c o n s t r u c t i o n s

circumstances

i n w h i c h t h e y a r e commonly u s e d — i s

serves t o deaden t h i s

sensitiveness

r o n m e n t and t o t u r n o n e ' s

attention

s o u r c e of r e a l k n o w l e d g e " Good t h o u g h t s , s p i t e of dures?

them, By g o d ,

problem of and

the

only

All the

" r u l e s of

to one's

the

grammar"

speech

away f r o m t h e

ef

envi

only

(1940:285-286).

Charles.

the original it

of

sugges

b e c a u s e of

c o n d i t i o n upon w h i c h good E n g l i s h c a n be won. f o r t w h i c h g o e s t o make o n e conscious

relation groups.

prevails.

language usage i s

But I ' m a f r a i d assumption s t i l l We still

that,

in

endures.

assume t h a t

a s i m p l e o n e of correct

En

the forms

mistakes: Do you have t o study "grammar" and/or "usage" t o w r i t e corr e c t standard English? Clearly n o t ; many f i n e w r i t e r s have mas t e r e d t h e standard g r a p h o l e c t simply by reading and emulating o t h e r w r i t e r s . But suppose, l i k e most c o l l e g e s t u d e n t s , you happen t o make a good many mistakes in forming p l u r a l s and p o s s e s s i v e s , g e t t i n g s u b j e c t s and verbs t o a g r e e , matching p r o nouns with a n t e c e d e n t s , and so on. In t h a t c a s e , your reading alone h a s n ' t s u f f i c e d ; now you need t o t r o u b l e s h o o t , d e l i b e r a t e l y mastering whatever p r i n c i p l e s you f a i l e d t o p i c k up through i n t u i t i o n . For t h a t p u r p o s e , you need t o study both "grammar" and " u s a g e . " You c a n ' t understand t h e r u l e s of usage u n l e s s you are f a m i l i a r with a minimum of grammatical terminology, and even t h e b a r e s t review of grammar w i l l probably cover p o i n t s on which you have been d e v i a t i n g from t h e standard g r a p h o l e c t , (Crews, 1980:199)

That statement, as you can see, comes from a college handbook. I can almost anticipate your reaction, Charles. It's as though you had never written: "It would seem to be a waste of time and resources—a waste that is harmful in the light of the great many important things to be taught—to strive futilely to eliminate from the speech of

56

ROBERT C. JONES

our pupils practices that our sketch shows to be fairly frequent in informal Standard English" (1940:291). Sometimes I think English teachers are like Cooper Indians, Charles. Even when they can see that they've missed the boat, they just keep on jumping—harder and harder—and keep on missing. Do you remember the list of items you gave as examples of the kinds of usages we probably ought not to be wasting our time on? Here they are: a. Bone with plural verb b.

The indefinites everyone, everybody, etc., with a plural reference pronoun or a plural verb separated from the indefinite by other words

c. The use in accord with the pressures of word order of the case forms of the six pronouns which still retain dativeaccusative forms d.

The use of the indicative form in non-fact clauses

e. As introducing a causal clause and so equal to a weakened

therefore f.

The noun adjunct

J u s t f o r t h e h e l l of i t , C h a r l e s , I d e c i d e d t o check one of t h e l e a d i n g p u b l i c s c h o o l c o m p o s i t i o n t e x t s h e r e i n Missouri (Warriner 's English Grammar and Corn-position) to f i n d o u t w h e t h e r anyone e v e r l i s t e n e d t o you. Here a r e the r e s u l t s : a . None with plural verb. T h i s one s t i l l seems t o be c a u s i n g t r o u b l e : The words some, any, none, all and most may be singular or p l u r a l , depending on the meaning of the sentence. Usually, when the words some, any, none, all and most refer to a singular word, they are singular; when they refer t o a plural word, they are p l u r a l . Since the word referred to appears in a phrase following the subject, t h i s rule is an exception to rule 6a (1977:86)

AMERICAN ENGLISH GRAMMAR I

l o o k e d up r u l e

6c:

n o t changed by a p h r a s e b. plural

The verb

" T h e n u m b e r of t h e s u b j e c t

following

indefinites

with

separated

from

No t r o u b l e s h e r e — a l l

57.

the subject"

a plural

the

(1977:86).

reference

indefinite

straight-forward

by and

is

pronoun other

or

words.

above-board:

The words each, either, neither, one, everyone, everybody , no one, nobody, anyone, anybody, someone, somebody a r e r e f e r r e d t o by a s i n g u l a r pronoun—he, him, his, she, her, hers, i t , its. The use of a phrase a f t e r t h e antecedent does not change t h e number of the a n t e c e d e n t . (1977:100) But h e r e ' s As a r e s u l t Seventies

of

a w r i n k l e you'd be i n t e r e s t e d a while back,

d o away w i t h s e x i s t p r o n o u n s . plural

situation: 'If

someone c a l l s ,

spoken E n g l i s h ,

avoiding the tell

and

we're trying

H e r e ' s how t h e t e x t

"In informal

i s a n a c c e p t a b l e way o f

of g e n d e r :

Charles.

one of t h o s e p r o b l e m s of t h e S i x t i e s

I was m e n t i o n i n g

with that

in,

them I ' l l

to

deals the

determination call

back"

(1977:100). c. of

the

The

use

in

accord

dative-accusative

teresting usage

with pronoun

the

pressure

forms.

of

word

There a r e two

order in-

notes:

I t i s now p e r f e c t l y a c c e p t a b l e t o use me as a p r e d i c a t e nom i n a t i v e in informal usage: It's me (The c o n s t r u c t i o n r a r e l y comes up in formal s i t u a t i o n s . ) The p l u r a l form (It's us) i s a l s o g e n e r a l l y accepted. However, using t h e o b j e c t i v e case for t h e t h i r d person form of t h e pronoun (It's him, It's them) i s s t i l l often frowned on in standard E n g l i s h . When you encounter any of t h e s e e x p r e s s i o n s i n t h e e x e r c i s e s in t h i s book or in t h e v a r i o u s t e s t s you t a k e , you w i l l be wise t o t a k e a c o n s e r v a t i v e a t t i t u d e and use t h e nominative forms in a l l i n s t a n c e s . (1977:107) In informal usage, whom is not usually used as an interrogative pronoun. Who is used regardless of the case. Informal

Who do you know in Toledo? Who does the manager want?

58

ROBERT C. JONES In formai usage, the distinction between who and whom is still recognized: Formal

Whom do you know in Toledo? (Whom is the object of the verb do know.) Whom does the manager want? (Whom is the object of the verb does want.) (1977:113-114)

d. The use of the A g a i n , no t r o u b l e s : Rule 8j

indicative

form

in non-fact

clauses.

The subjunctive were i s usually used in contraryto-fact statements (after if or as though) and in statements expressing a wish. (1977:158)

e . As introducing a causal clause and so equal to a weakened t h e r e f o r e . S p l i t d e c i s i o n , h e r e , C h a r l e s ; under r u l e 12b, t h e t e x t r e c o g n i z e s : The following subordinating conjunctions introduce clauses expressing the cause or reason for the idea expressed in the independent c l a u s e . . . : as, because, since, whereas. (1977:211) But the entry for so is as follows: So

Because this word is usually overworked, avoid it in your writing whenever you can.

Foor

The weather cleared, so we put up the sail and headed out to sea.

Better

When the weather cleared, we put up the sail and headed out to sea.

Better

Since the weather had cleared, we put up the sail and headed out to sea. (1977:189)

f. The noun adjunct. Here is what seems to be a stunning victory, Charles. The text makes no mention at all of noun adjuncts—a clear indication that, in one out of six items, your arguments were overwhelmingly convincing.

AMERICAN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

59

Pardon me if I sound a little flippant, Charles. What it comes down to is this: We are still going on wasting our school years "the only years we have in which to learn how to use our brains and minds and tongues." In spite of the insights of American English Grammar, we haven't made much progress toward your "workable program in English language"—not in the classroom, not in the profession. Where you called for agreement upon "the kinds of English which it is the obligation of the schools to teach," we have continued, on all levels of education, to disagree and to persist blindly in our disagreement. Where you called for "an accurate, realistic description of the actual practice of informal Standard English," we have persisted in attempting to use an imaginary social pressure to teach correct forms and mistakes. Where you called for teachers to encourage students to observe actual usage and "to go as far as possible in giving them a practical equipment for this purpose," we have persisted in limiting students to artificial examples, rules, and exceptions to rules; and, worst of all, we have almost never given them the important tools: knowledge of word forms, understanding of function words, sensitivity to word order. In short, we have not yet provided for our students "a language experience that is directed toward acquaintance with and practice in the rich and varied resources of the language." But maybe I'm being too pessimistic. Browsing through the PE2811 shelves in our Ward Edwards Library the other day, I happened upon four copies of American

English

Gram-

mar, stuck between The Structure of American English and The People's English. I was heartened to discover that most recent check-out date on copy number four—not counting my own—was November 1980. The great thing about an idea, Charles, is that it keeps on reverberating. Give us another forty some odd years, and--who knows?

60

ROBERT C. JONES REFERENCES

Crews, Frederick. (1980). Random House Inc.

The Random House Handbook.

Fries, Charles C. (1940). American English pleton Century.

Grammar.

MacShane, Frank (Ed.). (1981). Selected Letters New York: Columbia University Press.

New York: New York: Ap-

of Raymond

Chandler.

Warriner, John E. and Francis Griffith. (1977). Warriner's English Grammar and Composition. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

PART TWO: LINGUISTICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

C.C. FRIES' VIEW OF LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

Peter H. Fries

Central t o F r i e s ' view of language i s the use of l a n guage as a t o o l t o communicate meaning. Because t h i s t o p i c i s very l a r g e , I w i l l only mention s e v e r a l important conse quences of F r i e s ' approach t o meaning. I w i l l not d i r e c t l y d i s c u s s h i s notions of meaning. (See Crawford, t h i s volume for such a d i s c u s s i o n . ) For F r i e s , a language i s a code of s i g n a l s which allows us t o i n t e r p r e t speech a c t s . The p a s sage below s t a t e s h i s p o s i t i o n . . . . a speech a c t — . . . a sequence of v o c a l sounds produced by A and heard by B--can be t h e p h y s i c a l means of conveying a message from A t o B only when the patterns of these vocal sounds fit the pattern of some a r b i t r a r y code of signals agreed upon and f a m i l i a r t o both A and B. A language i s such a code. The p h y s i c a l speech a c t s themselves are not the message; nor are they the language. The sum of t h e speech a c t s of a community does not c o n s t i t u t e i t s language. Only as sequences of vocal sounds are grasped or recognized as f i t t i n g i n t o r e c u r r i n g p a t t e r n s do they become t h e s t u f f out of which a language can be made; and only when t h e s e p a t t e r n s are c o r r e l a t e d with r e c u r r i n g p a t t e r n s of p r a c t i c a l s i t u a t i o n s in man's experience and can t h u s be learned as a s e t of s i g n a l s t o e l i c i t p r e d i c t a b l e responses do they b e come language i t s e l f . The language i s not t h e meanings or t h e message; i t i s not t h e p h y s i c a l sequences of v o c a l sounds or t h e speech a c t s . A language i s t h e code of s i g n a l s through which v a r i o u s sequences of v o c a l sounds or speech a c t s g e t meaning; i t i s a code of s i g n a l s by which messages can be sent from one i n d i v i d u a l t o another.1 (1963:100)

64

PETER H. FRIES

First, note that in this view, language is abstract. It is not the speech acts; it is not the messages, etc. It is rather the set of principles which allows speakers to relate speech acts to meanings.2 Second, these patterns of signals are not language itself until they are correlated with meaning (the "recurring patterns of practical situations in man's experience"). Vocal sounds by themselves, even systems and patterns of vocal sounds, are at best the stuff from which language "may be made." To be language, these vocal sounds must operate as signals to communicate meanings from one individual to another. Finally, inherent in Fries' view of communication is the notion of prediction. (He talks about predictable responses. ) If I wish to communicate some message to you, I must be able to predict something of your recognition and action responses. If I wish to get you to open the window, I must be able to choose the language I use in such a way that you are likely to perceive what I say as a request and not a statement of fact or a question. Further, I must be able to predict with some degree of regularity the kind of action you will perform, once you perceive and interpret what I say. If I could not predict, that is, if I had literally no idea of what your recognition and action responses would be, then all communication would be literally impossible. The existence of the code of signals, the language, enables speakers to make such predictions. What is the nature of the code? Fries takes a structural approach and says that this approach: not only requires us to abandon our word-centered thinking about language; it demands that in every aspect of language we must

shift from an item-centered

view to one that is

structure-cen-

tered. (1963:64)

LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

65

Like other linguists of his time Fries looked at two types of structural relations: what de Saussure called syntagmatic relations, and paradigmatic relations. Fries discussed syntagmatic relations when he argued that the meaning of a sentence was more than a vague fusion of the meanings of the component words. If the sentences The bear killed the man and The man killed the bear are to be considered different sentences it is not because they contain different words. Indeed it is not even because they contain the same words (as items) in different orders. It is rather the result of the fact that these words enter into different structural relations within the sentences, relations which are signalled by patterns of word classes (not by individual words). (See, for example [1952:69].) These structural relations such as subject and object, (Fries used the term grammatical structures), are signalled by patterns of word classes, and themselves signal what Fries called grammatical meanings. Of course, since language is a complex system, it is not possible to correlate one grammatical relation with one meaning. Fries described five different meanings signalled by subject; 'performer,' 'that which is identified,' 'that which is described,' 'the undergoer of the action' and 'the beneficiary of the action. ' Some of his examples of these meanings are given below. a. The dean approved all our recommendations. A beautiful cloth covers the table. The accident occurred yesterday. b. Mrs. W_ was P's teacher for three years. Mrs. B seems the head person over there now. c. The farewell dinner will be huge. Those wires back there are really unsightly. d.

Lots of tools can be furnished him right there. 0_ was elected sheriff.

66

PETER H . e.

The l a d i e s w e r e g i v e n

FRIES

orchids. (1952:178-18])

The meanings signalled by subject are not the result of a vague operation of context, but rather are cued byvery specific signals in the language. For example, if the class 2 word (in our terms, the main verb) of the sentence belongs to a special list including verbs like be, seem and appear, then the subject indicates either 'that which is identified' or 'that which is described.' If an auxiliary (function word) be or get is followed by a past participle of the verb, then the subject indicates either the undergoer or the beneficiary of the action of the verb. Each of these two pairs of meanings can be distinguished by looking at other signals in the sentences. Admittedly the signalling system is complex. Indeed, in 1957 Chomsky looked at this complexity and gave up, saying: ...to assign "structural meanings" to grammatical structures just as "lexical meanings" are assigned to words or morphemes, is a step of very questionable validity. (1957:104)

F r i e s ' r e p l y would have been, if i t i s impossible t o r e l a t e grammatical s t r u c t u r e s t o meanings, then j u s t how do people who are not mind-readers communicate? In h i s view, communication between people r e q u i r e d t h a t something s p e c i f i c in t h e form of the speech a c t or the c o n t e x t in which t h a t speech a c t occurs s i g n a l the meanings intended by t h e speaker. When F r i e s discussed paradigmatic r e l a t i o n s , he made statements such as t h e following: Language-learning, i n t h e t h i n k i n g of both lay-men and t e a c h e r s , most f r e q u e n t l y has meant t h e mastering of items-t h e items of sounds t h a t must be pronounced, t h e i n d i v i d u a l words t h a t must be i d e n t i f i e d w i t h t h e meanings, t h e p a r t s of sentences t h a t must be c l a s s i f i e d . From our s t r u c t u r a l p o i n t of view, items such as t h e s e have no l i n g u i s t i c s i g n i f i c a n c e by themselves. Only as such items

LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

67

contrast with other items in the patterns of an arbitrary system do they have linguistic significance. In other words, all the significant matters of language are linguistic features in contrast. (1963:64)

A result of this approach is that one cannot learn a language one item at a time. For example, one cannot first learn the sound [1] and then learn the sound [r], for the physical characteristics of these sounds, the actual pronunciation, is significant only as these sounds enter into the total system of English sounds. The difference in sound between [1] and [r] is not irrelevant, of course, since contrast must be realized by some difference in form. However, it is a mistake in his eyes to view the contrast as purely a difference in form, since mere difference in form does not always signal a contrast. The /k/ in kill differs in sound from the /k/ sounds in call and cool and yet all three different sounds are examples of the same phoneme. What is important is the identity of the form of a unit in relation to the identities of the forms of the other units of the language. This approach explains his somewhat unusual approach of dealing with English morphology in the Structure of English in which he seems not to make a morphological analysis (though in the introduction he says he assumes one has been made) and instead focusses on the contrasts in the resulting form. (See Greenbaum this volume for further discussion of this point.) Fries differed from many of the other linguists of his day, however, in allowing items of radically different form to be manifestations of the same functional unit. For example, Bloch and Trager (1942:43) say that all the allophones of a phoneme must have some phonetic feature in common which distinguishes them from the allophones of all

68

PETER H. FRIES

t h e o t h e r phonemes of t h e l a n g u a g e .

While F r i e s n e v e r p u b

lished a d i r e c t reaction to t h i s position,

his

discussions

of t h e s t r i k e i n b a s e b a l l and t h e c o n c e p t of p a r t of published

i n t h e Structure

show t h a t he Later

of

English

(1952:72-73)

speech

clearly

disagreed.

in a l e t t e r

t o me he made h i s o b j e c t i o n s

s o r t of a p p r o a c h e x p l i c i t when he w r o t e

(referring

to

this

t o an

a n a l y s i s by S l e d d ) : I d o n ' t b e l i e v e t h a t we have (or t h a t we are l i k e l y t o have) any r e a l l y o b j e c t i v e p u r e l y phonetic c r i t e r i a of t h e " p h o n e t i c similarity" phrase t h a t so often appears i n d e f i n i t i o n s of t h e phoneme. I b e l i e v e , t o o , t h a t p u r e l y p h o n e t i c c o n s i d e r a t i o n s should n o t (must not) be used as determining f a c t o r s in e s t a b l i s h i n g t h e phonemes of a language. (1959:2) Now i f

formal c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s

a r e n o t t o be used a s a

means of e s t a b l i s h i n g t h e f u n c t i o n i n g s y s t e m , what a r e ?

u n i t s of a

His answer was t o l o o k a t t h e

of t h e n a t i v e s p e a k e r .

The l e t t e r

q u o t e d above

language responses continues:

When I heard Sledd arguing for h i s s o - c a l l e d " t e n t h " vowel in E n g l i s h , i t seemed t o me t h a t n e a r l y e v e r y t h i n g he offered as evidence was based on phonetic c o n s i d e r a t i o n s . I d i d n ' t d i s p u t e h i s a s s e r t i o n t h a t he always made the distinctions he d i d . . . . But what I wanted t o have was evidence of t h e e x i s t e n c e of some community, no m a t t e r how l a r g e i n which t h a t p a r t i c u l a r c o n t r a s t of sound f e a t u r e s a c t u a l l y made such a d i f f e r ence in t h e speech s i g n a l t h a t t h e responses r e g u l a r l y elicited d i f f e r e d r e g u l a r l y . I t i s n ' t enough, I b e l i e v e , t h a t , for t h e s p e a k e r . . . t h e o p p o s i t i o n (between two sounds) r e g u l a r l y occurs or even t h a t i t r e g u l a r l y occurs for him i n c o r r e l a t i o n with r e c u r r i n g "sames" of stimulus f e a t u r e s . I t must, i n a d d i t i o n , I b e l i e v e , r e g u l a r l y e l i c i t r e c u r r i n g "sames" of response f e a t u r e s i n some community. (1959:2) While I do not wish to claim that this is an accurate description of Sledd's position, Fries was quite correct in pointing out that there was a fundamental difference between the two approaches.

Clearly, given the statement

LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

69

above, Fries never could have agreed with Hill (1958:18) that "there are speakers who have four contrasts in stress, but who still have difficulty in learning the distinctions they make." Of course if the responses of the community of speakers are important, then the existence of that community of speakers is essential to Fries' notion of language. Indeed, one searches in vain through his writings for the term ideolect , the language or dialect of a single speaker. Individuals are unimportant to him. A language is a signalling system common to a community. A community of course, entails at least two people. Now while Fries insisted on looking at the language of a community, and he also insisted that all languages are systems, he did not insist that the language of a community must be a single totally self-consistent monolithic system. His experience with the history of English taught him that "the texts of every limited cross-section of the English language will show a complexity of coexisting (conflicting) systems of grammatical signals in a complex of various stages of change.... There seems to have been no time in the last 1000 years of English when any completely homogeneous linguistic community existed. There is always a "time depth" of approximately a hundred years" (1979:925-6). This statement looks at variation in the community. But clearly Fries also believed individuals could use coexisting conflicting systems too. Thus, the article "coexistent phonemic systems" by Fries and Pike begins with the following passage.3 The speech of monolingual natives of some languages is comprised of more than one phonemic system; the simultaneously existing systems operate partly in harmony and partly in conflict. No rigidly descriptive statement of the facts about such a language accounts for all the structural data without

70

PETER H. FRIES leading to apparent contradictions. These are caused by the conflict of statements about one phonemic system with statements about another system or part of a system present in the speech of the same individual. (1949:29) Each article deals with only one language, but they

imply that no language (even the language of an individual, or idiolect) is a completely coherent system.

All lan-

guages contain variation, and the history of a language is relevant to the explanation of the present system of that language.

This position obviously blurs the distinction

between the synchronic description of a language as it exists at a particular time and the diachronic description of how that language changed through time.

This distinc-

tion was articulated clearly by de Saussure, and has been held sacred by most structuralists since.

Chomsky

(1963:3)

for example, talks about the "ideal speaker-hearer in a completely homogeneous speech community." The final topic within Fries' view of language is his view of language as a set of habits.

Here we must examine

exactly what he meant when he used the word habits. typically used this term in opposition to knowing

He about

a

language. "Knowing" a language in such a way that one can use it freely in the getting and giving of meaning is a very different matter from knowing about the language. To use a new language one must develop a new set of habits. And habits can only be developed by practice. (1958:21)4 Fries began using the opposition between knowing versus habits

about

when arguing against the then current view that

teaching students to recite rules of grammar would help them use standard English in their own conversations and writing.

His point was that knowing

about

not help one use the language for his own ends.

a language did As he said:

LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

71

If [one] is to speak effectively he must give his entire attention to grasping clearly his ideas and to the choice and organization of the materials underlying these ideas in order to meet the needs of his hearers. Language forms, the grammatical apparatus of his expression, must come automatically. Just as a child can be said to have learned to walk only when the act of balancing and the placing of his feet in steps have become unconscious processes, so he has really learned a language only when the grammatical forms of that language have become habits. (1927:124)

The passage above shows clearly that Fries was using a metaphor of subconscious physical activity, not a mechanical one, and that the crucial determinant of what was or was not a habit was the focus of attention. That is, could the activity occur without conscious monitoring by the person? As a result, language is habitual because people typically use language forms as an instrument to communicate meanings while the meanings are the focus of attention. Exactly what do these habits consist of? Figure 1 is my attempt to represent in a diagram Fries' view of the relations between the various units of language as described in Linguistics and Reading, chapter 3. At each point at which a signalling relationship exists, two habits must be formed; one must habitually recognize the pattern of form which acts as the signal, and one must habitually associate the pattern recognized with the structure or meaning being signalled. The patterns which serve as signals are not concrete, but are abstract patterns. Fries considered even the very first step in the signalling process, the perception of sounds, which is supposedly the most concrete step, to involve the perception of abstract patterns. Thus he said: The units which function in identifying the word patterns and the sentence-patterns of a language like English do not consist of items of vocal sound features added together as building blocks. These functioning units are bundles of contrastive

72

PETER H. FRIES

LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

73

d i f f e r e n c e s - - c o n t r a s t i v e d i f f e r e n c e s of sound f e a t u r e s , of s e quences, of d i s t r i b u t i o n of p i t c h . They are a b s t r a c t i o n s . (1963:78) This quotation deals primarily with the perception sounds,

but i t

is

nalling patterns tions

clear

from F r i e s ' w r i t i n g s

that the

and t h e m e a n i n g s t h e y s i g n a l a r e

a t e v e r y s t e p of t h e w a y .

If

abstrac

I may go t o t h e

other

end of t h e d i a g r a m i n F i g u r e 1 , t h e m e a n i n g s s i g n a l l e d abstractions world."

from o u r e x p e r i e n c e .

Thus i n h i s

lecture

d i s t i n c t i o n between r e a l i t y , for

him.

" E x p e r i e n c e of processed,

They a r e n o t t h e

"real clear

o u r e x p e r i e n c e of t h i s r e a l i t y , Reality

seems a l m o s t

(He s a y s h e " a s s u m e s t h e r e this reality"

are

n o t e s F r i e s makes a v e r y

and t a l k a b o u t o u r e x p e r i e n c e . levant

of

sig

is relevant,

is

a

irre

reality.")

but is not

un

for:

[ i t ] 5 i s a complex continuum [and in order] t o grasp i t , t o t a l k about i t , t o d e a l with i t p r a c t i c a l l y [we] must as i t were break off a chunk of t h i s continuum and t r e a t i t as a u n i t , as an item. For t h i s p r o c e s s of t a k i n g a p i e c e out of t h i s continuum of e x p e r i e n c e I am using t h e word " u n i t i z e . " [This i s ] t h e opposite of unify. [ I t i s ] the o p p o s i t e of generalize. [ I t i s the] op p o s i t e of [the] s o - c a l l e d growth of concepts. (nd:6) In t h i s model,

t a l k about our e x p e r i e n c e — l a n g u a g e ,

i s — c a n be seen t o i n f l u e n c e

our i n t e r p r e t a t i o n

that

of o u r

ex

perience. To e x i s t and t o c o n t i n u e , a s o c i a l group needs not only a body of common e x p e r i e n c e ; i t needs a l s o a common body of "meanings" through which t o achieve a common i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of t h a t e x p e r ience—something of a common understanding of t h e s i g n i f i c a n c e of t h a t e x p e r i e n c e . (1963:98)

This common understanding is achieved through talk. The lecture notes quoted from above provide a means of interpreting an otherwise curious wording that he used in the Structure of English when he discussed the function of

74

PETER H. FRIES

language within society.

In discussing some examples

w h i c h d o not involve the use of language he said

"...the

practical action of the response as w e l l as the stimulus which arose out of the practical situation were both w i t h in the same individual"

(1952:33).

That i s , the stimuli

are w i t h i n t h e perceiver not outside of the perceiver like the practical situation. part of our e x p e r i e n c e .

6

It seems that the stimuli are S o , w h i l e linguistic units are

tied to meanings as signal to signalled at every step of the signalling r e l a t i o n , neither the signals nor the things signalled are concrete stimuli and r e s p o n s e s , b u t rather are abstract p a t t e r n s . F i n a l l y , w e m u s t treat F r i e s ' view of linguistic science.

H e always insisted that linguistics is a science.

Since he formulated h i s views on the nature of science long before Kuhn's notions of paradigms and scientific r e v o l u tions were developed, it behooves us to explore exactly

what he meant by science. In his view, science had to be cumulative and it had to be predictive. It had to be cumulative in that other researchers must be able to build on one's work. The techniques, procedures and assumptions used in one's analysis should be presented for examination. Thus chapters 2 through 5 of the Structure of English are an attempt to state his procedures and assumptions. The actual results of the analysis are not reported until chapters 6 through 12. Extremely important, in his view, to the reliability of any analysis is the necessity that it be based on language gathered from the stream of speech when the speakers were focussing on the meanings being expressed, not on the language being used. This was important to him first because he believed that since language was subconscious and automatic, introspection was extremely suspect as a source of data. In a letter to me he said:

LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

75

Introspection, I believe, is useful only as a source of suggestions or hunches that must be verified by an "objective" examination of a systematically collected body of evidence. Evidence to be completely satisfactory should be in such a form that it can be checked and re-examined by other workers.... In my own experience, I have found that I've been wrong so often in conclusions (especially concerning frequency) based upon impressionistic and casual observation, that I'm now never satisfied until I've been able to record systematically some definite body of evidence and list and count the occurrences comparatively. My conclusions may still be wrong, but at least they are good for the body of material examined and can be supplemented and corrected by others. (1959:1)

I have quoted from this letter at length because it makes another point which is relevant here. Fries believed that if science was to be cumulative, experiments and studies had to be replicable. But for the study of language to be replicable, others must be able to look one's data and test the conclusions. This, of course, required that one have a body of objective data that others could look at. Thus every one of Fries' major descriptions of English was based on some body of systematically collected data: Letters written to the war department for his American English Grammar, taped telephone conversations for his Structure

of

English,

taped programs of What's

My Line?

for

his article on the intonation of yes-no questions. Work which was not based on some corpus of data he regarded with suspicion as prescientific. Clearly his reactions to Sledd, Trager, and Smith, who admitted the relevance of a corpus of data, but never demonstrated in Fries' eyes that they actually had a corpus, were only multiplied when generative transformationalists insisted that the only interesting aspect of language was the speaker intuitions, the competence which underlay speaker performance, and consequently rejected entirely the relevance of systematically gathering a corpus

76

PETER H. FRIES

of data, on the grounds that it was data on performance at best. Note that Fries' objection was not to their interest in the general principles which underlay the formation of individual sentences. He was interested in quite similar principles himself. He objected primarily to their abandoning systematically gathered data as a method of discovering those principles. (See P. Fries 1983; footnote 9 for another aspect of his objection.) Of course one transformationalist argument was that a corpus was limiting. But in his eyes, without a corpus of real examples taken from living speech, transformationalists were limited to the small corpus of examples that they happened to think of as they were developing their analyses. In his view, since people's intuitions about what they do say and can say are often wrong, the phenomenon of the unresolved arguments based on "my dialect" which occurred at linguistic conferences during the sixties and seventies were an automatic result of abandoning the use of data. Of course he agreed that one had to go beyond the corpus of data if one were to analyze the language. The very techniques of analysis described in his Structure of English required that. The data was there to provide a minimum criterion of adequacy, not a maximum. While Fries felt that techniques of analysis and data were important, and he was working in an intellectual climate in which techniques of analysis seemed to be raised to the status of linguistic theory, he wished to distinguish sharply between these techniques, and the knowledge gained as a result of applying those techniques. As he said: ...it is necessary to make a distinction between a)

the procedures and criteria which the analyst uses to determine what the "parts of speech" (the functioning formclasses) of a particular language are, and,

77

LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS b)

the "markers" or the signals by means of which the users (speakers and hearers) of that language identify these various "parts of speech" as the functioning units in the patterns that signal grammatical meanings. (1963:234 footnote 21)

As a r e s u l t of t h i s a t t i t u d e , he o b j e c t e d s t r e n u o u s l y when o t h e r s i n t e r p r e t e d h i s d e s c r i p t i o n of a t e c h n i q u e of a n a l y s i s ( c h a p t e r 5 i n t h e Structure of English) as a d e f i n i t i o n of t h e n o t i o n p a r t of s p e e c h . He u s e d t h e t e r m definition t o r e f e r t o t h e d e s c r i p t i o n of t h e formal s i g n a l s l i s t e n e r s used t o recognize the v a r i o u s s t r u c t u r e s ( i . e . b) i n t h e q u o t a t i o n a b o v e ) . The d e s c r i p t i o n of t h e s i g n a l s of t h e four major p a r t s of s p e e c h ( i . e . t h e i r d e f i n i t i o n , t o u s e h i s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of t h e word) was g i v e n i n c h a p t e r 7. (See 1960 b : 1 4 9 - 1 5 0 and 1963:234 f o o t n o t e 21.) He a l s o o b j e c t e d when l i n g u i s t s seemed t o r a i s e t e c h n i q u e s of l i n g u i s t i c s t o t h e s t a t u s of t h e o r y .

the

Some l i n g u i s t s seem t o b e l i e v e , or a c t as i f they b e l i e v e d , t h a t t h e t o o l s , t e c h n i q u e s , and c l a s s i f i c a t o r y d e f i n i t i o n s alone con s t i t u t e t h e substance of t h e science of l i n g u i s t i c s . I do not want t o b e l i t t l e t h e s c i e n t i f i c importance of adequate t o o l s , sound t e c h n i q u e s , and sharp c l a s s i f i c a t i o n s . I should l i k e , however, t o i n s i s t t h a t one can achieve a s u f f i c i e n t mastery of t h e s e t o o l s and t e c h n i q u e s of l i n g u i s t i c a n a l y s i s , without any r e a l understanding of t h e s i g n i f i c a n c e of t h e achievements of l i n g u i s t i c s c i e n c e . The h e a r t and substance of l i n g u i s t i c science i s not simply in t h e t e c h n i q u e s of operation'—not in t h e t o o l s of a n a l y s i s . The h e a r t and substance of l i n g u i s t i c science i s r a t h e r i n t h e growing understanding of c e r t a i n f e a t u r e s of t h e n a t u r e and functioning of human language i t s e l f . (1960a:4)

Finally, in his view, science should make predictions. While physics makes predictions about how bricks and feathers fall, linguistic science should make predictions about how the members of some community will perceive and understand the utterances that they hear. In his eyes, to be predictive, linguistic statements had to begin with the

78

PETER H. FRIES

formal characteristics of a sentence and then, in a motivated way, predict what it would mean

(i.e. predict the

recognition and action responses of listeners),

using the

various signalling relations between the units of language. The aim of such descriptive statements (in formulas) is to specify the essential identifying contrastive features of the grammatical structures to which grammatical meanings are attached. These formulas of symbols thus represent the formal structural patterns for which it is possible to predict with a high degree of regularity the recognition and action responses that utterances produced in accord with these formulas will elicit from native speakers of the language (in the community in which the language is spoken). The formulas thus specify the formal signals of the grammatical meanings; that is, the signals that the speakers must learn to produce in speaking the language, and the signals that the hearers must learn to respond to in understanding the language. The validity or the correctness of the formulas can be measured by the predictability of the various kinds of response that utterances formed in accord with these formulas will regularly elicit in the linguistic community of the language, (1965b:2) Perhaps ing

out h i s

objected

to

traditional a l grammar meaning

his position objections traditional

with the

the

form of

a sentence

interpret

on t h e

t h e g o a l of Tradition linguistic

other

the

and t h e n demands

of w o r d s b e c l a s s i f i e d

His g o a l ,

He

classification.

terms such as declarative

etc.

point

knowledge of

communicated by a s e n t e n c e

technical

will

of

full

by

of grammar.

grammar b e c a u s e h e f e l t

grammar was t h a t starts

t h e words and g r o u p s

ject,

can be made more c l e a r

t o two o t h e r m o d e l s

sentence hand,

and t o p r e d i c t

is

under

that

certain

, subject

,

t o begin

with

how n a t i v e

ob-

speakers

it.

[I] s t a r t with t h e view t h a t t h e group of meanings by which t h e "old" grammar c l a s s i f i e s t h e p a r t s of t h e s e n t e n c e t h a t r e p r e s e n t s them—that t h e s e meanings must be s i g n a l l e d or communicat e d i n some w a y . . . . [My t a s k i s t o find] out what t h e s e s i g n a l s a r e and d e s c r i b e how they o p e r a t e . . . . The purpose of t h e "new" grammar i s , t h u s , q u i t e d i f f e r e n t from t h a t of t h e " o l d " grammar in t h a t t h e "new" grammar does not seek t o " c l a s s i f y " t h e words

LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

79

and word groups of the sentence, but rather to describe the precise contrasts of patterns of form classes that elicit the range of meanings that we have called structural meanings. It seeks not to classify but to predict the recognition responses that will regularly follow certain patterns of form class arrangement. (1960b:149)

Fries also objected to generative grammar, and, oddly enough, his objection was that its basic purpose was also one of classification. In this case, the classification of sequences of elements into two classes; grammatical sentences of a language and ungrammatical sequences. This categorization was then followed by what was in his view a post-facto analysis of the structures and meanings of the sentences with no attention to how those structures and meanings are communicated. Chomsky's 1957 description of the goals of linguistics gave a particularly clear example of the position he was reacting to: "The fundamental aim in the linguistic analysis of a language L is to separate the grammatical sequences which are the sentences of L from the ungrammati cat sequences which are not sentences of L and to study the structure of the grammatical sequences" (1957:13). A taxonomy of sequences into grammatical sentences and ungrammatical sequences was not of major importance to Fries. One can see this in the absence of the distinction between grammatical and ungrammatical sequences in his writing. One can see it also in the fact that he rarely used negative evidence except as a means of amassing data. One can see it in his frequent use of headlines and telegrams as examples. He was interested instead in the predictive nature of his descriptions. That is, in the way these descriptions predicted the interpretations of the listeners. For this reason, he developed a means of describing sentences without referring to the words of which they were composed (his formulas) . And later he began to use sentences with nonsense words, e.g. the uggles

80

PETER H. FRIES

woggled a diggle and the diggled uggles woggle in order to illustrate in a dramatic nontechnical way the predictive nature of his descriptions. In both the formulae and the nonsense sentences, it was possible to interpret the grammar of the sentence without reference to the lexical meanings of the component words. Clearly, the two basic principles underlying Fries' view of language and of the study of language discussed here can be seen to affect every aspect of his language work. As we have seen, the communicative function of language led Fries to feel that the account of how people communicate meanings to one another was the major goal of linguistics. The scientific nature of linguistics (and especially the predictive nature of science) led him to avoid using meaning as the starting point of his account, and to phrase his descriptions in terms which did not require a knowledge of the specific words involved (except in the case of function words), but did require a knowledge of the signals of membership in a grammatical class. His approaches to teaching composition, to teaching literature, to teaching English both as a native language and as a foreign language, and to teaching beginning reading can all be seen as governed by these views of language and of language study, but this last claim requires a separate discussion and is another story.

FOOTNOTES

1

All italicized words in the quotations are in the originals.

2

It is clear from this that he objected to Chomsky's statement that "...a language [is]...a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements. (1957:13).

LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

81

The objection arose not because of the infinite number of sentences possible. Fries himself recognized that, as he said, "The number of messages that can be sent is infinite" (1957:16). His objection is rather a) that this is too concrete a notion. The language is the principles which relate form to meanings, b) it raises the notion 'sentence' to too prominent a notion as if we spoke in sentences alone. He wanted to treat sentences as they functioned in a context. (See 1965b:2.) Professor Pike tells me that he actually wrote the article, but clearly Fries agreed with what was said sufficiently to have his name on the article. 4

See also 1927:chapter 6, 1945:2 and 34, 1952:57, 1957:17 and 21, 1965a:48 and 53 for similar points. 5 Since the source material for this quotation is lecture notes, it was not completely written out. [ ] indicates words I have supplied.

6

See also (1963:100) "[the meaning] arises out of the situation that affects A..." in which meaning is not equated with the situation.

7

See also (1961:37).

REFERENCES

Bloch, Bernard and George L. Trager. (1942). Outline of Linguistic Analysis, Baltimore, MD: Linguistic Society of America. Chomsky, Noam.

(1957).

Syntactic

Chomsky, Noam. (1965) . Aspects MA: The M.I.T. Press.

Fries, Charles.C. New York:

of

the

Theory

(1927). The Teaching

S'Gravenhage: of Syntax.

Mouton.

Cambridge,

of the English

Language.

Thomas Nelson and Sons.

Fries, Charles C. (1940). pleton Century.

Fries, Charles C. Language.

Structures.

American

(1945). Teaching

Ann Arbor:

Fries, Charles C. (1952). court Brace and Co.

English

Grammar.

and Learning

New York:

English

as a

Ap-

Foreign

University of Michigan Press. The Structure

of

English.

New York:

Har-

82

PETER H. FRIES

Fries, Charles C. (1957). Introduction and the Aims of Language Teaching and Learning. In The Teaching of Modern Languages, Report on the UNESCO Regional Seminar Held in Sydney, Australia, January-February 1957, 7-27. Sydney: Australian National Advisory Committee for UNESCO. Fries, Charles C. (1958). On the Oral Approach. In Lectures by C.C. Fries and W.F. Twaddell, 13-23. Tokyo: English Language Exploratory Committee Publications. Fries, Charles C. 1959.

(1959).

Fries, Charles C. (1960a). lecture notes.

Letter to Peter H. Fries, November 15-26, Linguistics as a Science. Unpublished

Fries, Charles C. (1960b). Linguistic Science and the Teaching of English. In Robert Pooley (Ed.), Perspectives on English: Essays to Honor E. Wilbur Hatfield, 133-155. New York: Appleton Century Crofts. Fries, Charles C. 23:30-37.

(1961).

Advances in Linguistics. College

Fries, Charles C. (1963). Linguistics Rinehart and Winston.

and Reading.

English

New York: Holt,

Fries, Charles C. (1964). On the Intonation of Yes-No Questions. In David Abercrombie, D.B. Fry, P.A.D. MacCarthy, N.C. Scott, and J.L.M. Trim (Eds.), In Honour of Daniel Jones: Papers Contributed on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, 12 September 1961, 242-254. London: Longmans. Fries, Charles C. (1965a). Linguistic Approaches to First Grade Reading Programs. In James F. Kerfoot (Ed.), First Grade Reading Programs, 45-55. Perspectives in Reading No. 5. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Fries, Charles C. (1965b). Summary Statements Descriptive of One Approach to English Grammar, Printed as appendix in Peter H. Fries (1983). Fries, Charles C. (1970). The Time Depth of Coexisting Conflicting Grammatical Signals in English. In A. Graur (Ed.), Actes du X'eme Congrès International des L i n g u i s t e s , Bucarest, 28 Août 2 Septembre 1967, 923-926. Bucarest? Editions de L'Academie de la Republique Socialiste de Roumanie. Fries, Charles C. (ND). The Expression of Time in English, unpublished lecture notes.

LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS Fries, Charles C. and Kenneth L. Pike. Systems. Language 25:29-50.

(1949).

83 Coexistent Phonemic

Fries, Peter H. (1983). C.C. Fries, Signals Grammar and the Goals of Linguistics. In John Morreall (Ed.), The Ninth LACUS Forum: 1982, 146-158. Columbia, SC: Hornbeam Press. Hill, Archibald A. (1958). Introduction From Sound to Sentence in English. and Co.

to Linguistic Structures : New York: Harcourt Brace

About 1934 Teaching swimming at Dead Lake,Michigan (with Robert Fries)

About 194 2 Timing swimmers at a meet

C.C. FRIES1 SIGNALS MODEL OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR1

Sidney Greenbaum

American structural linguists in the mid-twentieth century devoted their energies primarily to phonology and morphology. A conspicuous exception is C.C. Fries, most of whose work in linguistics is on English syntax. The Structure of English, his major publication in this field, is the most explicit and systematic application of American structural linguistics to the analysis of English syntax. But his descriptions of English syntax are also presented in an earlier book, American English Grammar, and in a number of articles. Most of his publications on English syntax, in particular the two books, are addressed primarily to teachers rather than to linguists and are intended as a basis for textbooks and school programs in English grammar. They therefore tend to provide generalizations rather than comprehensive treatments. Their value lies in the exemplification of a model of English grammar. In the 1980s, a period when many competing linguistic theories vie for attention, Fries1 approach to syntax deserves renewed consideration. For Fries, a linguistic analysis of language must take account of language as a social phenomenon: speakers and hearers interact within a linguistic community, which he

86

SIDNEY G R E E N B A U M

d e f i n e s as consisting of "those i n d i v i d u a l s t h a t m a k e the 'same' regular and p r e d i c t a b l e r e s p o n s e s to the 'same' p a t terns of v o c a l s o u n d s "

(1954:65, N o t e 2 8 ) .

These

'same'

p a t t e r n s c o n t r a s t w i t h other 'same' p a t t e r n s used w i t h i n a linguistic community t o s i g n a l the l i n g u i s t i c m e a n i n g s of patterns.

T h u s , a language "consists of a system of c o n -

trastive p a t t e r n s t h a t g i v e s i g n i f i c a n c e t o an i n f i n i t e v a r i e t y of specific acts of speech.

It is only t h e s e p a t -

t e r n s t h a t can g i v e s i g n i f i c a n c e t o the f e a t u r e s of form and a r r a n g e m e n t that o p e r a t e as t h e d e v i c e s of s t r u c t u r a l meaning"

(1952:61).

S i g n i f i c a n c e is t h e m e a n i n g t h a t m e m -

b e r s of the linguistic community p e r c e i v e in w h a t they r e c o g n i z e as recurring p a t t e r n s , t h e i r r e c o g n i t i o n being conveyed by their p r e d i c t a b l e r e s p o n s e s to those p a t t e r n s : "the ' m e a n i n g s ' of an u t t e r a n c e c o n s i s t of the c o r r e l a t i n g , regularly r e c u r r e n t sames of the s t i m u l u s - s i t u a t i o n f e a t u r e s , and the regularly elicited r e c u r r i n g sames of r e s p o n s e f e a t u r e s . . . t h e p a t t e r n s of r e c u r r i n g sound are t h e signals of t h e m e a n i n g s "

(1954:65).

sequences

T h e task of

the l i n g u i s t , is "not only t o d e s c r i b e the items of form and a r r a n g e m e n t w h i c h c o n s t i t u t e t h e d e v i c e s t h a t signal s t r u c t u r a l m e a n i n g s , b u t a l s o , and e s p e c i a l l y , t o set forth t h e c o n t r a s t i v e p a t t e r n s of t h e system t h r o u g h w h i c h t h e s e items acquire signalling s i g n i f i c a n c e "

(1952:61).

L i n g u i s t i c m e a n i n g c o m p r i s e s b o t h lexical m e a n i n g s , signalled by c o n t r a s t i v e d i f f e r e n c e s in lexical i t e m s , and s t r u c t u r a l m e a n i n g s , signalled by c o n t r a s t i v e and forms of t h e s e lexical i t e m s .

arrangements

In a d d i t i o n , there are

n o n - l i n g u i s t i c s o c i a l - c u l t u r a l m e a n i n g s w h i c h are r e l a t e d t o the p a r t i c u l a r c i r c u m s t a n c e s in w h i c h t h e u t t e r a n c e s are made

( 1 9 5 4 : 6 5 - 6 8 ) , m e a n i n g s w h i c h seem to fall into the

category of w h a t m i g h t n o w be c o n s i d e r e d p r a g m a t i c m e a n ings.

T h i s p a p e r f o c u s e s on F r i e s ' m o d e l of g r a m m a r , w h i c h

SIGNALS MODEL

87

in his and the common traditional sense is syntax. The necessary correlation in grammar of formal signals and structural meanings is summarized in Fries' succinct definition: The grammar of a language consists of the devices that signal structural meanings (1952:56, emphasis in original) . Fries assumes that "all the structural signals in English are strictly formal matters that can be described in physical terms of forms, correlations of these forms, and arrangements of order" (1952:58). This assertion might seem to suggest that all the signals are actually present syntagmatically. But it is important to realize that for Fries both the identification and the meaning of particular signals depend on paradigmatic contrasts in the system. Hence, if speakers are to recognize particular structural signals and to ascribe the correct structural significance to them they must be aware of contrasting structural signals. However, the contrasting signals are also describable in physical terms. Fries did not postulate 'deep' syntactic structure or forms that are not perceptually accessible to speakers. We can appreciate Fries1 approach, in the first place, by considering his treatment of word classes.2 Fries divides word classes into two types: form classes (or parts of speech) and groups of function words. The four form classes roughly correspond to the traditional classes of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, except that some types of adjectives and adverbs are treated as function words. Form classes are signalled in part by formal contrasts for individual words in isolation. The formal contrasts are through derivational affixes and inflections. Thus, we recognize failures as a noun by the contrast through its

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SIDNEY GREENBAUM

derivational affix with the verb fail, ripen as a verb by its contrast with the adjective ripe, friendly as an adjective by its contrast with the noun friend, and openly as an adverb by its contrast with the adjective open. These are not just individual contrasts of words, but fall into regular contrastive patterns of form-class derivation in the language. Similarly, the noun status of boys is signalled by the inflection -s correlating with the plural meaning in contrast with the absence of the inflection in boy correlating with the singular meaning. For the irregular noun plurals the same contrastive meaning is a signal of noun status. More than one formal signal may co-occur, for example, failures is signalled as a noun both by its affix and by its inflection. Such formal contrasts, however, are often insufficient for signalling class membership when a word is in isolation. In addition or instead, co-occurrence with function words may be necessary; for example, a preceding determiner signals that a word is a noun, while a preceding auxiliary signals that it is a verb. Fries illustrates the signalling function of such markers by the ambiguous ship sails today (1952:62), which might appear in a telegram; the insertion of a determiner disambiguates ship as a noun (The ship sails today) or sails as a noun (Ship the sails today) with consequent effects on the rest of the sentence. The recognition of ship as a noun in The ship sails today in turn leads to the recognition, though its relative position, of sails as a verb. Class membership for the form classes is therefore primarily determined by the structural signals of a word in a particular utterance: "We are not concerned here with classifying words in isolation but solely with these items as they occur in live utterances carrying on conversations—with the practical functioning

SIGNALS MODEL of language" (1952:112).

89

If the signals are conflicting,

Fries rules that "In general, 'position' markers in any particular sentence supercede morphological or form markers"

(1952:141).

Undoubtedly, the ease and frequency of

conversion and the frequent absence of identifying signals in the forms of words put greater weight on the importance of relative positions and accompanying function words in signalling the function of words from the form-classes.

We

have no problem in recognizing the form classes of new words in utterances even if we do not know their meaning, The

a fact that Fries exemplifies by using nonsense words:

vapy

koobs

dasaked

the

citar

molently

(1952:111).

Because

of the frequent lack of signalling for a word in isolation, class membership of the four form classes cannot be listed; it is signalled in the structures of utterances. Two points about Fries' treatment of the signals for the form-classes are worth special emphasis.

First, Fries

does not assume that hearers need to make a morphological analysis that would tell them where one morpheme stops and the next begins, or that would indicate the precise morphological differences in such contrasts as deceit/deceive

bequest/bequeath,

belief/believe.

,

It appears that for

Fries it is sufficient that hearers recognize the patterns to which these contrasting forms belong.

It is regular

patterning that leads to the creation of backformations, such that edit

is perceived as a possible verb by contrast

with the noun editor

inspect/inspector,

on the analogy of contrasts such as

act/actor,

survive/survivor.

the same pattern indicates that author the absence of a contrasting verb auth.

Similarly,

is a noun even in Secondly, Fries

views potential correlations as a structural signal.

One

of the identifying signals of nouns is their correlation with the pronouns he,

she,

and it, which also serve to

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SIDNEY GREENBAUM

distinguish subclasses of nouns (1952 :119ff.). As identifying signals, the pronouns are paradigmatically related to nouns, but they may also be related syntagmatically as sequence signals that correlate with an antecedent (1952: 241ff.). Fries' only example of conflicting criteria for membership of form classes is one that commonly troubles grammarians (cf. Quirk et al., 1972, Appendix I.33 and 5.2023). Fries decides that poorest in The poorest are always with us is a noun because it is accompanied by the function word the, which marks nouns, even though it has the formal characteristics of an adjective (1952:141).3 But this analysis is arguable, since it ignores syntactic differences between poorest in that sentence and words that unquestionably belong to the noun class.4 Poorest may be accompanied by degree words that do not accompany nouns (the very poorest) and it cannot be accompanied by most determiners. On the other hand, words in the type of construction that Fries exemplifies can function in the range of functions normal to nouns and, like nouns, can be modified by adjectives and relative clauses (the deserving poor, the poor who live in the slums of New York). A grammar must allow that such words in the particular sentences share characteristics of both nouns and adjectives. Wordclasses, including the groups of function words, are not discrete (cf. Jacobsson, 1977). In his most comprehensive account of function words in English grammar (1952:104-9), Fries lists four characteristics that apply to the function words in the fifteen groups that he previously establishes (1952:88-103). These four characteristics are common to the function words and differentiate them from words in the four form classes: (1) "they occur very frequently":

SIGNALS MODEL

91

(2) they "appear most frequently in expanded single free u t t e r ances" rather than in "the significant positions of our minimum free utterances," and only response utterances may consist solely of function w o r d s ; (3) "it is usually difficult if not impossible t o indicate a lexical meaning apart from the structural meaning which these words signal"; (4) "in order to respond t o certain structural signals one

know these

items

as words"

must

(emphasis in original). (1952:104-109)

Fries considers the last characteristic to be the most im portant and "the basis for separating the words of these fifteen groups from the others and for calling them 'func tion words'" (1952:106). Fries supports his assertion that function words occur very frequently by data from his spoken corpus: the func tion words as items constitute about a third of the items in the corpus, some of them repeated in every utterance. But he obscures the very different frequencies of indi vidual function words by combining them in his totals for the corpus, and by ignoring those of his function words that do not appear in his corpus. Some prepositions--for example, among or beneath and the compound prepositions such as on account

of

and for

the

sake

of—are

relatively

infrequent, as Fries indicates in his statistics for pre positions in his earlier written corpus (1940:110-27). A similar variability of frequency for individual items is true for degree words (1940:199-206) and for conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs (1940:206-10). Furthermore, many words that Fries assigns to form-classes are more frequent than many function words: in particular, the personal pronouns, which Fries considers to be a subclass of nouns, have very high frequency of occurrence. Thus, Kučera and Francis (1967) lists he and I as having higher frequency

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than function words such as not and or. Finally, Fries inexplicably includes in his determiner group of function words a genitive of a noun—John's (1952:89). But genitives of nouns constitute an open subclass of nouns with very variable frequency. Indeed, later in The Structure of English he includes genitives of nouns, as in my father's houses, among examples of nouns that modify nouns (1952: 210). And elsewhere (1940:73 and 109) he correctly points out that the genitive inflection has the structural meaning often conveyed also by the function word of. John's is not a function word; it has a determinative function signalled by the genitive inflection. The second characteristic is not sufficient to differentiate Fries' function words from the form classes, since as Fries notes "it is arrangements of Class I [nouns] and Class 2 [verbs] that form the basic signals of our utterances" (1952:106). Like the function words, adjectives and (particularly) adverbs are often dependent. Fries is not precise about "the significant positions of our minimum free utterances" but he acknowledges (1952:99) that several function words—who, which, what--occur also in the positions of nouns in what might be regarded as a minimum free utterance, for example Who came? The third characteristic is too vague to be useful. It is not obvious why it is more difficult to indicate the lexical meaning in your than in you. Nor is it obvious why it is more difficult to identify the actual experiences (1952:106) to which we apply the function word no than it is to do so for the noun or adjective negative. Dictionaries and grammars regularly discuss, for example, the meanings of prepositions, cf. Quirk et al. (1972:6.11-54). On this characteristic, Fries changed his position over the years. In his previous book on English grammar he defines

SIGNALS MODEL

93

a function word as "a word that has little or no meaning apart from the grammatical idea it expresses" (1940:109). Subsequently, he concedes that "some of them may have fullword meaning content" (Fries, 1945:44). In The Structure of English he explicitly disowns the identification of function words with "empty" words in contrast to "content" words (1952:88, Note 2), while stressing the difficulty of separating the lexical from the structural meaning (1952: 106) . Fries' fourth characteristic is the most relevant for differentiating function words from other words : their signalling function as items in particular syntactic positions. As Fries rightly points out (1952:109, Note 13), since "words of the same shape have other uses," the signalling function of function words is recognizable only in the particular syntactic positions. For example, this may be a pronoun as well as a determiner: the may be a correlative signal (Quirk et al., 1972:11.42) or a determiner; no may be a determiner, a degree word, or a response word. The need to know words as items is not, however, a sufficient criterion, since Fries admits that some form-class words have to be so learned: adverbs, such as then, here, often, already, that lack a morphological signal of class membership (1952:139). He also indicates that the pronouns, which are a subclass of nouns, are probably learned as items on a list (1952 :119f.). On the other hand, we might question Fries1 inclusion of a group of degree words among function words.5 He is motivated to do so merely because they do not have the lexical meaning they had earlier in the language or that they have in other positions (1952: 93 and 233). As a result, he includes very, awfully, and enough as function words, but analyses the degree modifiers exceedingly strictly , and sufficiently as adverbs (1952:

94 233-5) and that

SIDNEY GREENBAUM (in that

small

and that

far)

and

somewhat

(in somewhat late) as nouns (1952:237). If loss of lexical meaning is the reason for including among function words the degree adverbs that modify adjectives or adverbs, then we might want to include also degree adverbs that modify verbs (cf. Quirk et al., 1972:8.19-32), for example badly (in I want it badly) or deeply (in They resented it deeply), and degree adjectives that modify nouns (cf. Quirk et al., 1972:5.31), for example big in a big fool or perfect in a perfect idiot. Furthermore, Fries asserts that the meaning of modification structures with an adjective as head "is consistently that of 'degree' despite the great diversity of the lexical meaning of the 'modifiers'" (1952:236), a view that would require him to place all the modifiers of adjectives among function words. Degree words are highly idiosyncratic; for all of them we need to distinguish the degree of intensification, syntactic constraints, and collocational range (cf. Greenbaum (197 0) and (197 4), Bolinger (1972), Quirk et al. (1972:8.19-32)). Fries' differentiation of function words is fundamental for his signalling conception of grammar. We may be able to preserve it by making his fourth characteristic more precise. Function words should include (1) items that have a unique syntactic function, such as existential there, negator not, operator do, and infinitival to : (2) word variants of inflections in the current language, such as more and most for the comparison of adjectives and adverbs: and (3) items that have a dependent function in relation to other words and that also systematically contrast in a relatively closed set, such as the auxiliaries and the conjunctions.6 These criteria would admit all Fries' function words except genitives of nouns, degree words, and cardinal numerals: . All the words admitted would then serve to sig-

SIGNALS MODEL

95

nal the structural relationships of words from the formclasses. If the notion of dependency is extended to cover dependency between clause or sentence structures, then a case could be made for including pronouns and some adverbs, particularly conjunctive adverbs, among function words, since they are closed sets that function as sequence signals (1952:240-52). Function words, then, belong to relatively closed sets, but not all such sets contain function words. For example, copula verbs constitute a relatively closed set, but Fries has rightly included them among verbs rather than establishing them as a group of function words (1952:79). A comprehensive grammar would have many limited sets of words that have a unique structural function. Other examples of relatively closed sets are ditransitive verbs (Quirk et al. (1972:12.60f.)), verbs followed by the bare infinitive (Quirk et al. (1972:12.57)), adjectives that are obligatorily postpositive after nouns that they modify (Quirk et al., 1972:5.18), and adverbs that normally cause subject-operator inversion when they are positioned initially (Quirk et al., 1972:7.48). The words in these sets need to be recognized for their syntactic potentialities, but so also do words in more open subclasses of form classes, such as the subclasses of verbs that are transitive, intransitive, or either. In a publication previous to The Structure of English, Fries lists two limited sets separately from both function and form-class words: a set of substitute words (including pronouns and the pro-verb do) and a set of assertive and nonassertive items, whose distribution depends on the presence or absence of negation, such as some and any (1945:44-6).8 As I have indicated, it is possible to list numerous other limited sets with unique syntactic distribution.

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SIDNEY GREENBAUM

Words enter into a hierarchy of structures, the first of which may be a structure of modification, consisting of a head and a modifier. Fries is careful to point out that any of the four parts of speech can be a modifier, in addition to the degree words which he considers function words (1952:239). The conventional definition of an adjective as a modifier of a noun or pronoun, for example, is therefore inaccurate, since nouns may also be modified by verbs and adverbs and by other nouns. Fries is not content merely to specify the possible classes of modifiers for each part of speech but, in line with his general approach, attempts to distinguish the meanings signalled in modification structures. Thus, when a noun is modified by an - ing participle, as in the barking dog, the meaning of the structure is that the noun represents the "performer" of the action indicated in the participle, whereas when it is modified by an -ed participle, as in the dismissed employee, the noun is the "undergoer" of the action indicated in the participle. There are various meanings for modification structures where a noun is modified by an adjective. The structure generally signals a relationship of quality (represented by the adjective) to substance (represented by the noun). But derivational features may signal different relationships; for example, if the noun is derived from a verb, the relationship is "manner of action," as in a rapid performance, while if it is derived from an adjective it may be "degree of quality," as in a perfect stranger. Here Fries applies the type of quasi-transformations employed by Z.S. Harris (1957:330ff.), morphological relationships of surface structures: rapid performance is paired with performs rapidly, and perfect strang er with perfectly strange. Fries indicates that his description of modification

SIGNALS MODEL

97

in The Structure of English, where he devotes most space to this topic, is incomplete and tentative (cf., for example, 1952:217, Note 12 and 231, Note 22). One point that might be contested, nevertheless, is his categorical assertion that modifiers of adjectives always have a degree meaning (1952:236). Clearly, they may also express other meanings, for example, quietly assertive (manner) and politically expedient (point of view), cf. Quirk et al., 1972:5.52f., and Farsi, 197 4. A more debatable question is whether adverbials are modifiers of verbs (1952:227ff.); grammarians differ on which, if any, adverbials modify verbs. It may be significant that Fries does not supply a general meaning for this modification structure, and explicitly relegates meanings such as place, manner and time to the lexicon (1952:233). Fries also concedes that his criterion for modification structures might include objects as modifiers of verbs, though "from a practical point of view" he treats them together with subjects on a different level of structure (1952:228, Note 19). His criterion, however, would only apply to objects and adverbials that are optional. On the other hand, it is not clear to me, in the light of his other inclusions, why he rejects should in should put as a modifier of put (1952:202). In general, Fries' treatment of modification structures is interesting for his attempts to ascribe structural meanings to the structures. Modification structures may be layered (1952: Ch XII). Both words and modification structures (simple or layered) enter into structures of the sentence (such as subject and object) and the arrangements of these structures constitute the structural patterns of sentences, the major patterns signalling statements, questions, and requests (1952:Ch. VIII). Sentences in turn are included in larger sentences (1952:252ff.), the included sentences being what are

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SIDNEY GREENBAUM

traditionally

called

ces are linked

such as pronouns p e c t s of F r i e s ' subject

subordinate clauses.

to preceding

(1952 : 2 4 1 f f . ) . model,

a s my l a s t

t o p i c b e c a u s e of h i s

ject,

identifies

w h i c h d e p e n d on t h e

which t h e s u b j e c t

interesting

structures with

structure

of

the

(1952:178ff.).

them w i t h a s e l e c t i o n

u s i n g more f a m i l i a r

i n p l a c e of h i s

his treatment

form of

as of t h e at

meanings.

s t r u c t u r a l meanings for

functions

m a r i z e and e x e m p l i f y ples,

five

senten signals,

From t h e s e d i f f e r e n t

I have s e l e c t e d

tempts to correlate the varying Fries

Finally,

s e n t e n c e s by s e q u e n c e

the

sentence

in

I briefly of F r i e s '

terms such as s u b j e c t

sub sum

exam

complement

description.

(1) "performer"—the verb i s not a copula or in t h e p a s s i v e : The dean approved a l l our recommendations All t h e children l i k e swimming and boating The car t u r n e d t h e corner on two wheels A b e a u t i f u l cloth covers t h e t a b l e The examination t a k e s a f u l l two hours (2) " t h a t which i s i d e n t i f i e d " - - t h e verb i s a copula and i s followed by a noun s u b j e c t complement: My husband i s a d i r e c t o r of t h e — Their car was a t o t a l l o s s The luncheon today was a very s p e c i a l one (3) " t h a t which i s d e s c r i b e d " - - t h e verb i s a copula and i s f o l lowed by an a d j e c t i v e : The farewell dinner w i l l be huge t h i s time Maybe next summer w i l l be b e t t e r (4) " t h a t which undergoes t h e a c t i o n " - - t h e s u b j e c t noun i s p e r s o n a l or impersonal, and t h e verb i s p a s s i v e in form: 0--was e l e c t e d s h e r i f f The laundry was taken off t h e l i n e j u s t a minute ago (5) " t h a t t o or for which t h e a c t i o n i s p e r f o r m e d " — t h e noun i s p e r s o n a l , and t h e verb i s p a s s i v e in form: All t h e ladies were given o r c h i d s

subject

Because (4) and (5) c o i n c i d e , i t i s p o s s i b l e f o r t h e s u b j e c t t o be ambiguous between t h e two s t r u c t u r e s :

SIGNALS MODEL

99

Alice was given John as a partner ("To Alice was given John" or "Alice was given to John") But generally, passive sentences with a retained object are unambiguous because the meaning "that to or for which the action is performed" is ascribed (a) to the personal noun if only one is personal, and (b) to the noun with a definite determiner if only one is definite. Fries emphasizes that he is using a term such as "performer" not in its everyday sense "but as is usually the case with the 'meanings' of linguistic structure it is 'performer' in the broadest possible sense. The structural meaning of 'performer' in this kind of 'subject' includes everything that is linguistically grasped in the pattern of performer" (1952:178, emphasis in original). The meaning is indeed very broad if it has to include the empty it subject in It's raining or clausal subjects (which Fries does not consider in this connection) such as in That they are fighting doesn't concern me. Nevertheless, it is worth making broad generalizations along those lines. They seem to correspond with native intuitions of the notion of subject in such sentences (though these notions are sometimes contaminated by explicit grammar teaching), they may have implications for the development of syntactic categories in the language of children, and they may point to the conceptual categories underlying language production and comprehension (see Schlesinger, 1977, especially pages 24-32). Fillmore has noted that a "truly worrisome criticism of case theory" is that "nobody working within the various versions of grammars with 'cases' has come up with a principled way of defining the cases, or principled procedures for determining how many cases there are, or for determining when you are faced with two cases that happen to have something in common as opposed to one case that has two variants" (Fillmore, 1977:70). Perhaps rigorously relating the structural

10 0

SIDNEY GREENBAUM

meanings of constituents to specific sentence structures is a way of determining the significant cases for the language user.

We can then differentiate the syntactic roles from

the more numerous and more fuzzy semantic roles that a semanticist or philosopher might distinguish. Fries' signals model of grammar insistently reminds the contemporary grammarian that m u c h — i f not m o s t — o f the information for grammatical analysis is available in the surface forms of English:

function words as items, the

formal features of the parts of speech, and the arrangements of words.

Except for the function words, words with-

in utterances do not belong to classified lists but are identifiable by various formal features.

In its emphasis

on formal signals, Fries' conception of grammar is particularly useful for a recognition grammar such as would be required for automatic processing of language texts.

Indeed,

a recent account of automatic parsing by computational methods (Francis, 1980) claims about 77 per cent success in grammatical tagging that identifies the major form-classes, the function words, and inflectional morphemes.

We can ex-

pect greater success as methods for automatic parsing are further refined. But Fries' signals grammar is by no means restricted to the physical evidence in particular utterances. places emphasis on the contrastive value of signals:

It the

signals in particular utterances must be viewed in the light of contrasting signals that are not present.

The grammar

also takes account of potential as well as actual correlations with substitute words.

Fries applies quasi-transfor-

mations in conjunction with morphological differences to distinguish the adjective-noun modification structures of

rapid performance (with deverbal performance the meaning "performs rapidly") and perfect

signalling stranger (with

SIGNALS MODEL,

101

de-adjectival stranger signalling the meaning "perfectly strange"). Less insistance on the morphological distinctions would allow quasi-transformations to be applied more generally for structural contrasts. For example, it would be possible to differentiate the two structures in the classic contrast of John is easy to please and John is eager to please by relating the former to To please John is easy and the latter to John eagerly pleases others (cf. Leech, 1968:97f.). Fries' approach views language as communication in which one person signals meanings to another, the syntactic signals conveying structural meanings. Most of his grammatical description is presented from the point of view of the hearer; it starts with the signals and correlates them with meanings. But occasionally, the presentation is reversed, starting with meanings and then detailing the signals that convey them, notably in "The Expression of the Future" (1927), but also in his historical studies. The importance that Fries attached to language as communication and to actual utterances as the context for structural signals induced him to investigate kinds of data that had not been previously analysed—letters and telephone conversations. His earlier major book on grammar, American English Grammar, is a pioneering effort in language variation. Anticipating the recent work of some sociolinguists, Fries incorporates into the synchronic description of English grammar a treatment of sociolinguistic variation and correlates that variation with historical and current trends. In that book, Fries distinguishes, in particular through frequency counts in the corpus, between the central and peripheral features of the language, a distinction that is important, both diachronically and synchronically, for a description of a system that is

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SIDNEY GREENBAUM

inherently in a flux, with some parts more stable than others. In making that distinction, Fries takes into account factors that contribute to functional load, including range of distribution, frequency of use, and functional need in communication (cf. Greenbaum, 1976). Until Fries' signals model grammar has been fully explored in an elaborated and revised version, it will not be clear whether it could be descriptively adequate for the whole of English syntax. It might well be more applicable to languages that have a more highly developed system of distinctive inflections and form-class affixes than English has. Though of course not devised for that purpose, Fries' presentation in the form of a recognition grammar that searches for contrastive signals or items from a list is particularly appropriate for computer programs. It is likely that some versions of his conception of grammar will be tested for adequacy as researchers develop and refine the computational processing of language texts.

FOOTNOTES 1

I am heavily indebted to comments from Peter H. Fries. I am also grateful for comments from Edith Moravcsik and Bruce Stark.

2

I am here and elsewhere in this paper employing current grammatical terminology to replace Fries' numbers and letters for word classes. His avoidance of conventional terminology has made The Structure of English less accessible to readers, and he has not been followed in this respect by other grammarians, who are similarly aware of the dangers in using conventional terms but are careful to define their use of the terms.

3

In fact, the does not mark poorest as a noun unequivocally. I assume that Fries would not consider poorest as a noun in an elliptical construction such as The poor students received Zoans, but the poorest received grants.

SIGNALS MODEL 4

103'

Morphologically, poorest in the poorest remains an adjective: in addition to having a superlative inflection, it cannot be inflected for the genitive. Fries seems to envisage the establishment of sets of morphological form-classes separately from syntactic form-classes (1952:141, Note 18). It is of course not possible to learn the genitives of nouns as items on a list, since they constitute an open subclass of nouns.

6

See Matthews, 1981:59-68, where function words are termed form words. For a discussion of various criteria that have been proposed in establishing a dichotomy in the vocabulary of English, see Crystal, 1967:30-41. The criterion of a closed class is not easy to apply, as has been pointed out in Crystal, 1967:39f., and Matthews, 1981: 62f.

7

The numerals are an open set. It is not clear why Fries includes merely the numerals from one to ninety-wine in his group of determiners (1952:89).

8 Interestingly, Fries here omits entirely from his typology of words the adverbs (1945:44-7), except for the relatively few that are assigned to sets other than form classes.

REFERENCES

Bolinger, Dwight, Crystal, David.

Degree

(1972). (1967).

English.

Words. Lingua

The Hague:

Mouton.

17:24-56.

Farsi, Ali A. (1974). Further varieties of Adverbs in English. In Roger w. Shuy and Charles-James N. Bailey (Eds.), Towards Tomorrow's Linguistics, 36-49. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Fillmore, Charles J. (1977). The Case for Case Reopened, In Peter Cole and Jerrold M. Saddock (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics 8: Grammatical Relations, 59-81. New York: Academic Press. Francis, W. Nelson. (1980). A Tagged Corpus—-Problems and prospects. In Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik (Eds.),

Studies

in English

Linguistics:

London and New York: Fries, Charles C. 3:87-95.

(1927).

For Randolph Quirk,

192-209.

The Expression of the Future.

Language

Longman.

104

SIDNEY

Fries, Charles C. (1940). pleton Century.

GREENBAUM

American

English

Grammar.

New York: Ap-

Fries, Charles C. (1945). Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Fries, Charles C. (1952). The Structure of English. New York: Harcourt, Brace. (Also London: Longmans Green, 1957.) Fries, Charles C. 30:57-68.

(1954).

Meaning and Linguistic Analysis.

Greenbaum, Sidney. (1970). Verb-Intensifier Collocations An Experimental Approach. The Hague: Mouton.

in

Language

English:

Greenbaum, Sidney. (1974). Some Verb-Intensifier Collocations in American and British English. American Speech 49:79-89. (Also in Harold B. Allen and Michael D. Linn (Eds.), Readings in Applied English Linguistics (3rd e d . ) , 329-337. New York: Random House. (1982). Greenbaum, Sidney. (1976). Lingua 40:99-113.

Syntactic Frequency and Acceptability.

Harris, Zellig S. (1957) . Co-occurrence and Transformation in Linguistic Structure. Language 33:283-340. Jacobsson, Bengt. (1977). Adverbs, Prepositions and Conjunctions in English: A Study in Gradience. Studia Linguistica 31:38-64. Kucera, Henry and W. Nelson Francis. of Present-Day American English. Linguistics, Brown University. Leech, Geoffrey N. Linguistics. Matthews, P.H. Press.

(1968). Linguistics

(1981).

(1967). Computational Analysis Providence: Department of

Some Assumptions in the Metatheory of 39:87-102.

Syntax.

Cambridge:

Cambridge University

Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik. (1972). A Grammar of Contemporary English. London: Longman. Schlesinger, I.M. (1977). New York: Wiley.

Production

and Comprehension

of

Utterances.

SLOT IN REFERENTIAL HIERARCHY IN RELATION TO CHARLES C. FRIES' VIEW OF LANGUAGE

Kenneth L. Pike and Peter H. Fries1

Fries' Basic Concepts

Fundamental to Fries' view of language was the fact that "...human beings are basically concerned with meanings, and use language as their tool to grasp, to understand, and to share meanings" (1965.1). As a result Fries was interested in describing the devices which signalled meaninqs to listeners. A major signalling device was the "contrastive patterns of form and arrangement" which constitute the grammar of the language (nd: 1). '(See P.H. Fries, 1983, and in this volume and Sidney Greenbaum, this volume, for a more careful discussion of his signals approach to language.) The "contrastive differences in the formal arrangements" are at bottom contrastive arrangements in word form and word order. However, Fries made it abundantly clear that what was important was not the order of words as individual items, but the order of words as members of classes of words. An English sentence then, is not a group of words as words but rather a structure made up of form-classes or parts of speech. In order to know [respond to] the structural meanings signalled

106

PIKE AND FRIES by the formal arrangements of our sentences one need not know [respond to] the lexical meanings of the words but he must know [respond to] the form-classes to which the words belong. 2 (1952.64) (See also 1952.69,263 and 1963.105 and 1967.688.)

The c l a s s membership of a word was s i g n a l l e d p a r t l y by i t s c o n t r a s t i v e f o r m a l make u p , and p a r t l y by i t s d i s t r i b u t i o n w i t h o t h e r words ( s e e t h e Greenbaum a r t i c l e i n t h i s volume f o r a more c a r e f u l d e s c r i p t i o n ) . The c o n t r a s t i v e d i f f e r e n c e s i n f o r m a l a r r a n g e m e n t s of words t h e m s e l v e s s i g n a l l a r g e r c o n t r a s t i v e s t r u c t u r e s such a s t h e major s e n t e n c e p a t t e r n s ( s t a t e m e n t , q u e s t i o n and command ( s e e 1952: Chap t e r 8) and s t r u c t u r e s such as s u b j e c t and o b j e c t ( s e e 1952: C h a p t e r 9 ) . Thus F r i e s s a y s : . . . t h e basic contrastive patterns for these three kinds of sen tences in Modern English can be expressed by the following for mulas : 1. 2. 3.

(noun↔verb) ("tied by a certain correspondence or con cordance of forms) signals a statement. (verb ↔noun) ("tied") signals a question. (verb) (in the simple unchanging form of t h i s part of speech alone, or followed by a (noun) not "tied" by a correspondence or correlation of forms) signals a request.

That these patterns of form and arrangement do constitute in Modern English the signals of the kind of utterance is supported also by the fact that ambiguity with respect t o the kind of u t terance results in those infrequent situations (of minimum u t t e r ances) in which the d e t a i l s of both form and order happen t o be the same for two different kinds of utterance. (1952:145) However, though Fries defined structures such as statement, question, and command, or subject and object in strictly formal terms, this does not mean that he refused to consider the relation of these structures to meaning. In fact it should be clear from what was said above that he considers these structures important precisely because they signal meaning. Fries often said in discussing the tradi-

REFERENTIAL HIERARCHY tional definition

of

107.

s e n t e n c e as a complete t h o u g h t

the traditional

g r a m m a r i a n s had i t

" I know w h a t i s

a complete thought because i t

as a s e n t e n c e . "

S i m i l a r l y h e showed t h a t

five d i s t i n c t meanings t h a t which i s d e s c r i b e d , action).

(performer, undergoer,

(See 1 9 5 2 : 1 7 6 - 1 8 9 . )

that these different matical

backwards.

that

H i s v i e w was is

expressed

subject

t h a t which i s

signals identified,

or b e n e f i c i a r y

of

I t was c r u c i a l t o h i s

meanings were s i g n a l l e d

by t h e

the model

gram

structure.

These five d i f f e r e n t meanings for t h e s u b j e c t . . . a r e not j u s t vague m a t t e r s of t h e "context" but are d e f i n i t e l y s i g n a l l e d by t h e c o n t r a s t i n g s e l e c t i o n and arrangement of (1) t h e [verb] with which t h e s u b j e c t i s bound, of (2) t h e s u b s t i t u t e group t o which t h e [noun] b e l o n g s , and of (3) t h e type of determiner with t h e [noun]. (1952:183)

In effect, Fries' concept of structure in English is one that intimately links word order and word form (since these are the main signals of grammatical structure in English), grammatical structure (including what we would call grammatical function), and grammatical meaning. The link he focussed on was that of a signalling relationship. However, to discover the relation between any element and the meaning it signalled one had to look at the entire grammar and the various signalling relationships involved. Fries' focus on signals led him to look at relations between sentences. Though he accepted as a starting point Bloomfield's definition of a sentence as: An independent linguistic form not included by virture of any grammatical construction in any larger linguistic form. Fries (1952:21) quoting Bloomfield(1933:170)

he quickly found that what he called sequence signals (pronouns, certain determiners, conjunctions, etc.) signalled relations between sentences. As a result he was forced to deal with these links, and in doing so distinguished

108

PIKE AND FRIES

between 'situation sentences' (sentences which began a conversation and which contained no sequence signals) and 'sequence sentences' (sentences which did not begin conversations and which typically contained sequence signals). (See 1952:40 and 240-255.)

Of course, this distinction

implies some sort of structure larger than sentence and Fries implied such notions repeatedly

(see the passages

cited above ana also his discussion when he noted that different utterance types (statement, question, command) were regularly followed by different responses, both verbal and nonverbal (1952:42-47, 5 3 ) . Since Fries was interested in language as a tool for expressing meanings, he occasionally analyzed the meanings expressed and how they were signalled.

T

Chapter 4 of

some distinctive features relevant to the analysis of a fragment of English vocabulary.

Fries (1927a:35-42) and

later Fries (19 60) show how plural and singular meanings affect concord of number. Fries (1927b) discusses the various ways English speakers may use verbs to refer to the future. English

Similarly, among Fries' notes for The Stvuctuve

of

there is evidence to show that he tried to show all

the various means by which specific meanings were signalled. As he said in a letter to Peter H. Fries:

I tried to look over the materials I was working with by starting from the formal characteristics and asked myself whether I could summarize them by beginning with the "grammatical" meanings I had identified, and then under each of these meanings list the particular structures that English used to signal these meanings. (Fries, 1962:2) A further example which we suspect Fries would include as a discussion of meaning is his discussion of immediate constituent layering.

He is not totally explicit on this

REFERENTIAL HIERARCHY point,

h o w e v e r , when g i v i n g

i n g s he i n c l u d e d t h e

109

e x a m p l e s of g r a m m a t i c a l

mean

following:

(c) In t h e Modern English phrase in any other monestory ' s things t h e c o n s t i t u e n t " o t h e r " i s i d e n t i f i e d as belonging with "monestary"; but in t h e Old Enqlish phrase with e q u i v a l e n t l e x i c a l terms in cenium operum mynstres pingum t h e c o n s t i t u e n t (1965:1)(See a l s o 1952:59 for a s i m i l a r wording) Similarly, Structure

of

a careful

English

of t h e p a s s a g e s

in

the

in which F r i e s d i s c u s s e d g r o u p i n g s

immediate c o n s t i t u e n t s the signals

examination

of t h e s e

shows t h a t he f r e q u e n t l y

of

refers

to

groupings.

. . . w e must assume t h a t in each language some formal f e a t u r e s a t t a c h t o t h e v a r i o u s groupings of s t r u c t u r a l c o n s t i t u e n t s , f e a t u r e s t h a t t h e speakers l e a r n t o respond t o and produce. (1952:262) H o w e v e r , we h a v e b e e n u n a b l e t o d i s c o v e r i n w h i c h he t a l k s selves fact

signal.

any

instance

about what meanings t h e s e groupings

We s u g g e s t t h a t t h i s

lack r e s u l t s

t h a t he r e g a r d e d t h e g r o u p i n g s t h e m s e l v e s

them

from

the

as a kind

of

meaning. One e x a m p l e of h i s

concern for

immediate

as meanings t o be conveyed i s h i s d i s c u s s i o n criptions

of b a s e b a l l ,

tural relationships ties

o n e of w h i c h h i g h l i g h t s

the

between t h e v a r i o u s p a t t e r n e d

struc activi

i n t h e game a n d t h e o t h e r of w h i c h d o e s n o t d o

(1952:258-262.)

Needless to say,

ignores the structural patterned read

constituents of t w o d e s

activities

and u n d e r s t a n d .

c u s s i o n of a s t u d e n t

the description

relationships

of b a s e b a l l

between t h e

so.

which various

i s much m o r e d i f f i c u l t

(See 1 9 5 2 : 2 8 8 - 2 9 0 f o r composition.)

a similar

He c o n c l u d e s

to dis

that

t h e s i g n i f i c a n c e of t h e p r i n c i p l e of immediate c o n s t i t u e n t s for understanding and for a l l l e v e l s of language use cannot be o v e r emphasized. Most of t h e f a i l u r e s of communication seem t o be t i e d u p , in one way or a n o t h e r , with t h e problems of immediate c o n s t i t uents . (1952:261-2)

"operum"

110

PIKE AND FRIES

F r i e s ' d i s c u s s i o n s of c o n n e c t e d t e x t seem t o imply a s t r u c t u r e t o n o n - v e r b a l b e h a v i o r , w h e t h e r or n o t t h a t b e h a v i o r i s a c t u a l l y b e i n g d e s c r i b e d i n l a n g u a g e . Thus i n commenting on one of t h e d e s c r i p t i o n s of b a s e b a l l r e f e r r e d t o above, F r i e s s a y s , The difficulty with t h i s description i s not that i t has too much d e t a i l , as one might suspect at f i r s t , nor that i t does not pro ceed in an orderly fashion. The author of t h i s description has t r i e d to pursue a time sequence in the playing of the game, with explanations of each of the details as they are met in that se quence. The d e t a i l s are a l l constituents of the various patterns that make the game of baseball, but there i s no effort to grasp the structural relationship of these patterns in the whole system. The author has not sought, he certainly has not displayed, the im mediate constituents for each level of structure. An understand ing of the game depends upon, consists of, r e a l l y , a grasp of the immediate constituents of each layer of structure. (1952:260-1) The wording of this passage, particularly that of the last sentence implies that the game of baseball itself has a structure. (See also his discussion of the characteristics of the strike in baseball 1952:72-3 and of baseball in 1957:8-9.) In other words, human behavior itself is patterned.

Some Relations Between Pike and Fries

Like Fries, Pike has found it essential to discuss the relation between language and meaning, though in contrast to Fries he has included meaning values directly as part of the definition of linguistic units. Pike found Fries' treatment of word order in English sentences very congenial and found in it support for his handling of clausal tagmemic slots. Similarly when Pike found Fries' discussion of situation utterances and response utterances in The

REFERENTIAL HIERARCHY

111

Structure of English, he felt Fries was implicitly using an approach which had essential similarities to the hierarchical one he had been developing during the forties.3 However, while the similarities between Fries' and Pike's approach are real, there are also significant differences. Pike found Fries' approach to the relation between form and meaning too diffuse. Rather, Pike takes language as form-meaning composite. No unit exists without some form and some meaning. Thus in Pike's earlier work he distinguished between an actor-as-subject tagmeme and a recipient of action-as-subject tagmeme (1967:219 and 246) using a combination of meaning and form as contrastive features of the subject tagmeme. (See also Pike's discussion of Fries' notion of modifaction (Pike 1967:247-250) for a similar point.) In Pike's more recent work, the contrastive features have been refined and expanded to include four different types of information: grammatical function (subject, object, etc.), grammatical meanings (performer, undergoer, etc.), the class of items realizing the grammatical function (e.g. noun), and cohesion (co-occurrence restrictions of one unit with another e.g. subject-predicate agreement in English or the obligatory or optional occurrence of one unit in relation to others). This new version of the tagmeme has come to be called the four-cell tagmeme. A second difference between Fries' and Pike's work is that though Fries implied that units larger than sentence existed, he never really used or analyzed such units consistently. It is true that Fries consistently analyzed data taken from connected texts, however his published analyses all focussed on the description of various sentenial features. Even when he discussed situation sentences and sequence sentences or the sequence signals which

112

PIKE AND FRIES

linked one sentence to another, he did not discuss the larger units of which the sentences formed a part. In contrast, Pike has found it necessary to be quite explicit on the point that larger units than sentence exist, and he has found it necessary to describe these units and to use their existence to account for details of the internal structure of the sentences of the language, A third, related, difference between Fries' and Pike's work is Fries' approach to immediate constituents. For Fries immediate constituent relations seem to be meanings which are signalled, not signals of meanings. Pike has found it necessary to discuss layering of constituents via levels of analysis. Thus phrases are different types of constituents from clauses and typically occur within clauses. These layerings constitute both differences in form and differences in meanings. In other words Pike has found it necessary to take an explicitly hierarchical approach to language in which three hierarchies are relevant: the phonological hierarchy (which contains at least the levels of phoneme, syllable, foot and breath group), the grammatical hierarchy (which contains at least the levels of morpheme, word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, story) and the referential hierarchy. The referential hierarchy is the hierarchy of what is talked about in language and seems to contain levels such as identity, event, story, and performative interaction as levels within a narrative, and concept, point, script (following Schank (197 5), and performative 'interaction for expository discourse. As for all units in tagmemics, each of these hierarchies is a composite of form and meaning, thus the referential hierarchy is not to be interpreted as equivalent to a semantics divorced from language, but rather what is talked about closely linked to the forms which realize those meanings.

REFERENTIAL HIERARCHY

113

(See Pike and Pike (1977:363-410) and Jones (1977:133) for more extensive presentations of the referential hierarchy.) The levels mentioned here in each hierarchy are levels which have been found in many languages around the world, but the relevance of each particular level in a particular language must be established for that language by a careful examination of the contrastive units within that language. In all these hierarchies there is a part-whole relation which relates smaller and larger units via the four-celled tagmeme. As Evelyn Pike says: Each immediate constituent of each level of each of the hierarchies is characterized by four features: slot, class(es), role and cohesion. This is the prime unit of the tagmemic model; it is substance (class) alv7ays treated in its relevant context, (personal communication)

As a result, the notions class and slot and role and cohesion are not merely relevant to the sentence level within the grammatical hierarchy, they are relevant to all levels within all the three hierarchies. Hierarchial structure has immediate constituents on each level, and both immediate and more remote contexts are relevant to each such immediate constituent.

Referential Slot in Tagmemics Exemplified

In the rest of this paper the referential hierarchy vill be explored and new developments within the tagmemic conception will be presented. The "study of the referential hierarchy analyzes the content of what the speaker 'wants to say' about some unit, element, situation, action; or speaker-hearer attitude, emotion, presupposition, evaluation or belief that is communicated (intentionally or

114

PIKE AND FRIES

unintentionally) by the speaker about that statement or content of that statement or that is elicited from the hearer of that statement!' (Pike and Pike, 1977:363). This content is hierarchically organized, and it is possible and necessary to extend the techniques of linguistic analysis to apply to this referential hierarchy. Clearly this extension is no simple matter, for "...the referential hierarchy involves a network of hierarchical relations which seem to be virtually open ended; and part of the analytical difficulty lies in the need to recognize these network components while at the same time finding a way to treat some of them in a linear fashion, in order to be able to perceive them as something 'going on'" (Pike and Pike, 1977:363-364). Pike has attempted to do this earlier (Pike and Pike, 1977:Chapter 12) by looking at purpose in the content of language as a crucial factor. That is, the purpose of activity is an analog in the referential hierarchy to role in the grammatical hierarchy. Now, we wish to explore the analog in the referential hierarchy to grammatical function or 'slot'. If we recall Fries' description of English and note that he said that the relative orders of word classes constitute a major signal of the grammatical functions in Modern English, we may take as an initial working hypothesis that 'position' of a unit will be the referential analog for grammatical slot. Further, Pike has identified the notion of slot with the wave view of language, thus, two aspects of referential slots will be relevant. First, referential slots, like phonological and grammatical slots, must relate a smaller unit with some larger unit via some functional relation. Second, this functional concept should be one which highlights nucleus and margin, or centrality of function as opposed to marginal function-—and, more recently, some aspects of time and

REFERENTIAL HIERARCHY

115

space. Finally, since the referential hierarchy deals with the talked-about world, and since human behavior involves the need to focus attention in some direction, and to do so hierarchically at various levels of relevance, we should be able to find speakers and writers regularly signalling referential hierarchical relations and functions overtly. This leads to the wave character of exposition, with one (or sometimes more) slot being nuclear to the wave and others marginal. An author may himself be aware of such rhythmic features of behavior, and reflect them in his exposition. The following examples, organized in a preliminary, etic arrangement, illustrate places where writers have overtly signalled referential slot relations by using various statements or phrases in their text. Of course, discussing signals of slot relations also entails looking at data which refers to the fillers of those slots, since slots do not exist without fillers. Many of the illustrations will be taken from the first pages of an exposition by Whitehead ([1933] 1955) on the history of ideas. Numbers refer to his pages. The italics are ours. A.

Signals for the nucleus of a wave versus its margins: concept level. 1. Signals of nucleus (31) constituting the climax of t h i s somber journey [with journey as an episode having a nucleus] (12) the culmination of that phase of human experience (29) the French Revolution, the culmination (27) had i t s f i r s t success 2. Types of nucleus and their distinguishing features Of c o u r s e a v a r i e t y of f e a t u r e s may mark a n u c l e u s d e p e n d i n g on t h e a u t h o r ' s p o i n t of v i e w . Thus l o o k i n g a t t y p e s of n u c l e u s we f i n d :

116

PIKE AND FRIES

Nucleus of

a concept

(18) The keynote of

idolatry

Nucleus t o an i d e n t i t y (30) Among the chief Nucleus i n

social

class agencies

structure

(22) Plato was an aristocrat Peak i n

and s e l f

evaluation

by birth and by conviction

quality

(ad. page) One of the greatest minds

Selective

quality

(ad. page) a masterpiece of survey No r a t i o n a l

source

for

nucleus

(14) Sporadic outbursts Nucleus as

episode

(31) constituting the climax of this somber journey (with journey as episode having a nucleus) Time and n u c l e u s t i e d

together

(21) at the moment slavery reached i t s height Nuclear

period

(14) an age of hope (ad. page) a new era Steady wave of

nucleus

(14) driving mankind from i t s old anchorage Nucleus of

state

in general

(not a

particular

episode) (30) in full

activity

Power, Mental

nucleus

(13) the history Nucleus focus

of ideas is dominated by

by o b s e r v e r

(12) one selected Nucleus

of

observer

choice

aspect involvement

(52) The French emphasis was toward coordination

(the

author reports the observer involvement of the French)

REFERENTIAL HIERARCHY

117.

Pragmatic evaluation of the nucleus (19) profound cosmological outlook Nucleus reached under

difficulty

(27) achieving another triumph 3.

Nuclei

with

more

than

one

peak

Waves may b e c o m p l e x a n d h a v e m o r e t h a n o n e (89) Thus t h e r e a r e two peaks culture 4.,

Signals

Again,

of

writers

they are

margins signal

t h e m a r g i n s of t h e w a v e s

which

discussing. (pre-margin)

(21) t h i s growth of t h e idea

(pre-margin)

(27) a decaying

(post-margin)

institution

(24) intermediate --as Signals

t o t h e Near Eastern

(with double nucleus t o a wave event)

(42) in t h e opening phase

5.

peak

of

s t a g e s (on t h e p r e - s l o p e of t h e wave

r i p p l e s on t h e big wave) movement

within

a

wave

S i m i l a r l y w r i t e r s may w i s h t o s i g n a l m o v e m e n t w i t h i n wave--from pre-margin t o nucleus t o (22) t o rise

t o t h e height

a

post-margin.

of t h e i r appointed t a s k

(motion toward wave nucleus) (27) with i t s earliest

incarnations...

and finally

it

w a s . . . ( f r o m pre-margin t o nucleus) (29) in t h e age from t h e b i r t h . . . t o undisputed power (from pre-margin t o nucleus) (27) t h e first

step...second

step...final

triumph

(growing s t a g e s toward nucleus) (51) an o c c a s i o n a l ripple,

l a t e r emerge i n t o t h e

fore-

ground of a c t i o n (minor wavelet growing t o wave peak) (13) t h e p r e l u d e t o t h e d e c l i n e (the pre-margin of t h e post-margin) (41) liberalism

slowly decaying

(post-margin of a gen

e r a l s i t u a t i o n concept, not a s i n g l e episode)

118

PIKE AND FRIES 6.

Signals

of

boundaries

Of c o u r s e r e f e r e n t i a l boundaries pointed

between units,

units

l i k e a l l u n i t s , must

and t h e s e b o u n d a r i e s

are

have

occasionally

out. (14) t h e well-marked transition

(the trough between t h e

waves) (16) t h e boundaries

of a civilization

are indefinite

(margin t o i d e n t i t i e s are sometimes indeterminate) 7.

Signals

Also,

of

movement

between

units

a u t h o r s o c c a s i o n a l l y d i s c u s s movement

adjacent

between

units. (51) t h e shift

of dominant

classes

(from nucleus t o

nucleus) (ad. page) t h e new reformation (replaced nucleus) (13) t h e passage

of Greek philosophy i n t o C h r i s t i a n

theology (the t r a n s i t i o n placed between n u c l e i )

The examples above (ad. page and 13) involve movement in time, but the movement may be spatial as well. (16) t h e t r a n s m i s s i o n of c i v i l i z a t i o n from t h e Near East to Western Europe T h e a u t h o r may f o c u s

on t h e

s e q u e n c e of

(26) t h e next resurgence

of the notion

waves: (the wave i s

repeated) (50) h i s t o r y can be conceived of as a s e r i e s of lations

between

oscil-

w o r l d l i n e s s and o t h e r - w o r l d l i n e s s

( n u c l e i a l t e r n a t i v e l y r e p l a c i n g each other) (31) t h e final

wave of popular f e e l i n g

(27) A whole succession

(the end nucleus)

of such waves a r e as dreams but

t h e seventh wave i s a r e v o l u t i o n o r on t h e i n t e n t

of

the

participants:

(14) . . . i s bent of t h e discovery

of a new world

(aiming

for a new nucleus) Of c o u r s e , pare

them.

if

an a u t h o r

s e e s s e v e r a l u n i t s h e may c o m

REFERENTIAL HIERARCHY

119

(16) no novelty i s wholly novel (a new e r a has wave overlap) (47) one occurrence B.

Signals

for

We h a v e s o f a r

units

1.

filling

slots

in

than

larger

been d i s c u s s i n g n u c l e u s

l e v e l of c o n c e p t . referential

may be more intense

another

units

a n d m a r g i n on

L e t u s now move t o h i g h e r

the

l e v e l s of

the

hierarchy.

Signals

for

a script

filling

a

slot

(preface) A Mentor book (one book in t h e s l o t of a c l a s s of Mentor p u b l i c a t i o n s ) first

printing

(of t h e book as a whole, where

t h e book may be considered a s c r i p t ) (11)

in i t s widest p o s s i b l e extension

the

title

(with t h e t i t l e implying coverage within a l a r g e r background of t o p i c s ) (12)

confined himself t o one selected

aspect

(kept

w i t h i n conscious n u c l e a r l i m i t s ) 2.

Signals tion

for

elements

of

between

author

and

The r e l a t i o n

of

author

the

performative

reader

t o reader i s not highlighted

s o t h e r e a r e n o t many e x a m p l e s of However, point

the following

interac-

authorial

show e v i d e n c e o f t h e

of v i e w a n d of h i s c o n s c i o u s n e s s

of h i s

(30) t o p o i n t out (to t h e audience) t h e full

and

intrusion. author's audience. sociological

significance

of t h i s episode (nucleus in r e l a t i o n

to author's

interpretation)

(30) one supreme achievement

(author e v a l u a t i o n for t h e

audience of events as nuclear) (30) one notable

event

(author's insistence t o readers

as t o nuclear relevance) There i s a further action

person-to-person

performative

i n t h e p u b l i s h e d book i n a d d i t i o n t o t h a t

tween a u t h o r

and a u d i e n c e .

This interaction

inter be

is the

one

.120

C.

PIKE AND FRIES between the publisher and the audience. On the advertising page some values of the book are highlighted for the potential purchaser. There is also the publisher's warning to the reader or user that "no part of this book" should be used inappropriately. Slot and focus /nucleus in relation to contrastive discourse

We have been talking about units of various sorts with-in the referential hierarchy. Yet within tagmemics no unit is fully described until we have pointed out its contrastive identificational features, its range of variation and its distribution. To show that units of the referential hierarchy are indeed units in this sense, we will choose two units on the performative interaction level and point out some of the contrastive identificational features. The two interactions are those of personal identification and of providing credentials. Both of these interactions differ markedly from the interaction between reader and author in the Whitehead book. We quoted extensively from the Whitehead book not merely to provide a wide range of examples, but also to give the reader a means to build for himself an expectancy of the kinds and proportion of statements about nuclei to be encountered in such a book. However, this expectancy can be shattered when one takes a mere two paragraphs from another genre. Let us illustrate this by referring to a pre-page "come on" added by the publisher to a book written by Descartes and translated by Sutcliffe (Sutcliffe, 1968). This text contains one paragraph about Descartes and one about Sutcliffe. Not only are the two paragraphs different in discourse structure from the book as a whole of Whitehead, but each of the two paragraphs is radically different from the other. Since all three texts seem to involve time, one

types

REFERENTIAL HIERARCHY

121

might well ask the question why should they differ so greatly? The answer lies in the different interactive purposes of the authors in these texts. As we have seen, the highlighting nuclear markers of Whitehead concern the development of his nuclear theme--history. He wishes to give us an account of what happened. The highlighting nuclear markers about Descartes deal with his personal resume from birth-to-death with no attempt to explain any single highlight of his contribution--though some are mentioned. Here the author is trying to tell the reader who Descartes was. The highlighting of Sutcliffe concerns establishing his reliability as a translator. 1.

Identification of Descartes (as a person) In the fourteen line description of Descartes, identity is in primary focus. The publisher speaks implicitly to the question Who is Descartes'? Everything in this paragraph in some sense modifies him as a man, as a character. In doing so, however, it treats him in some sense as an event: he was born, he lived, he died. This latter aspect provides the chronological organization of the description in which the slots are filled by particular events. Dates become crucial clues to the embedded nuclear events of the description. We are told he was "born in 1596," that he "left the army in 1621," that "in 1629 he retired to Holland...for twenty years," and "in 1648 he accepted an invitation from Queen Christian of Sweden." Finally we are told "he died in Stockholm in 1650." This example shows that temporal relations may prove relevant to the identification of slots within the referential hierarchy, though we have not emphasized this point in prior publications. The frequent use of signals of time relations signals the use of

122

PIKE AND FRIES time as an organizing principle. Thus we find the phrases "after leaving college" and "after serving as a soldier," which indicate a temporal relation between his leaving college and some other action and his serving as a soldier and some other action. Even the various uses of in (being born "in 1596," leaving the army "in 1621," returning "in 1629," accepting the invitation "in 1648" and dying "in 1650") relate the events described by placing them within a chronology. Interspersed in that paragraph are a few indications of generalized actions--not single isolated episodes, which are presumably crucial to his writings (not just to his living and dying): "He contested the value of an education based on Aristotelianism;" "He attempted to resolve the skeptical crisis of his age by inventing a method of reasoning based on mathematics;" "he devoted himself to science and philosophy;" "His doctrines involved him in some bitter arguments;" and "He instructed the Queen of Sweden." That is it. All of it. The author is in focus here, not his thoughts. One must read the book itself to see why one should read it--to think the thoughts of the thinker himself, rather than to hear about him. 2. Description of Sutcliffe's credentials Sutcliffe's credentials as author and as translator are highlighted in just 10 lines, first in terms of his teaching positions and then in terms of his publications. Perhaps the publisher is implicitly answering the question "Is this translation reliable?" We are given some chronological information, but not in an ordered sequence, such as we had for Descartes. Nor are we told of his birth or death. As far as this presentation is concerned, Sutcliffe seems neither to

REFERENTIAL HIERARCHY

12 3

have been born nor to have died; that is not relevant pragmatically to the reader. We are first told that he "has been a professor...since 1966" (with the present perfect and since indicating relevance to the present). Then we are told of what happened before he was a professor ("He joined the staff...in 1946") and then we go back further in time to a less nuclear sub-age to find "after serving six years in the Royal Artillery." That is all we are told about Sutcliffe so far as living by years is concerned. His major publications are then listed chronologically; 1954 (on Paul Valery), 1959 (on Balzac), 1965 (on Sorel), 1967 (on an edition of Francois de La Noue), 1973 (an edition on politics and culture). Finally, the description returns to the present with is, as if going on forever in value "...is Chevalier do 1'Ordre National du Merite." In all of this paragraph, sequential slots are downplayed. Personal current contrastive features and accomplishments are highlighted. Slot via physical space or social structure is hardly mentioned. Qualifying features of identities suggesting nuclearity or marginality are not utilized. The contrast with the paragraph about Descartes and the book by Whitehead is therefore very great in respect to the features of referential slot with which we have been concerned here.

Conclusion

We have had two different aims in writing this paper. First we wished to show some of the relations between Pike's work and the work of Charles C. Fries, who, combined with earlier influences of Townsend, Bloomfield and

124

PIKE AND FRIES

Sapir, helped mold Pike's academic views.

Second, we have

tried to show one small addition to a linguistic analysis which is rooted in their insights and in Pike's training, but which now goes beyond their contributions.

Specifi-

cally we take the suggestion and utilization of the terms

particle, wave and field (which Pike first tried out in 1959) to show that some semantic features can be treated in a new way. With the tagmeme handled as a composite of slot, class, role and cohesion, class can be treated as particle, and slot as wave. The wave specifies the difference between central (highlighted or nuclear) vs marginal (nonfocussed or noncrucial) elements. The speaker utilizes phrases or sentences on occasion to make clear to the reader the crucial difference between nucleus and margin of some element which is being treated as an entity in a class. Qualifiers such as climax and culmination, show the peak of such a nucleus or growth toward it or departure from it. We take here examples from one source (Whitehead) to show how much of this may in fact occur in just a few pages. Even with the above clues, the complexity of analysis of a simple text is enormous. For the grammar this will follow the path of successively larger linear immediate constituents (as in Pike and Pike, 1977). For phonology, it also takes a linear development from sound to syllable to rhythm group--to even more inclusive levels and allowing variation in that for poetry and quality of voice. For reference, however, the nonlinear character of its encyclopedia-like structure gives much greater difficulties, many as yet unsolved. The application of these materials, therefore, must wait for other materials which are in preparation. We do not know what modifications this application might bring.

REFERENTIAL HIERARCHY 1

125

This paper began as a discussion by Pike of elements filling slots of the referential hierarchy with a brief introduction relating his work to that of Charles C. Fries. But in the process of discussions with Peter H. Fries of that relation, so much was added by the latter that it seemed appropriate to re-work the article as a coauthored one. The result is here--both authors contributed to the entire article, but primary responsibility for representing the work of Charles C. Fries is carried by Peter H. Fries, while primary responsibility for the analytical work on reference is carried by Kenneth Pike.

2

The italics in the quotations from Fries used in this chapter are all in the original. Since Pike is known as a Fries student it is appropriate to point out that he never attended a class taught by Fries. While he was profoundly affected and influenced by Fries, that influence was in the form of informal conversations with Fries and the general climate of independent endeavor encouraged by Fries at the University of Michigan. Fries' discussion of the strike in baseball (1952:72-73) provided Pike with a beautiful example of a disjunctive definition of an element of everyday life and encouraged him to use disjunctive definitions happily. Many of the beliefs that Pike shares with Fries were arrived at independently of Fries' work. Though there is a strong analogy between Fries' use of word order and classes and what became known in tagmemics as slot, the grammatical function within a tagmeme, a lecture in 1935 by William Cameron Townsend laid the groundwork for Pike's deep reaction to the naturalness of a class of replaceable affixes in an agglutinative Mayan verb. (See Pike's forward to Elson, 1960.) Townsend had invented a classroom teaching device, made up of a horizontal cardboard strip with "windows" in it for stem and suffix positions: separate vertical strips of paper had specific columns of affixes written on them which showed the morphemes appropriate to these slots respectively. By raising or lowering the strips, thousands of verb forms (ignoring possible negative correlations) could be shown. From here, it was a natural step, perhaps, to a deep appreciation of the word order and classes of Fries. Similarly Pike encountered notions such as actor, goal and undergoer when he read Bloomfield's Language in the thirties. Other notions such as the hierarchical approach to linguistic units and the structure of non-verbal behavior are notions which Pike first developed on his own in the forties (see Pike, 1943, 1944 and 1954), and then when a few years later he examined Fries', 1952, he found that Fries had discussed social interaction (a level high in our present views of hierarchy) and shown that it was very useful for defining sentence.

12 6

PIKE AND FRIES REFERENCES

Bloomfield, Leonard. Co.

(1933). Language,

New York: Henry Holt and

Elson, Benjamin (ed.). (1960). Mayan Studies I. Linguistic Series #5. Norman, OK: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Fries, Charles C. 3:87-95.

(1927a), The Expression of the Future, Language.

Fries, Charles C. (1927b). The Teaching New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons.

of the English

Fries, Charles C. (1952). The Structure Harcourt Brace and Co.

of English.

Language. New York:

Fries, Charles C. (1957). On the Nature of Human Language (Third Takashi Saito Lecture). Essays and Studies. Tokyo: Joshi Daigaku, 8:1-15. Fries, Charles C. (1960). Concord of Number in English. In Articles on English Language and Literature (in Honor of Gengi Takahashi, President of Meiji Gakuin University), 327-348. Tokyo: Shinozuki Shorin. Fries, Charles C.

(1961).

Letter to Peter H. Fries. June 5, 1961,

Fries, Charles C. (1963). Linguistics Rinehart, and Winston.

and Reading.

New York: Holt,

Fries, Charles C. (1965). Summary Statements Descriptive of One Approach to Grammar, mimeographed. Fries, Charles C. (1967). Structural Linguistics, Britannica, Inc. 10:668.

Encyclopaedia

Fries, Charles C. (nd). Grammar From the Point of View of Structural Linguistics, mimeographed. Fries, Peter H. (1983). C.C. Fries, Signals Grammar and the Goals of Linguistics. In John Morreall (ed.), The Ninth LACUS Forum, 146-158. Columbia, SC: Hornbeam Press. Jones, Linda Kay. (1977). Theme in English Expository Discourse. Edward Sapir Monograph Series in Language, Culture, and Cognition 2.

REFERENTIAL HIERARCHY

127

Pike, Kenneth L. (1943). Taxemes and Immediate Constituents, Language. 19:65-82. Pike, Kenneth L. (1944). Analysis of a Mixteco Text, Journal of American Linguistics. 10:113-138.

International

Pike, Kenneth L. (1954). Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior. Preliminary edition, Glendale, CA: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Vol. I. Pike, Kenneth L. (1967). Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior. Second edition. The Hague: Mouton. Pike, Kenneth L. and Evelyn G. Pike. (1977). Grammatical Analysis. Summer Institute of Linguistics Publications in Linguistics, Publication Number 53. Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Schank, Roger C. and colleagues of the Yale Artificial Intelligence Project. (1975). SAM (Script Applier Mechanism)--A Story Understander, Research Report 43, Yale. Sutcliffe, F.E. (1968). Translation of Descartes: Discourse Method and the Meditations. Hammondsworth: Penguin. Whitehead, Alfred North. [1933] (1955). Adventures revised edition. New York: Mentor.

of

Ideas,

on

About 19 38 with Agnes, Charles, Robert and Peter

1957 In Australia

SIGNALS OF SEQUENCE AND THOUGHT

Carolyn G. Hartnett

Charles Carpenter Fries was a practical man who valued the educational implications of linguistic research. He distinguished education from mere training: In real education, work in written composition should stimulate students to bring their diverse experiences together in thought (nd: 29-30). Fries saw language as a systematic means for bringing together diverse ideas. He ended The Structure of English by saying that systematic analysis of English has value beyond teaching languages, clarity, punctuation and paragraphing, use of structural resources, and total meaning; the great value of systematic analysis is giving insight "into the nature and functioning of human languages" (1952:296). At a time when many linguists were limiting themselves to the analysis of single sentences, Fries analyzed discourse by studying the signals that relate sentences in sequence. He sought signals of structural meaning; then he used those signals to separate utterances into sentences with parts that function in form classes that appear in patterns, in layers of immediate constituents. He found some sentences that could start a conversation and others that could continue it.

130

CAROLYN G. HARTNETT In general, the forms of these "sequence" sentences differed from those that stood first in a "situation" utterance unit only in the fact that the "sequence" sentences contained certain signals that tied them to preceding utterances. (1952:241)

I n C h a p t e r XI of The Structure of English, Fries pre s e n t e d examples of f i v e d i f f e r e n t t y p e s of s i g n a l s of s e quence i n t h e s e n t e n c e s i n h i s c o r p u s ( 1 9 5 2 : 2 4 0 - 2 5 5 ) . The f i r s t t y p e , " S u b s t i t u t e s f o r C l a s s 1 Words," i n c l u d e s t h i r d p e r s o n p e r s o n a l p r o n o u n s as w e l l as q u a s i - p r o n o u n s . The boy has just brought the evening paper.

It i s at the door.

The houses we saw t h i s afternoon didn't impress us particularly. Each had some advantages. Both had disadvantages. F r i e s t i t l e d t h e second t y p e of s e q u e n c e s i g n a l s "The S o - c a l l e d ' D e f i n i t e A r t i c l e ' and t h e ' D e m o n s t r a t i v e s . ' " A policeman has just brought in a man, a woman, and three c h i l dren. The man i s over by the window. Sunday we're going out in our boat for a picnic and we'd like to have you go with us. That i s the boat that i s over near M C . The t h i r d t y p e i s " F r e e C o m b i n a t i o n s w i t h Else Other. " The committee i s going to consider only budget matters Everything else must wait.

and today.

When F r i e s d i s c u s s e d "Some S o - c a l l e d ' A d v e r b s ' a s ' S e quence S i g n a l s , ' " he d e s c r i b e d t h e s p e c i a l s e q u e n t i a l mean i n g of words such as later. The s e q u e n c e s i g n a l and t h e r e g u l a r m o d i f i e r a r e d i s t i n g u i s h e d by i n t o n a t i o n p a t t e r n . Later,

the men went away early.

Up to 1945, L was with the Since, he has worked with us. The c o r p u s had e l e v e n d i f f e r e n t

. s i g n a l s of t h i s t y p e of

SEQUENCE SIGNALS AND THOUGHT temporal sequence, can s i g n a l

there

a n d elsewhere,

which

also

sequence.

The f i f t h So-called

besides

131

g r o u p of

sequence s i g n a l s F r i e s

'Conjunctions,'"

often classify

noting that dictionary

some o f t h e s e w o r d s a s

T h e y ' l l bring t h e a b s t r a c t tomorrow. ready u n t i l Thursday. I n 1940 i n American

named

English

"Some

labels

adverbs.

The deed however won't be

Grammar,

F r i e s had

re

p o r t e d a n o t h e r f u n c t i o n word t h a t s i g n a l s a sequence of s e n t e n c e s , do, . . . i t i s used as a substitute verb, a word that serves to repeat or to refer to the meaning of any verb that has been used before i t in the immediate context. Thirteen instances of t h i s use ap peared in the Standard English l e t t e r s [besides eight instances in the Vulgar English l e t t e r s ] . He promised to l e t i t alone, and for a number of months he did so (1940:147) After Fries' study of sequence signals, interest in the relationships between sentences grew, especially after Hasan used the term cohesion for the function of sequence signals. In Cohesion in English Halliday and Hasan described cohesion as the means of linking into a text some elements that are structurally unrelated to one another; their book defined cohesion as the semantic relation between two elements, which is independent of structure and which is realized through grammar and vocabulary (1976:vii, 6, 27). Halliday and Hasan acknowledged relationships with the contextual world outside of the text (exophoric reference) . They acknowledged also the necessary cohesive syntactic relationships within a sentence, but the cohesion which they analyzed consisted of the relationships between sentences.

132

CAROLYN G. HARTNETT

Halliday and Hasan presented a refined classification of five types of cohesive ties, termed (1) reference , (2)

substitution,

(3) ellipsis

, (4) conjunction,

and (5)

lexi-

cal. Reference ties include third-person personal pronouns (very similar to Fries' first type of sequence signals), demonstratives and the definite article (similar to Fries' second type), and comparatives (including all of Fries1 third type of sequence signals, plus comparative adjective forms and words such as identical, more, and such). In Halliday and Hasan's system, substitution cohesion involves replacements for nouns (often one or ones), for verbs (using do, as Fries discussed in 1940), and for clauses {so, not). Like substitution, the cohesion of ellipsis can be either nominal, verbal, or clausal. Nominal ellipsis includes use of the deictics each and both (which Fries grouped with pronouns), as well as numeratives and epithets, such as superlatives. Halliday and Hasan subdivided conjunction cohesion in-to five types with meanings that are additive (furthermore), adversative {however) , causal (consequently) , temporal (then), or continuative (anyway). Temporal conjunctions resemble Fries' fourth group of sequence signals, while the other conjunctions belong to Fries' fifth group. The last type of cohesion that Halliday and Hasan analyzed is lexical. It includes (1) repetitions of the same item, (2) synonyms and near-synonyms, (3) superordinates (which are higher level classifications or categories) , (4) general items (such as the whole thing, and (5) collocations (items tending to appear in similar contexts). Halliday and Hasan's system finely subdivided the types of cohesive ties and provided a scheme for coding the distance and direction of the presupposed item. Analysts used the system to explore how cohesion correlates with the

133

SEQUENCE SIGNALS AND THOUGHT quality of writing.

They assumed that good writing makes

good use of the resources of the language and that signals of cohesive relations should be important carriers of meaning, since meaning is in relationships

(Pike, 1964).

The

analysts generally found that cohesion correlates positively with writing quality, but alone it cannot predict the quality of adult writing much better than other incidentals can, as length, errors, or syntactic structures

(Hartnett,

1980, Witte and Faigley, 1981). The load of expectations for cohesive ties is so large that it is possible to separate the functions of the ties or sequence signals (the terms seem interchangeable).

Some

ties primarily focus and hold attention on a topic; other ties manipulate and develop it in the rhetorical modes of definition, comparison, and such. velopment.

Attention precedes de-

A list of the types of ties that focus and hold

attention begins with the reference ties of third-person pronouns and demonstratives (such as it

and this)

and the lex-

ical ties of repetitions, synonyms, and collocations the expected associated words).

(all

Omission and ellipsis

enable writers to elaborate without repeating.

Additive

ties help writers to add further details smoothly and clearly.

A different way to continue expressing similar

types of information is to match tenses and use parallel sentence structure.

Since parallel sentences involve

structure, Halliday and Hasan omitted them, but they do have a cohesive effect (Becker, 1965; D'Angelo, 1975; Christensen and Christensen, 1976). All of these attention-holding cohesive devices might appear in an undeveloped repetitive essay that is not worth reading.

To develop a point rhetorically, writers use

other cohesive signals that specify how the idea is being manipulated.

Definitions use lexical ties of superordinate

13 4

CAROLYN G. HARTNETT

classifications, being defined. specific

t e r m s t h a t a r e more g e n e r a l Examples need l e x i c a l

than the original

p a r i s o n and c o n t r a s t , like the conjunction tive

forms of

order

junctive

adverbs

Inferential

l i k e therefore ties

and t h e r e f e r e n t i a l

abstraction

Although t h i s ulative

functions

simplify

t h e t o t a l r o l e of further

variety

of

analysis.

attention

t i m u m n u m b e r of many d i f f e r e n t

ties,

veloped tangents. perhaps optional, signals,

of t h e a t t e n t i o n

cohesive t i e s ,

consider

and m a n i p

a n d may

over

i t provides

a

Good w r i t i n g may n e e d a w i d e while i t

uses only a small ties,

The m a n i p u l a t i v e

ties

seem r a r e r

or r e l a t e d

how s t u d e n t s

to

too

unde and

quality.

attempt t o use

cohesion

t h i s p a r a g r a p h w r i t t e n by a s t u d e n t

b a s i c w r i t i n g c o u r s e a t a community

op

because

s i g n a l s would be l e a d i n g

more d i f f i c u l t ,

F o r an e x a m p l e of

rela

classification.

s u b t y p e s of m a n i p u l a t i v e manipulative

verb

adverbs

superordinate

t i e s may n e e d r e f i n e m e n t

base for

con

c a u s e and e f f e c t

also lexical

and h i e r a r c h i c a l

distinction of

time

b e s i d e s t h e s y s t e m of

to specify

such r e a s o n i n g involves

for

compara

To p r e s e n t

reasoning uses conjunctive

a n d thus

signals

i s a s u b g r o u p of t e m p o r a l

( s u c h a s next)

is

more

language provides

and a d v e r b s .

there

tenses. tions;

however

are

F o r d e v e l o p m e n t by com

the English

adjectives

in n a r r a t i v e ,

term.

than what

items that

in

a

college.

In order t o have good h a b i t s , one should be aware t h a t , in order t o get good grades he have to study hard. To study hard one should set up a schedule t o s t u d y , without i n t e r f e r i n g with h i s work or s l e e p . To do this one could w r i t e down h i s work hours and h i s c l a s s hours, and t h e time t h a t he has l e f t should be used for study. Therefore, one should study in a q u i t e place where t h e r e i s no one t o d i s t r a c t h i s a t t e n t i o n away from h i s work. However, I would suggest t h a t if one studies at home, he would do so in a q u i t e room without t h e T.V. going or t h e r a d i o on. If one chooses to study at school he should avoid being around f r i e n d s . These study habits a r e good advice t o a f r e s h man in college. Take my advice I know.

SEQUENCE SIGNALS AND THOUGHT

135

This paragraph shows four types of attention-holding ties. (1) To study hard is repeated immediately. (2) The demonstrative this in the third sentence refers to set up a schedule in the second sentence. (3) Hours and time are near-synonyms or collocations associated with schedule. (4) If one studies at home, he would parallels If one chooses to study at school he should. Other examples of these types of ties occur, but a single occurrence is enough to reveal the writer's acquaintance with the usage. This writer displayed a knowledge of paragraph organization by beginning the closing with a sentence that has three different types of attention-holding ties: the referential demonstrative These, the lexical repetition of study habits, and the associated collocation college. All of these ties hold the reader's attention on the topic. Now consider the manipulative ties that develop ideas. Rome and school (and room) are specific examples of the higher classification of place. Two conjunctive ties are misused. Therefore does not introduce the conclusion or result that it promises, and However does not lead to the contrast that it signals. Classification is the only manipulative tie that is used properly in the specimen paragraph. Basic writing students seem to have more problems with manipulative ties than with the ties that hold and focus attention. This difference could explain the low correlation between counts of cohesive ties and ratings of the quality of writing. Evidence of the difference between attention and manipulative ties could show something about how minds and writers work. Evidence of a developmental sequence of cohesive ties was found in writing samples from students in the basic writing courses at College of the Mainland, a community

.136

CAROLYN G. HARTNETT

college in Texas City, Texas.

Four highschool English

teachers were trained and paid to tally and cite examples of eighteen subtypes of cohesive ties as they appeared in each essay.

The subtypes were listed in this order:

pro-

noun, demonstrative, comparative; same word, synonym or association (including near-synonyms and collocations), higher classification, general noun; substitution or omission of noun, of verb, and of clause; conjunction for addition, contrast, cause, consequence, continuity and summary, and time order; tenses in sequence; and parallel sentence structure for coordination.

The tabulators re-

corded only the variety of subtypes, not repetitions or total cohesion., Each of the essays was scored twice for cohesion (with inter-rater reliability of .78) and twice by a separate team of holistic quality raters

(with reliability of . 9 6 ) .

In an earlier study of these 316 essays, the number of subtypes of cohesive ties in each paper correlated positively but not highly with the holistic score (Pearson £ = .21, p < .001); the difference between expository and persuasive modes was not significant in a two-way analysis of variance (Hartnett 1980). The results of a new, more specific analysis of the papers on two of the topics (lunch and honor codes) appear in the table, "Use of Subtypes of Cohesion and Percent of Single Observations."

These 158 papers had 585 instances

of different subtypes of attention ties and 300 occurrences of different subtypes of manipulative ties, a ratio of about two subtypes of attention ties to each one of the manipulative subtypes.

The most frequent ties, same word

and synonym or association, occurred in nearly all the essays.

The rarest ties, substitution and ellipsis,

occurred 20 times.

TOTAL

Subtotcal 1

Manipulative Ties: Sequence of Tenses Higher Classification Contrast Conjunct Continuative Conjunct Consequence Conjunct Comparative Temporal Conjunct Causal Conjunct 300 885

105 96 27 26 20 12 12 2

585

157 152 87 76 60 30 15 3 3 2

Attention Ties: Same word Association Demonstrative Pronoun Additive Conjunct Parallel Structure Noun Substitute Verb Substitute General Word Clause Substitute Subtotcal

158

Number of Papers

Frequency of Usage

58 176

20 21 5 2 2 4 3 1

118

28 29 21 14 10 9 3 2 1 1

29

Usage

38

50

35 104

12 11 4 2 2 3 1 0

69

32 45 48 20 0 50 100 100 100

19 17 9 12 8 2 1 1 0 0

19

Usage

83 51

75 82 75 100 100 100 100

35

5 24 33 50 75 100 100 100

% Single

Wor st Papers

11 10 52 64 20 89 33 0 100 0

% Single

Bes t Papers

Use of Subtypes of Cohesion and Percent of Single Observations

SEQUENCE SIGNALS AND THOUGHT 137

138

CAROLYN G. HARTNETT

Of the 19 papers with the lowest holistic rating, one fourth had no manipulative ties at all (comparison; higher classification; conjunctions of contrast, cause, consequence, continuity, and time; sequence of tenses). However, as a group, the 19 lowest-rated essays used the same types of ties as were in the group of 2 9 highest-rated essays (r = .92, p < .01). The lowest-rated papers used an average of 5.5 subtypes each, while the highest-rated averaged 6.1 different subtypes. Of the 885 usages reported 42% were noted by only one tabulator. These single observations could indicate either errors by tabulators or questionable use by students; they ranged from 6% of the repetitions to 100% of the four rarest subtypes, correlating with the rarity of the tie (r = .84). Tabulators reported single observations for 32% of the subtypes of attention ties and 50% of manipulative ties in the papers rated highest. However, for the lowest-rated papers, the tabulators recorded single observations for 35% of the attention ties and 83% of the manipulative ties. In other words, reports of attention ties were similar for good and poor essays, but two tabulators could agree on recognizing only 17% of the manipulative ties in low-rated essays (fewer if tenses are excluded). This finding centers the problem of single observations on the poor writers1 weaknesses with manipulative ties, rather than on rarity or tabulation problems. The percent of single observations of a tie becomes an index of the difficulty of interpreting the tie. In summary, evidence of a developmental hierarchy of the subtypes of cohesive signals is (1) the near universality of some of the attention ties (repetitions of the same word, synonyms, near-synonyms, and associated collocations) and (2) the paucity of agreed double observations of

SEQUENCE SIGNALS AND THOUGHT

13 9

manipulative ties in the papers with the lowest quality ratings. The practical application of this evidence is that teachers can proceed to advanced work on precision with the common attention ties, assuming that they are often attempted by students who meet the entry criteria of the course (grade 7.5 reading level and 23 on the Test of Standard Written English). Teachers can also assume that the students occasionally attempt manipulative ties but often have great trouble using them to develop ideas. Then an instructor can organize the ties in an efficient course that associates with each tie the mental process that it expresses, the traditional grammatical usage and punctuation that the tie requires, and the rhetorical patterns and purposes that motivate both it and the mental process that uses it. These four aspects appear in the four columns of the table, "Content of Tying Thinking to Writing," which shows how such a course can be arranged. A basic writing course can teach effectively when ir reveals how expressions that indicate relationships show the writer's motives and methods for trying to construct the relation. Such a course stimulates thinking by providing practice with the kind of words that express relations between ideas, the cohesive ties that signal the sequence of sentences. These terms create a text by focusing attention on a topic and developing that topic. Manipulative cohesive ties express the mental processes that underlie rhetorical patterns and show the organization and development of thought. By learning to use these signals, student writers learn to bring together diverse ideas and to express their relationships. This is the goal of real education.

Attention

Perception, Adding details

Definition

Seeing likeness

Finding difference

Order by time

Problem-solving

Elaboration, Continuity patterns

Patterns of spelling

Summarizing

Abstraction

Evaluating

Memory

Organizing for review

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

Motivation

2.

1.

Process

or,

etc.

therefore

etc. ,

instead,

like,

Precise reading

Editing, proofreading

Omissions Review of all

Revising

Introductions

Higher level categories

Vocabulary

Quotation, titles

this

To add all etc.

Spelling

Thesis and topic sentences, Coordination

Subordinate clauses

Tenses

Negatives

Modifier forms

Whatever needed

up,

Repeated structures

Continuing,

etc.

Because,

Then, next,

etc.

Either..

Comparatives, as, etc.

Number agreement

Completing sentences

Synonyms, Repetition , Demonstrative s

Subject, Antecedents

etc.

Pronouns

(Course Placement)

Mechanics

And, also,

too,

(Introductions)

Words

CONTENT OF TYING THINKING TO WRITING

Essay examinations

Audience

Persuasion

Definition and division

Main idea

Spacing

Development, Support, Parallelism

Cause-effect, Logical reasoning

Narration, Process

Contrast, Context

Comparison

Definition

Predication, Classification

Focus, Description

Purpose, Audience

Rhetorical Communication

M

s

a

> o

O

SEQUENCE SIGNALS AND THOUGHT

141

REFERENCES Becker, Alton L. (1965). A Tagmemic Approach to Paragraph Analysis. College English 16:237-242. Christensen, Francis and Bonniejean Christensen. toric. New York: Harper. D'Angelo, Frank. (1975). A Conceptual Mass.: Winthrop.

Theory of Rhetoric.

Fries, Charles C. (1940). American English pleton-Century . Fries, Charles C. (1952). court, Brace.

The Structure

(1976). A New Rhe-

Grammar.

of English.

Cambridge,

New York: ApNew York: Har-

Fries, Charles C. (nd). The Education of the Teacher of English: Preparation in the Specific Field of English. Halliday, M.A.K. and Ruqaia Hasan. London: Longman.

(1976).

Cohesion

in

English.

Hartnett, Carolyn G. (1980). Cohesion as a Teachable Measure of Writing Competence. Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, No. 80 26168. Pike, Kenneth L. (1964). A Linguistic Contribution to Composition. College Composition and Communication, 15:82-88. Witte, Stephen P. and Lester Faigley. (1981). and Writing Quality. College Composition 32:189-204.

Coherence, Cohesion, and Communication,

Lecturing in Hiroshima, Japan

1944 with the staff of the English Language institute at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan

CHARLES C. FRIES ON 'MEANING' IN STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY

William W. Crawford

With Charles C. Fries came the advent of applied linguistics in America. This article will examine one of the least understood aspects of Fries' research—the role of 'meaning' in linguistic analysis and its application to foreign language teaching. His research efforts—along with those of his colleagues at the English Language Institute (especially Robert Lado and Kenneth Pike)—resulted in the birth of the 'Oral Approach' (or the so-called 'Michigan Method'), which still influences our view of language pedagogy today. Fries' approach to language was 'structural.' Influenced by the general trends of the 1940s, Fries sought to apply empirically the "facts" discovered by American linguistics--those "facts" which were the tenets of American structural linguistics. Fries (1955:295) felt that the 'structuralism' of American linguistics had resulted in a changed view of the nature of human language--a changed view of what constituted the basic functioning units of a language. This consequently led Fries to a new understanding of the problems involved in learning and teaching a foreign language.

144

WILLIAM W. CRAWFORD

It was generally felt that the American structuralists had cast out meaning altogether in their approach to linguistic analysis. Upon closer examination, however, such arguments cannot be considered seriously. This is especially true in regard to the work of Charles Fries who maintained a major distinction between using meaning in linguistic analysis, and treating meaning as the object of linguistic analysis throughout all his work.

Meaning in Structural Linguistics

From the very beginning, 'meaning' played a key role in Charles Fries' research. Early in his career, Fries was concerned with meaning as it related to lexicography, translation, and language history. As early as 1927, Fries published "The Meaning of Words" which concerns itself with historical shifts in meaning, and the mechanisms of meaning change in language and literature. In addition, his concern with the translation of classical literature and his ties with The Early Modern English Dictionary clearly demonstrate an early interest in the role of meaning in linguistic analysis. Perhaps the greatest goal of linguistics in the first half of this century was to bring a more scientific approach to the study of language,1 elevating it to the ranks of related sciences. This was especially true in light of the considerable advances made in such fields as psychology, physics, and anthropology. However, this attempt to bring scientific methodology to linguistic analysis, did not ignore "meaning of any kind." Rather, it attempted to "sort out the various kinds of levels of meaning and to discover how, in any particular language, each kind of level is

MEANING communicated from one i n d i v i d u a l

145 to another"

(Fries,

1955:

297) . This view,

h o w e v e r , w a s n o t s h a r e d b y many

a n d E u r o p e a n s of t h e d a y who w e r e e s p e c i a l l y c r i t i c i s m of B l o o m f i e l d ,

Fries,

American s t r u c t u r a l

linguistics.

a r e t y p i c a l of

criticism:

such

Americans

harsh in

their

and o t h e r p r a c t i t i o n e r s The f o l l o w i n g

of

passages

A g e n e r a l c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of t h e methodology of d e s c r i p t i v e l i n g u i s t i c s , as p r a c t i c e d by American l i n g u i s t s t o d a y , i s t h e e f f o r t t o analyze l i n g u i s t i c s t r u c t u r e without r e f e r e n c e t o meaning. (John B. C a r r o l l , 1950:15) Certain leading l i n g u i s t s e s p e c i a l l y in America find i t p o s s i b l e t o exclude t h e study of what they c a l l 'meaning' from s c i e n t i f i c l i n g u i s t i c s , but only by d e l i b e r a t e l y excluding a n y t h i n g , in t h e n a t u r e of mind, t h o u g h t , i d e a , concept. (J.R. F i r t h , 1951:82)

However, a s we s h a l l s e e , such s t a t e m e n t s a r e u n t r u e i n t h e c a s e of C h a r l e s C. F r i e s . As a l i n g u i s t , F r i e s was much i n d e b t e d t o t h e p i o n e e r ing e f f o r t s made by Leonard B l o o m f i e l d i n t h e a n a l y s i s of human l a n g u a g e . As a r e s u l t , he v i g o r o u s l y c h a l l e n g e d any c r i t i c i s m t o B l o o m f i e l d ' s a l l e g e d " e x c l u s i o n " of meaning i n linguistic analysis. C o u n t e r i n g such c r i t i c i s m , F r i e s (1961:214) p o i n t s o u t t h a t , "Bloomfield [ c a n n o t ] be s a i d t o deny t h e u s e of ' m e a n i n g ' i n l i n g u i s t i c a n a l y s i s . Perti n e n t q u o t a t i o n s a r e a b u n d a n t t h r o u g h o u t h i s book, Language.... In f a c t , Bloomfield i n s i s t e d t h a t the study of l a n g u a g e n e c e s s a r i l y i n v o l v e d t h e c o n s i d e r a t i o n and u s e of m e a n i n g . " F u r t h e r m o r e ' " w i t h B l o o m f i e l d , no s e r i o u s s t u d y of human l a n g u a g e can o r does i g n o r e meaning" ( 1 9 6 1 : 2 1 5 ) . I n f a c t , B l o o m f i e l d d e f i n e d ' m e a n i n g ' as f o l l o w s : The term 'meaning' which i s used by a l l l i n g u i s t s , i s n e c e s s a r i l y i n c l u s i v e , s i n c e i t must embrace a l l a s p e c t s of semiosis t h a t may be d i s t i n g u i s h e d by a p h i l o s o p h i c a l or l o g i c a l a n a l y s i s : r e l a t i o n , on v a r i o u s l e v e l s , of speech-forms t o o t h e r speech-forms,

14 6

WILLIAM W. CRAWFORD r e l a t i o n of speech-forms t o non-verbal s i t u a t i o n s ( o b j e c t s , e v e n t s , e t c . ) and r e l a t i o n s , again on v a r i o u s l e v e l s , t o t h e persons who are p a r t i c i p a t i n g i n t h e a c t of communication. (1939:18)

I t i s c l e a r t h a t Bloomfield was alarmed a t t h e growing a t t i t u d e concerning t h e s t r u c t u r a l i s t exclusion of meaning from l i n g u i s t i c a n a l y s i s . He expressed t h i s f e e l i n g as e a r l y as 19 45, in p r i v a t e correspondence with Kenneth P i k e . I t has become p a i n f u l l y common t o say t h a t I or r a t h e r , a whole group of language s t u d e n t s of whom I am one, pay no a t t e n t i o n t o meaning or n e g l e c t i t , or even t h a t we undertake t o study l a n guage without meaning, simply as meaningless s o u n d . . . . I t i s not j u s t a p e r s o n a l a f f a i r t h a t i s involved i n t h e s t a t e m e n t s t o which I have r e f e r r e d , but something which, i f allowed t o d e v e l o p , w i l l i n j u r e t h e p r o g r e s s of our s c i e n c e by s e t t i n g up a f i c t i c i o u s c o n t r a s t between s t u d e n t s who c o n s i d e r meaning and s t u d e n t s who n e g l e c t i t or ignore i t . The l a t t e r c l a s s , so f a r as I know, does n o t e x i s t . ( F r i e s , 1961:215)

As Fries keenly observed, the issue was not the use of no meaning whatsoever but rather the opposition between any or all uses of meaning. For Fries and his contemporaries it had become necessary to exclude more and more of the considerations of meaning as unscientific. They agreed with Bloomfield that "...certain traditional uses of meaning as the basis of anlysis, definition, and classification did not lead to satisfactory, verifiable, and useful results and [therefore] had to be abandonded" (Fries, 1961: 215). However, this cannot be considered a denial of meaning on the part of the structuralists. Rather, the traditional use of the term 'meaning1 in the literature of the day rendered it useless in any "scientific" investigation. Bloomfield repeatedly pointed out the difficulty of giving a "scientifically accurate definition of meaning for every form of a language" and said that "the statement of meanings is the weak point in language study and will remain so until human knowledge advances very far beyond its present

MEANING

147

state" (1939:139-40) . Fries had much to say concerning the "traditional" definitions given to the term 'meaning.' Consider the following passages from his article "Meaning and Linguistic Analysis" which serve to illustrate the diversity of the traditional definition ascribed to 'meaning:' The meaning of any sentence is what the speaker intends to be understood from it by the listener. By the meaning of a proposition I mean...the ideas which are called to mind when it is asserted. What we call the meaning of a proposition embraces every obvious necessary deduction from it. Meaning is a relation between two associated ideas, one of which is appreciably more interesting than the other. To indicate the situation which verifies a proposition is to indicate what the proposition means. The meaning of anything whatsoever is identical with the set of expectations its presence arouses. Meaning is the fact of redintegrative sequence...the evocation of a total response by a partial stimulus. ...the word 'meaning' has established itself in philosophical discourse because it conveniently covers both reason and value. The meaning of certain irregularities in the motion of the moon is found in slowing up the motion of the earth around its axis. 'Meaning' signifies any and all phases of sign-processes (the status of being a sign, the interpretant, the fact of denoting, the signification) and frequently suggests mental and valuational processes as well. We come then to the conclusion that meaning is practically everything. We always see the meaning as we look, think in meanings as we think, act in terms of meaning when we act. Apparently we are never directly conscious of anything but meanings. (1954:62-63)

148

WILLIAM W. CRAWFORD Fries

(1954:58)

that the so-called

noted t h a t 'repudiation

American l i n g u i s t i c s view r e s t s

"sometimes of m e a n i n g

n o t upon what B l o o m f i e l d

drawn from a somewhat s u p e r f i c i a l s i o n s of m e n t a l i s m a n d scientific"

u s e of

As F r i e s

cessfully

reading

Bloomfield,

of h i s

'meaning,'

as

(1961:212-3)

"un

some l i n g u i s t s

of m e n t a l i s m a s

a n y o n e who a v o i d s

today

evidence

ignored the

observed,

"it

'mentalism'

1933:139).

However,

such

(see

role

seems

cannot

to

suc ig

also:

"psychological"

i g n o r e d t h e a c t u a l u s e of m e a n i n g a s

practiced

structuralists.

Neither Fries

(1954:60)

nor Bloomfield

attempted

t h e common u s e s of m e a n i n g a s " t h e basis

and c l a s s i f i c a t i o n s , guistic definition believed

discus

'mentalism'

p h a s e s of human e x p e r i e n c e "

by t h e American defend

meaning

inferences

s p e a k of m e a n i n g b e c a u s e t h e y u n d e r t a k e t o

nore certain arguments

This

mechanism...."

use t h i s rejection

be assumed t h a t

i n t h e w o r k of

b u t upon

t o show t h a t t h e A m e r i c a n s t r u c t u r a l i s t s of m e a n i n g .

insisted

has said about

and o t h e r s r e j e c t e d

in i t s

unfortunately

is

s t e m s from L e o n a r d B l o o m f i e l d .

(which seems t o have been o v e r l o o k e d )

While F r i e s

it 1

or as d e t e r m i n i n g

and d e s c r i p t i v e

of

t h e c o n t e n t of

statement...."

to

analysis lin

Fries

that:

...certain uses of meaning in certain specific process of linguistic analysis and in descriptive statement are unscientific, t h a t i s , t h a t they do not lead t o s a t i s f a c t o r y , v e r i f i a b l e , and useful r e s u l t s . This challenging of certain uses of meaning. . .does not constitute a repudiation of all meaning in linguistic analysis. Meaning of some kind and of some degree always and i n e v i t a b l y c o n s t i t u t e s p a r t of t h e framework in which we o p e r a t e . (1954:60-61)

This led Fries (1954:61) to claim that for purposes of clarity and understanding in linguistic analysis"...we must

MEANING state

as completely

a s p o s s i b l e t h e p r e c i s e u s e s of

t y p e of m e a n i n g t h a t Fries

149

our procedures

became i n c r e a s i n g l y p e r p l e x e d

the structuralists'

each

r e q u i r e and a s s u m e . " as c r i t i c i s m

of

view of meaning c o n t i n u e d t o mount.

T h i s c a u s e d h i m t o w o n d e r how much a n d j u s t w h a t k i n d o f linguistic

analysis

could be accomplished without

of m e a n i n g o f a n y k i n d .

C e r t a i n m e a n i n g s seemed

t o him i n making t h e v e r y f i r s t

step,

that

the use essential

i s , in the

set

t i n g up of t h e m a t e r i a l t o b e a n a l y z e d and d e s c r i b e d (Fries,

1954:61).

Fries

expressed

i t t h i s way:

All language concerns i t s e l f with meanings. Or, p e r h a p s , we should say r a t h e r t h a t human beings a r e b a s i c a l l y concerned with meanings and use language as t h e i r t o o l t o g r a s p , t o u n d e r s t a n d , and t o share meanings. I t i s t h e l i n g u i s t ' s b u s i n e s s t o t u r n t h e s p o t l i g h t on t h e t o o l - - l a n g u a g e - - i t s e l f , i n order t o examine the material of which it is composed, and to identify and understand the ways this material has been selected and shaped to accomplish i t s function of mediating meaning. (1965:1) Fries approach of any all

(1955:2 to

kind."

levels

established asserted

97)

continued

language

to

insist

"[did]

not

The g o a l w a s , r a t h e r ,

of

linguistic by

current

analysis

the

structuralists'

ignore

meaning

t o i n c l u d e meaning

within

scientific

that

acceptable

at

boundaries

methodology.

He

that:

We must approach every l i n g u i s t i c a n a l y s i s with a l a r g e body of 'meaning' in hand. The q u e s t i o n i s n o t , t h e n , whether we can dispense with a l l meaning in l i n g u i s t i c a n a l y s i s but r a t h e r , more specifically, whether we can proceed with a valid and userful analysis without some knowledge or some control...of the meanings of t h e language forms which we a r e analyzing. ( F r i e s , 1954:62) The quest for "control" in the application of scientific methodology led Fries (1954:67-8) to assert that"... it is necessary to control in some way enough of the lexical meaning to determine whether forms showing certain

150

WILLIAM W. CRAWFORD

differences...are, 'different.

'"

for the p a r t i c u l a r

methodological concerns, theoretical field

of

language,

While such assumptions c l e a r l y

'same'

issues within

l i n g u i s t i c s proper are also apparent.

or

reflect the

The

' - e m i c ' / ' - e t i c ' d i s t i n c t i o n , b a s e d in part on ' m e a n i n g s ' t h a t a r e t h e "same" or " d i f f e r e n t , " f i g u r e s c o n s i d e r a b l y i n t h e l i t e r a t u r e of t h e d a y . F r i e s and h i s s t u d e n t Kenneth L. P i k e were major p r o p o n e n t s of - e m i c a n a l y s i s . Adhering t o t h e r i g o r s of c u r r e n t t r e n d s i n s c i e n c e , t h e y f e l t t h a t " t h e r e must be a 'meaning frame' w i t h i n which t o o p e r a t e " ( F r i e s , 1 9 5 4 : 6 1 ) , and t h e y assumed t h a t " . . . a l l t h e s i g n i f i c a n t m a t e r i a l s which s i g n a l l i n g u i s t i c meanings a r e m a t t e r s of c o n t r a s t w i t h i n a l i m i t e d number of p a t t e r n s " (Fries, 1961:35). While F r i e s s u r p a s s e d most l i n g u i s t s of h i s day i n i n cluding ' s o c i o - c u l t u r a l meanings' as e s s e n t i a l in l i n g u i s t i c a n a l y s i s , he c o n c u r r e d w i t h h i s c o n t e m p o r a r i e s i n l i m i t i n g t h e i r use i n h i s 'frame a n a l y s i s , ' given t h e i r "unscientific" nature. For F r i e s ( 1 9 5 4 : 6 8 ) , " s o c i o c u l t u r a l meanings which a t t a c h t o t h e u n i q u e u t t e r a n c e a s a whole or t o a s e q u e n c e of u t t e r a n c e s do n o t seem t o form any p a r t of t h e frames i n which t o test either lexical forms or s t r u c t u r a l f o r m s . " F r i e s d i d s e e k t o l i m i t one u s e of p u r e l y s t r u c t u r a l meanings i n l i n g u i s t i c a n a l y s i s , i . e . , o n e - o n - o n e mappings between meaning and s t r u c t u r e . S t r u c t u r e s do s i g n a l meanings, i t i s t r u e , and t h e s e meanings must be d e s c r i b e d . But t h e meanings cannot serve s u c c e s s f u l l y t o i d e n t i f y and d i s t i n g u i s h t h e s t r u c t u r e s . Not only does each s t r u c t u r e u s u a l l y s i g n a l s e v e r a l d i f f e r e n t meanings, but--what i s more i m p o r t a n t - - t h e r e i s probably in p r e s e n t - d a y English no s t r u c t u r a l meaning t h a t i s not s i g n a l l e d by a v a r i e t y of s t r u c tures. (1954:60)

MEANING

151

Much of the concern with scientific methodology within linguistics during the 19 40s stemmed from the advances made within the field of psychology. The entire nature of language study was affected not only by the psychological questions raised by Skinner, but by the earlier research of Weiss and Watson as well. Fries was one of the first language scholars to conclude that psycholgoical considerations were necessary in linguistic analysis, observing that "thought and language are so intimately bound up together that linguistic science cannot dispense with psychology" (1927a:108) . Neither Fries nor Bloomfield, however, can be directly linked to 'behaviorist' psychology. Fries (1962:3) states flatly that "American structuralism and its view of the nature of human language is not based upon 'behaviorist' psychology...." In addition, he emphatically asserts that "the 'image' of Bloomfield as a thoroughgoing 'behaviorist,' dominated in his approach to language by the grossest type of behaviorist psychology as popularly understood, is wholly without foundation in fact" (1962:3). While it is true that both Fries and Bloomfield share the terms 'stimulus' and 'response' with the behaviorists, Fries (1962:4) argues that "the fact that we both happen to have used these same two words certainly should not of itself make behaviorists out of us." Fries (1962:4) noted that Bloomfield used the terms 'stimulus' and 'response' not to describe an act of speech, but rather "to provide an illustration of the function of language in society-that is, as [Bloomfield] says, 'language enables one person to make a reaction (R) where another person has the stimulus (S).'" Fries adopted this position in his reformulation of Bloomfield's S--r--s--R formula. Below is a simplified frame for Fries' (1954:64-5) use of the term

152

WILLIAM W. CRAWFORD

'meaning' as it applies to language content. It is important to note that "the sketch here is based on Bloomfield's material" which predates any direct influence in Fries' thinking by Skinner (Fries, 1952:33, footnote 8 ) . INDIVIDUAL A S [The effective stimulus

INDIVIDUAL B

r s The sounds The sounds as produced as heard

R The practical response

The particular speech act which becomes an effective stimulus for B through language. For Fries (1954:64), "the actual speech act consists of both the r, the succession of sound waves as produced by individual A, and the s, the succession of sound waves as heard by individual B..." Fries (1954:64) felt that this schematic formula helps to direct attention to three aspects of meaning in language: the recognition of the sequence of vocal sounds as fitting into some pattern of recurring "sames," the recognition of the recurring "sames" of stimulus-situation features with which these "sames" of vocal sound occur, and the recognition of the recurring "sames" of practical response features which these "sames" of vocal sound elicit. According to Fries (1954:64-5), "A language, then, is a system of recurring sequences or patterns of "sames" of vocal sounds, which correlate with recurring "sames" of stimulus-situation features, and which elicit recurring "sames" of response features." Fries elaborates on this position, adding that: ...the "meanings" of an utterance consist of the correlating, regularly recurrent "sames" of stimulus-situation features, and

MEANING

153

the regularly elicited recurring "sames" of response features. These "meanings" (these "sames" of situation features and of response features), are tied to the patterns of recurring "sames" of vocal sound. In other words, the patterns of recurring sound sequences are the signals of the meanings.... (1954:65) Fries (1954:65) felt that meanings could be separated into various kinds of layers in accord with the several levels of patterns in the recurring sound sequences which do the signalling.

Indeed, Fries (1955:297) believed that

"the differentiation of those items of a language that have a structural significance from those that have not is not limited to the consideration of the sound system alone, but runs through an analysis of all other levels of linguistic phenomena." For Fries (1955:301) then, structural linguistics furnished a "systematic method of finding out the functioning patterns of not only the sound segments of a language, but also of its rhythm and intonation, 2 its grammatical systems, its lexical sets (i.e., the functioning verbal contexts), as well as its whole range of social and cultural meanings." Fries (1954:65-6) firmly believed that utterances have several 'modes 1 of meaning, including

(a) recognition of

recurrent sames that constitute lexical items, and (b) recognition of the contrastive features of arrangement in which the lexical items occur.

Fries concluded that:

Together, LEXICAL MEANINGS and STRUCTURAL MEANINGS constitute the LINGUISTIC MEANING of utterances. Linguistic meaning thus consists of lexical meaning within a frame of structural meanings--th is, of the stimulus-response features that accompany contrastive structural arrangements of utterance. (1954:66) The meanings of utterances are tied to formal patterns as signals.

In addition, it was Fries' (1954:67) belief

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WILLIAM W.

CRAWFORD

t h a t a l l s i g n a l s a r e f o r m a l f e a t u r e s t h a t can be d e s c r i b e d i n p h y s i c a l t e r m s of "form, a r r a n g e m e n t , and d i s t r i b u t i o n . " Concerning t h e s p e c i f i c s e t of f o r m a l f e a t u r e s t h a t o p e r a t e as s i g n a l s of m e a n i n g , F r i e s s u g g e s t e d t h e f o l l o w i n g c l a s sification: . . . ( 1 ) the contrastive features t h a t constitute the recurrent sames of t h e forms of l e x i c a l u n i t s - - t h e bundles of c o n t r a s t i v e sound f e a t u r e s by which morphemes are i d e n t i f i e d , (2) t h e con t r a s t i v e markers by which s t r u c t u r a l l y functioning groups of morphemes can be i d e n t i f i e d , and (3) t h e c o n t r a s t i v e p a t t e r n s t h a t c o n s t i t u t e t h e r e c u r r e n t sames of t h e s t r u c t u r a l a r r a n g e ment in which t h e s e s t r u c t u r a l l y functioning c l a s s e s of morphemes operate. (1954:67)

There were three layers or kinds of meaning 'signals' which were crucial in Fries1 mind to the application of linguistic analysis: (1) the signals by which one lexical item is distinguished from another, (2) the signals by which certain structural meanings are distinguished, and (3) the signals by which various kinds of socio-cultural meanings are communicated (Fries, 1955:298-9). Fries maintained a crucial distinction between using meaning in linguistic analysis and treating meaning as the object of linguistic analysis. Any "unscientific" use of meaning was controlled through Fries1 careful application of scientific methodology. However, meaning as the object of linguistic analysis is a dominant theme throughout all Fries' writings, from his earliest work in philology to his later writings in formal linguistics. Fries described the various layers and levels of meaning in terms of form, arrangement, and distribution. His concern with meaning included the traditional areas of syntax, phonology, and morphology as well as socio-cultural and psychological considerations. As we shall see in the next section, this urgent concern with meaning is carried over into Fries'

MEANING careful

application

learning

155'

of s t r u c t u r a l

linguistics

to

language

and t e a c h i n g .

Meaning and Language

Pedagogy

In retrospect, any serious analysis of Fries' contributions to structural linguistics cannot ignore the crucial r o l e p l a y e d by 'meaning1

i n a l l h i s work.

concern w i t h meaning i s n o t l i m i t e d linguistics.

Meaning p l a y s

However,

to its role

an e q u a l l y

in

significant

his formal role

in

his many writings on the application of linguistic analysis to language pedagogy--especially to the teaching of English as a second/foreign

language.

In fact,

few would

deny that Charles Fries was a leading proponent in the application of (structural) linguistics to language pedagogy. This i s perhaps best claimed

s u m m a r i z e d b y M.A.K. H a l l i d a y who

that:

Much more has been done in t h e a p p l i c a t i o n of l i n g u i s t i c s t o language t e a c h i n g i n t h e United S t a t e s than in B r i t a i n . The l i n g u i s t who has played t h e g r e a t e s t p a r t in t h i s movement i s undoubtedly C.C. F r i e s , whose work...was o r i g i n a l , s t i m u l a t i n g and h i g h l y i n f l u e n t i a l . Other l i n g u i s t s followed F r i e s in t a k i n g a major i n t e r e s t in problems of language t e a c h i n g . . . . ( H a l l i d a y , Mcintosh, S t r e v e n s , 1964:305) Fries1 were f a r strike

us

purpose

comments on l a n g u a g e l e a r n i n g and

ahead of h i s t i m e . as or

quite

contemporary.

objective

instruction

When viewed from t o d a y , He

of

felt

language

that

the

teaching

they

fundamental was

to

a c h i e v e an u n d e r s t a n d i n g b e t w e e n p e o p l e of d i f f e r e n t backgrounds (1955:301). held

This

psychological

n a t u r e of

belief,

coupled

beliefs

of

language s t r a t e g i e s ,

person has learned a f o r e i g n

his

with day

the

generally

concerning

led F r i e s t o a s s e r t t h a t

the a

l a n g u a g e when he h a s m a s t e r e d

156

WILLIAM W. CRAWFORD

t h e s o u n d s y s t e m a n d made t h e s t r u c t u r a l automatic habit Fries

d e v i c e s m a t t e r s of

(1945:3).

(1955:303)

also believed

that,

" i t i s t h e practical

use of the linguistic scientists' technique of language analysis and description in the choice and sequence of m a t e r i a l s

and t h e p r i n c i p l e s

these materials

that

approach t o language Furthermore, the strictly that

lies

of method t h a t grow o u t of

a t t h e h e a r t of t h e

learning."

F r i e s went f a r beyond t h e l i m i t a t i o n s

structural

linguists

language cannot be a b s t r a c t e d

r a t h e r must be c o n s i d e r e d s t u d y of a l a n g u a g e human e x p e r i e n c e .

(structural)

of h i s t i m e i n

i s t o be a v a l i d He s t a t e s

insisting

o u t of a c u l t u r e ,

together with culture

of

if

but

the

representation

of t h e

that:

I f . . . t h e fundamental purpose o r o b j e c t i v e of f o r e i g n language t e a c h i n g i s t o achieve an u n d e r s t a n d i n g , as complete as p o s s i b l e , between people of d i f f e r e n t l i n g u i s t i c backgrounds, then t o d e a l with t h e c u l t u r e and l i f e of a people i s not just an adjunct of a p r a c t i c a l language c o u r s e , something a l i e n and a p a r t from i t s main purpose, to be added or not as time and convenience may allow, but an essential feature at every stage of language learning. ( F r i e s , 1955:304) As the director and founder of the English Language Institute, Fries rigorously applied his beliefs concerning the role of structural linguistics to language pedagogy. From Fries' point of view, the words--the linguistic forms of a language--never "mean" the words.

They "mean" the

specific, concrete experiences of the native users of the language (Fries, 1955:305). Culture as it relates to meaning, therefore, figures prominently in Fries' view of language instruction.

In

describing the beliefs held by those of the English Language Institute concerning the role of culture in language teaching, Fries once remarked:

MEANING

157

There are those who struggle to achieve real understanding and sympathetic insight into the way a foreign people regard the various activities of their own life and ways. They try to build up a vivid imaginative realization of what the history, the social practices, the songs, the physical features of the land really mean to the foreign people themselves. It is this point of view that we have adopted in our approach to the culture of a people and have assumed that progress toward the achieving of this kind of sympathetic understanding is the ultimate measure of the success of each stage of language teaching. (1955:305)

Fries utilized this view in the material he developed. However, even Charles Fries1 careful application of the principles of the structural method to language teaching cannot answer the question that still plagues even the most talented of applied linguists today: "How can we use in the teaching of English as a foreign language the information afforded us by the linguistic tradition of the day?" Fries (1955:307) anticipated this problem realizing that even "after the range of important cultural patterns has been established and the content of these materials defined, it is no simple matter to deal with them in the various stages of language [learning so] that those of a differing cultural background can achieve a sympathetic insight into the new way of evaluating experience." It is ironic that only now are many instructors of English as a second/foreign language beginning to put into practice many of the principles that Charles Fries outlined a generation before us. Throughout the country, new approaches to ESL are being implemented that aim at teaching English in coordination with a number of defined communicative acts rooted firmly in a prescribed cultural setting within the target culture. Consider, for example, the goals of such "new" approaches to language instruction as the 'functional/notional' method.

158

WILLIAM W. CRAWFORD

In our search for "new and improved" approaches to language instruction, we must not lose sight of our linguistic heritage. Whatever "novel" applications of current linguistic theory we are able to bring to bear on the teaching of English as a foreign language, we owe a great debt to the pioneering research carried out by Charles C. Fries. His application of the structural method to language teaching is largely responsible for the direction that applied linguistics has taken today. As we consider the recent advances made by the application of current linguistic theory to the development of materials aimed at teaching English as a second/foreign language, we are confronted by many of the same basic issues that faced Charles Fries. Ultimately his concerns and ours remain the same. His statements concerning his own attempts to apply linguistic theory ring as true for the instructor of English as a foreign language today as they did for Charles Fries and his contemporaries during the descriptive era. FOOTNOTES

1

The rigorous application of scientific methodology to linguistic analysis was a goal shared by both American and European scholars. (See especially: Edward Sapir, 1929 and B.L. Whorf, 1940.)

2

Fries and his students added much to our understanding of intonation. (See especially: Kenneth L. Pike, 1945 and Charles C. Fries, 1964.)

REFERENCES

Allen, Harold, B. and Russell N. Campbell.

as a Second Language: Hill.

(1972).

A Book of Readings.

Teaching

English

New York: McGraw

MEANING Bloomfield, Leonard.

(1933).

Language.

159 New York:

Henry Holt and Co.

Bloomfield, Leonard. (1939). The Linguistic Aspects Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

of

Science.

Carroll, John B. (1950). A Survey of Linguistics and Related plines. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Disci-

Diller, Karl Conrad. (1971). Generative Grammar, Structural Linguistics and Language Teaching. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Firth, J.R. (1951). General Linguistics and Descriptive Grammar. Transactions of the Philological Society 67-69. Fries, Charles C. (1927a). The Teaching New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons. Fries, Charles C. (1927b). Journal 16:602-606.

of the

English

The Meaning of Words.

The

Language.

English

Fries, Charles C. (1945). Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Fries, Charles C. (1952). court Brace and Co.

The Structure

Fries, Charles C. 30:57-68.

Meaning and Linguistic Analysis.

(1954).

of English.

New York;

Har-

Language

Fries, Charles C. (1955). American Linguistics and the Teaching of English. Revue des Langues Vivantes 21:294-310. Fries, Charles C. (1961). The Bloomfield 'School.' In Christine Mohrmann, Alf Sommerfelt and Joshua Whatmough (Eds.), Trends in European and American Linguistics: 1930-1960 , 196-224. Utrecht and Antwerp: Spectrum. Fries, Charles C. (1962). American Linguistics and Language Learning. Unpublished paper presented at the Humanities section, Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw, Poland. June 11, 1962. Fries, Charles C. (1964). Cn the Intonation of Yes-No Questions. In David Abercrombie, D.B. Fry, P.A.D. MacCarthy, N.C. Scott, and J.L.M. Trim (Eds.), In Honour of Daniel Jones: Papers Contributed on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, 12 September 1961, 242-254, London: Longmans. Fries, Charles C. handout.

(1965).

Language and Meaning.

Unpublished lecture

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WILLIAM W. CRAWFORD

Halliday, M.A.K., Angus Mcintosh and Peter Strevens. (1964). The Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching. London : Longmans. Pike, Kenneth L. (1945). The Intonation of American Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

English.

Ann

Pike, Kenneth L. (1967). Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior (2nd ed.). The Hague: Mouton. Rivers, Wilga. (1968). Teaching Foreign IL: University of Chicago Press.

Language Skills,

Chicago,

Sapir, Edward. (1929). The Status of Linguistics as a Science. Language 5:207-214. Whorf, Benjamin L. (1940). Linguistics as an Exact Science. The Technology Review 43:61-63 and 80-83. Wilkins, David A. (1972). Linguistics bridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.

in Language Teaching.

Cam-

THE IMPACT OF C.C. FRIES' WORK IN HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

Janet Duthie Collins

Charles C. Fries published only two articles specifically on historical language change during his long study of the English language--"On the Development of the Structural Use of Word-Order in Modern English" (1940b) and "The Time 'Depth' of Co-existing Conflicting Grammatical Signals in English" (1970). Howeve, these articles both present major contributions to the body of theory regarding language change as well as in the methodology and technique to be used in such studies. Fries' interest in the historical aspects of language was not restricted to the topics in these articles but occurs throughout his many writings on Modern English (cf. "The Periphrastic Future with Shall and Will in Modern English," (1925); in multiple places throughout his American English Grammar, 1940a). One very striking characteristics of all Fries' work, not just his work in historical linguistics, and one which gives validity to his findings, is that it is databased, unlike much linguistic research of the transformationalists during the past twenty or so years. Fries worked within the framework of structural linguistics. This accounts for his insistence that empirical, quantitative data must be used in any diachronic or

162

JANET DUTHIE COLLINS

synchronic linguistic analysis--data that is not jinned up for the occasion to support a particular points--and that the correct variables must be selected for a study to be valid. His data were always carefully selected and organized regarding type, source, form, and date. In his ap proach to language change, he differed with a number of the commonly held traditional assumptions regarding language change and with the methodology and associated techniques used in many previous and co-occurring analyses of language change in Old, Middle, and Modern English (e.g., for Old English, that inflectional case represents grammatical function instead of semantic role (cf. Visser, 197 0, who assumes throughout that inflectional case represents semantic role; Collins, 1980a, who demonstrates Fries' assumption). Although some of Fries' assumptions, premises, and conclusions are not explicitly stated in the two articles, it is clearly apparent from them that he recognized that (1) multiple forms can indicate the same function concomitantly (e.g., OE mec/me, both indicating the accusative or direct object function); (2) these co-occurring signals are contrasting/conflicting with each other; (3) the resolution of signal conflict results in language change (e.g., OE hine/him indicating accusative function>ModEng him, the sole pronoun form indicating both accusative and dative functions); (4) the chronological progression of signal conflict results eventually in definitive language change (e.g., word order replacing inflection to indicate grammatical function); (5) co-occurring signals are not only contrastive but conflicting ("competing" in today's usage); (6) the chronological progression of the changing ratios in any set of contrastive forms indicates the stage which the change has achieved at a particular point in time and

HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

163'

the trend of change in any one synchronic time period; (7) it is the chronological progression that indicates the rate at which change takes place; and (8) the rate and trend (Fries' "time depth") will be repeated by other conflicting sets, although not necessarily within the same time period. Fries' idea of a "time depth" at any one synchronic period stems from the notion of conflicting signals, with the conflict itself being an essential part of language change. His point is that in his data, no matter what period in time he examined, he always found evidence of conflicting systems, a conflict which arose because of language change in progress. That is, traces of an older stage of the same language coexisted with elements of a later period. Furthermore, the traces of different language systems which coexisted within the different time periods in his data seem typically to span about 100 years. In the presentation of the data which supported his various hypotheses, Fries accurately describes the mechanisms or processes of language change--form replacement via syncretism (OE hine/him > ModEng him, 1970) and pattern replacement (OE morphological inflection > ModEng word order, 1940), but he does not discuss the underlying cause for either. This topic is omitted in many linguistic studies both before and after Fries' works (cf. Bloomfield, 1933, 3 46ff, and the multiple discussions on the workings of Grimm's and Verner's "Laws" found in the literature, for typical presentations). Review of this literature suggests that intellectual interests during this time focused on the processes of change such as analogy, innovation (which included borrowing), and the results of processes such as simplification. Examination of grammar book after grammar book and study after study of multiple languages reveals that the underlying assumption pervading

164

JANET DUTHIE COLLINS

most of them i s t h a t l a n g u a g e i s c o n s t a n t l y c h a n g i n g t h r o u g h t i m e , a g i v e n f o r a l l l a n g u a g e s , and t h a t t h e s p e c i f i c c a u s a t i v e f a c t o r s c a n n o t be r e t r i e v e d b e c a u s e they occurred too far in the p a s t . A second u n d e r l y i n g a s s u m p t i o n i s t h a t p h o n o l o g i c a l change i s r e s p o n s i b l e f o r c a u s i n g s y n t a c t i c and m o r p h o l o g i c a l c h a n g e . I t seems t h a t t h e s t r u c t u r a l l i n g u i s t i c r e f e r e n t i t s e l f brought about t h i s c l i m a t e i n i t s i n s i s t e n c e on t h e u s e of v e r i f i a b l e and q u a n t i t a t i v e d a t a . When o l d e r s t a g e s of a l a n g u a g e e x i s t , a s t h e y do f o r Old, M i d d l e , E a r l y Modern and Modern E n g l i s h , "what was" can be compared t o "what i s " and t h e p r o c e s s e s r e s u l t i n g i n "what i s " can be a s c e r t a i n e d by a n a l y s i s , w h i l e t h e f a c t o r s i n i t i a t i n g t h e change p r o c e s s cannot. F r i e s ' major c o n c l u s i o n t o t h e w o r d - o r d e r

article,

I t might almost be f a i r t o say t h a t t h e h i s t o r y of t h e English language in r e s p e c t t o i t s grammar h a s , in a l a r g e measure, been a movement away from t h e type of grammatical s t r u c t u r e in which taxemes of s e l e c t i o n ( i n f l e c t i o n s or word forms) express both t h e e s s e n t i a l and t h e d i s p e n s a b l e grammatical c o n c e p t s , toward a type of s t r u c t u r e in which taxemes of s e l e c t i o n are used only for t h e d i s p e n s a b l e concepts and taxemes of order for t h e e s s e n t i a l or unavoidable r e l a t i o n s h i p s . (1940b, 208)

is most accurate with both the arguments and the data presented in the article totally justifying this conclusion. However, his conclusion for Old English that word order has "no bearing whatever upon the grammatical relationships involved" (1940b, 199) is supported only by his data, which admittedly was selective. Very much other data exist in Old English which show that both inflection and word order, and sometimes in the same sentence, signal nominal function, as studies subsequent to his show. Cassidy and Ringler (1971) and Saitz (1955) all state that by the ninth century the basic word order in Old English is

HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

165

subject-object. My analysis of Old English word order (Collins 1980b), using data from both prose and poetry, shows that variable word order of nominals can occur when all nominals are marked or when one nominal is marked and the other not; if two object nominals are unmarked, but the subject nominal is, then subject placement is variable but the object nominal placement is according to word order; if all nominals are unmarked, then word order signals nominal function: it has to do so. Grammatical case was becoming redundant from Early Old English on,and by Aelfric's time word order had become the primary signalling device for nominal function in Old English. Fries assumed that language change occurs in two ways (and his data support these assumptions); (1) the displacement of one form of a pattern by another form in the "same" pattern (e.g., OE u s i c (accusative form) > ModEng us (dative form in OE and only form in ModEng, indicating both accusative and dative functions); and (2) through the displacement of one form of a pattern by another pattern (e.g., OE eola nan [no one of the earls] > ModEng no earl, or OE fela worda [many of words] > ModEng many words or many a word, in which the partitive genitive function and form are replaced by a different function and form, the adjectival function and form). One outstanding feature in Fries' historical studies, and his studies of Modern English as well, is his insistence on the use of empirical, "quantitative information... [derived] from a corpus of carefully dated groups of texts in spans of twenty years duration, separated by intervals of twenty-five years" (1970, 923). These factors give a soundness to his research not found in studies lacking such precision. However, in order to obtain such a precise dating control, the selected texts had to be dated by known

166

JANET DUTHIE COLLINS

historical facts. Studies such as his that require a meticulously constructed chronology for data sources necessarily have to exclude data from sources lacking definite dates. Therefore, for Old English (and Middle English) Fries could use only the works of datable figures (e.g., King AElfred, Wulfstan, AElfric); even though their individual works could be dated only within a certain time span (usually to within ten to twenty years), they could be placed in chronological order according to the time specifications Fries set. Fries, along with most linguists then and now, considered speech to be the primary form of language with the written forms to be derivative. Therefore, for the earlier periods of time, although it was necessary to use written records for data, these data should be selected from texts closest in form to the spoken word--prose, in the form of letters, notes, sermons, homilies, commentaries, journals, and so on. Fries excluded the use of data from all poetry for all time periods in his studies because he felt that something might be going on in poetry regarding poetic form, and for Old English the alliteration, that could affect language usage in ways not permitted in speech or written prose (personal communication, Peter H. Fries, 1982). As a result of this, the entire Old English poetic corpus was excluded from his studies because it was poetry. Yet, because the Old English poetry was an oral poetry, it could not have differed too much from the spoken word or the primary function of any form of language, communication, would be lost. The Old English poetry had to be excluded as well for another concern--Fries' correct insistence on a carefully constructed chronological order of the texts used for data collection. With the exception of a very few poems (e.g., Battle of Maldon, Battle of

HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

167

Brunanburh) the remainder of the Old English poetic texts occur as single copies in the Late West Saxon dialect, compiled in four manuscripts of late dates, containing little, if any, hard evidence to indicate composition date, author, or dialect origin. Unfortunately, no consensus on the individual composition dates of practically the entire Old English poetic corpus exists even now. The latest dating attempts for the poem Beowulf clearly illustrate the problems inherent in attempting to establish definitive dates when only non-linguistic, subjective data are used (Chase, 1981; Kiernan, 1981). Yet this poetic material should be investigated just because it is poetry and differs from prose. I am currently engaged in such a study, using multiple, competing feature sets (Fries' contrasting/ conflicting features) and the changing proportions through time of each feature set (the variables shown by Fries to be essential) in order to determine the individual dates of the Old English poems and, if possible, their chronological order. Such an investigation should provide results that can be correlated with those from prose studies. It may be that Fries' time depth of 100 years occurs in the poetry as well (I would be greatly surprised if it didn't), that the language of poetry changes in the same ways that the language of prose does but with specific changes occurring at different dates, quite possibly later, than the same changes do in prose, and that poetry is subject to the same constraints as prose. Fries' use of contrastive/conflicting linguistic feature sets to determine ratios of usage at a particular time and the progressive changing ratios of these specific features through time to indicate rates of change, was a first in historical linguistic analyses, a methodology carefully followed by his students. Those linguistic attempts by

168

JANET DUTHIE COLLINS

others to date the Old English poetry using the new feature under investigation in relation to poem line count, and not to its conflicting counterpart, resulted in ratios that were non-productive in the determination of dates or anything else. An excellent account of the earlier dating attempts using various linguistic tests is presented by Amos (1980) . She analyzes all the tests used, setting forth the methodology of each and giving all the methodological errors that occurred in these studies. Her analysis, which includes the reasons for their inconclusive results, shows clearly the unique character of Fries' work: he determined the proper variables to be investigated in language change analyses and set forth the proper methodology and technique to be used. These prevented him from making the methodological errors that had resulted in such non-definitive findings previously and permitted him to make definitive statements about language change in English and about language change generally, contributing greatly to the body of theory concerning language change. Unfortunately, the impact Fries' work should have had upon the field of historical linguistics is much less than his works deserve, the result of the 30-year span between the appearance of his two published articles on historical change (his primary writings are in other aspects of English) and the focus of linguistics during and after that time span. It is to be hoped that now there is beginning to be some assessment of the "true" contribution and recognition of the fallacies inherent in transformational grammar theory, the very real value of Fries' historical work will finally be realized. The current state of historical linguistics would be much the poorer if Fries had not contributed in these two articles devoted solely to

HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

169

historical language change those sound principles and methodology and technique which characterize all his work. Fries clearly defined the proper variables involved in language change, laid out the proper guidelines in methodology and technique and conducted his studies accordingly. Linguistics needs more analyses like these two that use empirical, quantitative data, proper methodology and technique, and testable hypotheses. The field of linguistics could well benefit from Fries' example.

REFERENCES

Amos, Ashley Crandell. (1980). Linguistic Dates of Old English Literary Texts.

Means of Determining the Cambridge, MA: Medieval

Academy. Bloomfield, Leonard.

(1933).

Language.

New York:

Cassidy, Frederick G. and R.N. Ringler (Eds.).

English

Grammar and Reader.

Holt.

(1971).

Bright's

Old

New York: Holt, Rinehart and

Winston. Chase, Colin (Ed.). (1981). The Dating versity of Toronto Press.

of

'Beowulf.'

Toronto:

Uni-

Collins, Janet Duthie. (1980a). An Hypothesis for Old English Object Noun Case Alternation. In W.C. McCormick and H.J. Izzo (Eds.), The Sixth LACUS Forum, 125-131. Columbia, SC: Hornbeam Press. Collins, Janet Duthie. (1980b). Nominal Differentiation in Old English. Paper presented at the Southeastern Conference on Linguistics, Atlanta, Georgia, November 1980. Fries, Charles C. (1925). The Periphrastic Future with Shall Will in Modern English. PMLA 40:963-1024. Fries, Charles C. (1940a). Appleton Century.

American

English

Grammar.

and

New York:

Fries, Charles C. (1940b). On the Development of the Structural Use of Word-Order in Modern English. Language 16:199-208.

17 0

JANET DUTHIE COLLINS

Fries, Charles C. (1970). The Time "Depth" of Coexisting Conflicting Grammatical Signals in English. In A. Graur (Ed.), Actes du Xeme Congres International des L i n g u i s t e s ' Bucarest, 28 Aout2 Sept embre 1967, 923-926. Bucarest: Editions de L'Academie de la Republique Socialiste de Roumanie. Fries, Peter H.

(1982).

Personal communication.

Kiernan, Kevin s. (1981). 'Beowulf and the 'Beowulf' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Manuscript.

Saitz, Robert L. (1955). Functional Word Order in Old English Subject-Object Patterns. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Madison, WI. Visser, F. Th. (1970). An Historical Leiden: E.J. Brill.

Syntax

of the English

Language.

CHARLES C. FRIES AND THE EARLY MODERN ENGLISH

DICTIONARY1

Richard W. Bailey

While the idea of a series of regional and period dictionaries of English was apparently discussed while the Oxford English Dictionary was only half completed, the first full treatment of a plan for subsequent dictionaries of English on historical principles came in 1919 in a report to the Philological Society by Sir William A, Craigie.2 Few research plans can have had such far-reaching consequences, for the dictionaries foreseen by Craigie sixtyfive years ago continue to occupy the time of lexicographers in Oxford, Edinburgh, Toronto, and Ann Arbor. It is worth a moment to reflect on the Craigie's career since Charles Carpenter Fries--the man whose life and influence this volume celebrates--found in Craigie an advisor and friend who greatly influenced his approach to his own dictionary project, the Early

tionary

Modern

English

Dic-

. Craigie provided for his successors vision as a lexicographer, untiring energies in the service of English and Icelandic philology, and an example of bringing the projects with which he was associated to completion. Many

172

RICHARD W. BAILEY

scholars have begun dictionaries; more have talked about beginning them; few have finished them, at least if we restrict our attention to the large academic dictionaries on historical principles. On the occasion of Craigie's death in 1957, the subscribers to the last of his dictionaries-A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue--received a notice containing the words: "There can have been few lives so productive and complete," In the "Preface" to that work written by his successor in 1963, we learn more of Craigie's "characteristically selfless and methodical arrangements." These tributes, as well as his own preface to the Dictionary of American English, suggest that Craigie's devotion to lexicography was single-minded. He knew what a dictionary ought to be like and did what was necessary to publish that dictionary. He knew when there were enough slips to prepare an entry and avoided the temptation to continue assembling materials beyond what was necessary. He recognized that accuracy in the citations chosen for printing was a virtue but realized that minor errors had to be endured and that the habit of perfection had to be balanced against timely production of copy. He selected associates and subordinates whose entire commitment was to lexicography and to the specific dictionaries with which they were associated rather than to other positions of academic or scholarly distinction. Finally, he cultivated habits that preserved his intellectual faculties and physical health to an advanced age. Craigie's life thus suggests one route to success in lexicography; while there may be others, it appears that the ingredients just mentioned are central to the enterprise and area also to be found in the careers of others who have finished large dictionaries worthy of our admiration: William Dwight Whitney, Sir James A.H. Murray, Joseph Wright, and David Murison.

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DICTIONARY

17 3

Following his proposal to the Philological Society, Craigie began to seek out younger scholars who might assume responsibility for the additional dictionaries he had envisioned, and, in December 1927, he invited Charles C. Fries to undertake editorial work on a dictionary of the Early Modern period with anticipated coverage from the beginning of printing in England in 147 5 to the death of Dryden in 1700. 3

Slips already collected for the Oxford

editors were shipped to Ann Arbor and were eventually followed by additional materials for the period that had been collected for the Supplement

of

1933.4

Like Craigie, Fries was adept at soliciting monies to support dictionary work.

The University of Michigan al-

lowed him a reduced teaching load, provided workspace and equipment, and allocated funds for supplies and the salaries of associates.

Later, Fries was able to attract

additional funding from the General Education Board ($20,000 annually from 1929 to 1934), the American Council of Learned Societies, the Rockefeller Foundation, and, through the University, the Works Progress Administration, a federal assistance program designed to provide jobs for the unemployed during the Great Depression of the 1930s. In evaluating Fries' work as a lexicographer, we need to address the practical difficulties that prevented him from achieving publication of even part of the dictionary. In order to do so, we must examine the special problems of

an Early

Modern English

D ictionary

and investigate the

solutions that Fries proposed. When Craigie's plan was first discussed in 1919, scholars recognized that the OED lacked adequate treatment of Scottish and American usage and was only partly sufficient in Old and Middle English.

Specialized dictionaries

devoted to each region and period were soon begun.

Late

17 4

RICHARD W. BAILEY

Modern E n g l i s h , the present,

defined

of s u p p l e m e n t a t i o n editorship

t o i n c l u d e t h e p e r i o d from 1700 t o

might well wait,

i t was t h o u g h t ,

now a p p r o a c h i n g

of R.W. B u r c h f i e l d

other varieties,

a t Oxford.

tion,

and, in C r a i g i e ' s words, in the finished

was c o n v i n c e d t h a t

Oxford

But u n l i k e careful

" i t bulks very

English

s t i l l more

sort

completion under t h e

E a r l y Modern had r e c e i v e d

deed"

for the

these

atten

largely

Dictionary.

in

Craigie

needed t o be done:

The Tudor and S t u a r t P e r i o d . . . i s one of t h e most marvellous p e r i o d s of t h e language, and remains almost untouched except in t h e pages of t h e S o c i e t y ' s d i c t i o n a r y . Here i t bulks very l a r g e l y indeed, y e t by no means more than i t d e s e r v e s . I t s r i c h e s a r e almost i n e x h a u s t i b l e , and we a r e almost d a i l y com p e l l e d t o s e t a s i d e l a r g e q u a n t i t i e s of i n t e r e s t i n g m a t e r i a l f o r which we can find no space i n our columns. Moreover, abundant as our m a t e r i a l i s , i t c o n s t a n t l y f a i l s t o c l e a r up some obscure phrase or i l l u s i o n , and many well-known passages i n t h e w r i t e r s of t h a t time s t i l l await a s a t i s f a c t o r y s o l u t i o n . The English of t h e s e two c e n t u r i e s [ - - C r a i g i e envisioned a d i c t i o n a r y cover ing t h e language from 1500 t o 1675--] can only be d e a l t with i n an adequate manner when i t has been made t h e s u b j e c t of s p e c i a l study and has i t s own d i c t i o n a r y — a d i c t i o n a r y which would be ' one of t h e g r e a t e s t proofs of t h e wealth and d i g n i t y of t h e English t o n g u e . 5 Even a c a s u a l e x a m i n a t i o n of t h e OED y i e l d s that well-illustrates

Craigie's

information

a s s e s s m e n t of t h e

richness

and abundance of i t s t r e a t m e n t of E a r l y Modern E n g l i s h . While modern,

s c h o l a r l y e d i t i o n s were n o t a l w a y s

many p r i m a r y t e x t s

available,

f o r t h e p e r i o d had been c a r e f u l l y

t r a c t e d f o r t h e OED, and c i t a t i o n

s l i p s from E a r l y Modern

E n g l i s h p r o b a b l y formed a l a r g e r p r o p o r t i o n of t h e available to the editors--relative s c r i p t s and p r i n t e d t e x t s - - t h a n the vocabulary i t

covered.

for

material

t o a l l s u r v i v i n g manu any o t h e r domain of

H e n c e , F r i e s must soon have

r e a l i z e d t h a t t h e r e were fewer g a p s t o f i l l

i n an E a r l y

Modern d i c t i o n a r y t h a n i n any of t h e o t h e r s C r a i g i e outlined,

ex

a s w e l l a s fewer new d i s c o v e r i e s of

had

vocabulary

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DICTIONARY

175

and signification of the kind desired by the scholarly public.6 Fries obtained about two million slips from Oxford, though he was inclined to give somewhat larger estimates of the number, and he added a little over a million more extracted by his staff and the volunteers he recruited. He soon assembled the paraphernalia of lexicography--work tables, sorting boards, slip boxes, and storage cabinets-and began to recruit volunteers from across the country and assistants from among the graduate students and junior faculty at Michigan.7 These workers at first devoted their energies to supplementing the Oxford slips by reading texts not previously canvassed or not given sufficiently detailed readings by earlier extractors. While the surviving records only reveal a part of this effort, it is clear that Fries was particularly energetic in seeking the services of external volunteer readers--some 450 of them affiliated with 200 educational institutions, many teaching at colleges isolated from the mainstream of research and most eager to devote painstaking hours rewarded only by the knowledge that they were assisting in a great dictionary project. Such an effort soon produced a variety of predictable problems of the kind already experienced by Murray and his associates: persons who were enthusiastic about the idea of the work were sometimes dilatory in executing it; standards of accuracy were inevitably various; the legibility of the slips submitted was often vexing. The time required to supervise the reading program was thus enormous; correspondence with volunteers was frequent, and each batch of slips received had to be carefully checked and distributed in the files. Minutes kept by the editorial committee survive, and it is apparent that insufficient thought was

17 6

RICHARD W. BAILEY

given to the investment nal,

volunteer

of e n e r g y

readers.

These minutes

inclined

t o look ahead t o d e t a i l s

practice

rather than to give

costs

of e v a l u a t i n g ,

s e n t by t h e

analysis

of

for

stages

of w o r k , F r i e s

new e x c e r p t i o n

the

slips

that traditional

to the

the

was

and high

materials

to give

his

from O x f o r d .

of u n u s u a l ,

overlooked special

Fries

result

in

anomalous, d e v i a n t ,

file.

To r e d r e s s

identified

by t h e Oxford

attention

careful

He r e c o g n i z e d

e x t r a c t i o n methods i n e v i t a b l y

usages in the c i t a t i o n

of w o r d s o f t e n

c o m p i l e d a s e t of

that reveals

received

i m b a l a n c e of t h e c o l l e c t i o n , unteers

and f i l i n g

Fries

style

needed a t t e n t i o n

correcting,

the over-representation figurative

show t h a t

of e d i t o r i a l

exter

readers.8

In t h e i n i t i a l directions

i n t h e p r o g r a m of

the

seven

classes

and u r g e d h i s

t o them a s t h e y

u s a g e s from t h e works t h e y were a s s i g n e d t o

and

vol

selected

cover:

1.

derived words ( e . g . , decidedly should be chosen s i n c e such forms were u n d e r - r e p r e s e n t e d while decided could be passed over) ;

2.

compound words ( e . g . , arrowhead was l i k e l y t o be i n s u f f i c i e n t l y r e p r e s e n t e d in t h e f i l e s in comparison t o arrow);

3.

concrete words (ladder, blue and s i m i l a r l y common words are c i t e d as exemplary of words for which a d d i t i o n a l q u o t a t i o n s were needed; 9

4.

foreign borrowings t h a t are f u l l y a n g l i c i z e d in modern English;

5.

p h r a s e s and p r o v e r b s ;

6.

a b b r e v i a t i o n s and c o n t r a c t i o n s ;

7.

and, f i n a l l y , "words meaning t h e r e p r e s e n t a t i o n of something in a r t " ( e , g . , lion, sun, star), uses d e s c r i b e d by F r i e s as "derived senses" when n o t a p p l i e d d i r e c t l y t o t h e realia they d e n o t e .

Beyond a s k i n g t h e v o l u n t e e r s t o be e s p e c i a l l y v i g i l a n t

for

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DICTIONARY

177

these seven categories, he realized that a representative selection from the Early Modern wordstock required supplementation of a different kind. In order to establish a balance between the noteworthy and the usual, Fries selected sixty-nine texts for intensive reading by senior editors, forty-three written before 1600 and twenty-six after that date. Words selected were marked, and the pages containing them were then reproduced in multiple copies to allow cuttings from each page to serve as a slip. By marking nearly all the major category words on each page, about 10,000 slips could be generated from a chosen text of average size. Large texts, like the Great Herbal of 1526 and Albertus Magnus' Book of Secretes of 1525, are thus abundantly represented in the files and give detailed representation of early technical vocabulary. Richard Brathwait's 1640 treatise, Ar't Alseep Husband? A Boulster Lecture, yields technical language of another (and sometimes bawdy) kind through its colloquial usage. The significance of these intensively-read texts, however, lies in the domain of the core vocabulary of the period, and the slips extracted from them give some rough notion of the frequency of transitive and intransitive uses of some verbs, changing uses of verbal auxiliaries, typical collocations of adjectives and nouns, presupposed subjects of nexus substantives, and similarly useful information about the facts that lie on the boundary between syntax and the lexicon. Certainly these slips from the intensive reading program add substantially to the worth of the collection as a whole, though their number--probably about 700,000 slips-necessarily added to the eventual time and cost at the editorial stages of the work. Craigie seems to have had an unerring sense of the facts that would today be derived from what is known as

178

RICHARD W. BAILEY

cost-benefit analysis. He knew what kind of dictionary was needed and what materials, manpower, and money were required for its completion. Fries, as far as one can tell from surviving records, lacked this sense, and a good illustration of the kind of difficulty he managed to create for himself is well illustrated by the citations for the verb grow in the files of the Early Modern project. From Oxford, Fries inherited 338 slips containing illustrative citations for this word drawn from 209 titles distributed through the period. The extraction rate of the Oxford was thus a little more than one and a half slips for each title for this word. The additional slips illustrating grow collected by both the intensive and extensive reading program directed by Fries number 1,515 from sixty-four titles for an extraction rate of nearly twenty-four slips per title. While this example is a relatively extreme case—since two large works on natural history were included in the intensive reading program--it is apparent that Fries multiplied the editorial time for grow by more than five times without enhancing the value of the editorial product by anything like the same amount. The lesson that this example teaches is certainly clear: Lexicographers cannot cope with abundance beyond what is needed. They must be able to grasp what is enough, and what is too much. While the reading program and the organizing of materials continued, specimen entries were prepared at a relatively early date. In 1932, Fries published an illustrative entry for the word sonnet (shown in Figure 1) that is valuable as a demonstration of the innovations that he hoped to introduce in his dictionary. The first impression one gains from it is one of spaciousness: a little work with a ruler reveals that this entry in the intended page size occupies 812 square centimeters while sonnet in

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DICTIONARY SONNET, sb.

Sonnet(8) [The common form after 1600: earliest ex. 1581] Sonet(s) [The common form before 1600; after 1600 one ex.] Sonnettes [Rare; 1557 to 1589] [Sonet(t)o I t . form rare in Eng., a. 1548, 1589, 1595] [Sonet (fr. OF sonet, dim. of son) in general meaning of melody or song first used in English in early 14th c. and continued throughout the 16th and 17th c. The application of this word to any short lyric or other poem developed in the 16th c. and is apparently only found in English. English contact with the specialized Italian verse form sonet(t)o seems first to have been through Chaucer, who translates Petrarch's sonnet cu in irotlus δ Criseyae ax.. 1., St. 58, 59; but Chaucer does not use the words sonet, sonnet. The English use of the word sonnet to indicate a 14-line poem, each line consisting of 5 accents and riming according to certain fixed patterns, begins in the 16th c. after Wyatt's imitations of Italian verse. This, the modern use of the word, was thus probably a reborrowing, this time direct from the Italian sonet(t)o, although English interest in this type of poetry develops along with French enthusiasm for the same form, and the name of it was for a time confused with the general term sonet. Other names given in the 16th and 17th c. to this Italian verse form were amour from the usual character of its content, and quatorzain from the number of lines. [Refer-Bullock GES and Wilkins IS.] Contemporary Comments : 1575 Gascoigne P. 471. Some thinke that all Poemes (being short) may be called Sonets, as in deede it is a diminuitiue worde deriued of Sonare. 1575 Ibid. 472. There are Dyzaynes & Syxaines. .which some English writers do also terme by the name of Sonettes. 1575 Ibid. 471. I can best allowe to call those Sonets whiche are of fouretene lynes, every line conteyning tenne syllables. 1611 Cotgrave D. A sonnet, or canzonet, a song (most commonly) of 14 verses. 1678 E. Phillips NWW. Sonnet, a sort of Italian Poesie, consisting of a certain number of Verses, to wit, fourteen in all, whose Rimes curiously answer one another. 1689 Gaz. Ang. A Sonnet, .a short song; 1755 S. Johnson D. Sonnet, 1. A short poem consisting of fourteen lines, of which the rhymes are adjusted by a particular rule. It is not suitable to the English language, and has not been used by any man of eminence since Milton. 2. A small poem. I. MUSICAL

l a . A short song, a ballad, [according to Littre the earliest sense in French] 1579 Spenser SC. Dec. 15. I thee beseche (so be thou deigne to heare, Rude ditties tund to shepheards Oaten reede, Or if I euer sonet song so cleare, As it with pleasaunce mought thy fancie feede) Hearken awhile from thy greene cabinet, The rurall song of carefull Colinet. 1581 J. Bell HAO. 319. . .he maketh no mention at all of the maner of the prayers used in these Sacred Saturnalles, in their croochynges, maskyng Masses, Anthemes, Songes, Sonettes, Sacrifices, lamentable Dirges,.. 1581 Ibid. 218 b. . . a triumphant Sonnet taken out of the Psalmes of David. 1584 C. Robinson (title) A Handfull of pleasant delites, Containing sundrie new Sonets and delectable Histories, in divers Kindes of Meeter. Newly deuised to the newest tunes that are now in vse, to be sung: euerie Sonet orderly pointed to his proper Tune. With new additions of certain Songs, to verie late deuised Notes, not commonly knowen, nor vsed heretofore. 1584 C. Robinson (title) A Handfull of pleasant delites, Containing Greensleeues. To the new tune of Greensleeues. [9 poems in the collec tion called Sonet, all lyrics, none of 14 lines.] 1586 Ballad ABB. (title) A briefe sonet declaiming the lamentation of Beckles, a Market Towne in Suffolke, which was in the great winde vpon S. Andrewes eve pitifully burned with fire, to the value by estimation of twenty thousande pounds, and to the number of fourescore dwelling houses, besides a great number of other houses, 1586. To the tune of habandalashotte. [Follows a poem of 6 stanzas in 60 lines.] 1586 Ibid, (title) A proper new sonet declaiming the lamentation of Beckles. .Suffolke, which was in the great winde vpon S. Andrews eve last past most"pitifully burned with fire. .To Wilson's Tune. [A poem of 14 stanzas, 112 lines follows.] 1589 Greene CA. vn. 133. Lentulus. .said he would proue the force of beauty by a sonet which he heard was made by Orpheus when he fell first in loue with Euridice: tuning therefore his Lute to his voyce he sung this ditty. Shakspere PP. c 2. Sonnets to sundry notes of Musicke. Shakspere TG.111.ii. 93. Let vs into the City presently To sort some Gentlemen, well skil'd in Musicke. I have a Sonnet, that will serve the tune To give the on-set to thy good aduise. [The sonnet, sung in IV. iii. is 'Who is Sylvia'.] Shakspere TN. 111. iv. 24. If it please the eye of one, it is with me as the very true Sonnet is: Please one, and please all [according to Halliwell, the reference is to the ' A prettie new Ballad, intytuled: The Crowe sits vpon the wall, Please one and please all']. 1648 Jos. Beaumont P. 11. 80. Idolatrous Poetry let them invent, And into Sonnets change their Psalter: 1670 S. Lennard tr. Charron OW. 1. iii. 187. With a whistle, or some sonnet of news, a man may assemble them together like Bees at the sound of a Bason. 1674 Ballad R. VI. 274. Young men and maids that delight to hear How Lovers Couple, pray draw near; And in this Sonnet you may find A fancy that may please your mind. To the Tune of, True Love rewarded with Loyalty, or, Love's Downfall.

FIGURE 1

17 9

l b . T h e music, air, or melody to which a song was set. 1583 Stanyhurst Æ. 1. 17. I that in old season wyth reeds oten harmonye whistled My rural sonnet; 1587 Greene DFL. IV. 212. . .dailie they inuent diuerse Kindes of in struments, as Lutes, Citrons, Violles, Flutes, Cornets, Bandoras, whereon they plaie madrigalls, Sonettes, Pauins, Measures, Galiardes and all these in remembrance of Loue. 1589 Greene M. VI. 68. And with that he starts vp, seeking to fall out of those dumpes with Musique, (for he plaid on his pipe certaine sonets he had contriued in praise of the countrey wenches) but plaine Doron, as plaine as a packstaffe, desired him to sound a roundelay, and he would sing a song, which he carolled to this effect. II.

LITERARY

2 . A short lyric or other poem, usually amatory. Applied in the miscellanies of the late 16th and early 17th c. to any short poem and thus often to strict sonnets in the modern sense. a. 1548 H. Parker (title) The Englyshe of theis verses. In an Italion Ryme called Soneto. [Followed by a 15-line stanza with some irregu larity in the number of syllables in the last 7 lines.] 1557 [see III Phrases, Songs and sonnets]. 1563 B,. Googe (title) Eglogs, Epytaphes, and Sonettes, newly written by Barnabe Googe. [Of the 36 poems called Sonettes not one is in 14 lines. Some are single 4-line poems; the longest has 96 lines.] 1575 Gascoigne P. 471-472. [See CONTEMPORARY COMMENTS.]

1591 Lodge RD HI-HIb. he placed a Camelion in a sea of bloud with this Mot vnderneath it, Mutatus ab ille [sic], and vnderneath the same this Sonnet. The first Sonnet, .[regular 14-line stanza]. The second Sonnet.. [regular 14-line stanza]. On the third he painted Mens, Fortuna, and Natura.. and vndernearn the same this Sonnet [a lyric of four 6-line stanzas follows]. 1593 Lodge (title) Phillis: Honoured with Pastorall Sonnets, Elegies, and amorous delights: [40 short poems definitely entitled Sonnets. Of these, 31 are sonnets in the strict modern sense, 2 are of 12 lines each, 6 are lyrics, one is of 14 lines in alexandrines.] Similar want of discrimination exists in the following collections: Sidney's Astrophel & Stella (1591 ed.), Sidney's Poems (1598 ed.),' Watson's Teares of Fancie (1593), Breton's Passionate Shepheard (1604), Fulke Greville's Cœlicain cx. Sonnets (1633 ed.), H. King's Poems (1656 ed.) Shakspere A W.IV. iii. 355. Good Captaine will you give me a Copy of the Sonnet you writ to Diana in behalf of the Count Rossillion ? [The poem, which occurs earlier in the scene, has 9 lines.] 1605 Chapman AF. II. i. 174. I could have written..Epithalarruons, Satyres, Epigrams, Sonnets in Doozens, or your Quatorzaines In any Rime.. 1684 R. Herrick H. 1. 39. (title) Of Love. A Sonet. [10 lines in iambic tetrameter.] 1688 T. Brown RBCR. 2. Pray.. advise your friend from me, to employ his Talent to a better use, and squander no more of it in Sonnet. [Refers to lines not in strict sonnet form.] 3 . A poem strictly limited to fourteen iambic pentameter lines, riming according to a conventional scheme. I n t h e original Italian form it was divided into two parts, t h e octet and t h e sestet. I n English t h e sonnet tended to become looser in structure and to consist of three quatrains and a couplet. I n b o t h forms it was usually t h e expression of a single idea, sentiment, or mood. c. 1555 H. Parker tr. PT. Ep. Ded. And albeit that he setteth forth these syxte wonderfull made triumphes of hys Ladye Laura, by whome he made so many a swete sonnet, that never yet no poete nor gentleman could amend, nor make the lyke,. .[14 lines]. 1573 Gascoigne DBB. 124. Content thee. .To take this sonet for my last farewell. [A 14-line stanza follows.] 1575 Gascoigne P. 471. [See CONTEMPORARY COMMENTS.]

1579 E.K. ESp SC. Oct., 65. Which, .is of Petrarch no lesse worthely sette forth in a sonet. 1586 Young tr. GCC. II. IV. 182. I speake not of other sonets full of teares, that the poore lover [Petrarch] poured out continuallie in her life time, and after her death.. 1593 G. Harvey NLNC. 10. That is the very disgrace of the Sonnet, that the Stile nothing countervaileth the Subiect, but debaseth a strange body with vulgar attire. .[p. 27 follows sonnet Gorgon, or the Wonderful Year in 14 lines with L'Envoy of 2 lines.] 1595 W.P. in Spenser MP. 370. These sweete conceited Sonets, the deede is of. .maister Edmond Spenser. 1595 B. Barnes (title) A Divine Centurie of Spiritual Sonnets. [Poems headed Sonnet I. .II. .etc. are 14-line stanzas.] 1597 H. L[ocke] (title) Ecclesiastes. . whereunto are annexed sundrie Sonets of Christian Passions heretofore printed, and now corrected and augmented, with other affectionate Sonets of a feeling conscience of the same Authors. [More than 320 strict 14-line poems; no other short poems or lyrics.] Shakspere H5. III. vii. 44. Dolph. I once writ a Sonnet in his [a horse] prayse, and began thus, Wonder of Nature. Orl. I haue heard a Sonnet begin so to ones Mistresse. Shakspere (title) Shake-speares Sonnets. Neuer before Imprinted. [All are 14-line except no. 126.] 1616 Drummond (title) Poems: Amorous, Funerall, Diuine, Pastorall, in Sonnets, Songs, Sestains, Madrigals. [All sonnets are 14-line stanzas.] c. 1619 Jonson CD. iv. He cursed Petrarch for redacting verses to Sonnets; which he said were like that Tirant's bed, wher some who where [sic] too short were racked, others too long cut short. a. 1631 Donne LPH. 104. The Spanish proverb informes me, that he is a fool which cannot make one Sonnet, and he is mad which makes two. 1645 Milton (title) Sonnets. [10 poems, all sonnets in the modern sense.]

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1673 Milton (title) Sonnets. [9 numbered poems all sonnets in the modem sense. At the end one unnumbered poem, 'On the new forces' of 20 lines is not a sonnet in Milton's sense, and therefore unnumbered.] 1683 Soames & Dryden tr. BAP. n. 319. A faultless Sonnet, finished thus would be Worth tedious volumes of loose poetry. a. 1700 Dryden A P. Some have said, that once the humorous god,. . For the short sonnet order'd this strict bound: III.

PHRASES

Songs and sonnets T h e first example of this phrase is from the title-page of Totte]'3 Miscellany (1557). F r o m that time the phrase became very popular as the many instances of its use testify. a. Instances in which sonnets — short p o e m s : 1557 (title) Songes and Sonettes, written by the..late Earle of Surrey, andother.1557Tottell M. DD ij (title) Other Songes and Sonettes written by Sir Thomas Wiat the elder. [Lyrics, none of 14 lines.] 1637 Fletcher EB. 1. i. 108. . .all his songs and Sonnets, his Anagrams of Nature's hidden Secrets, makes not up a perfect Husband: b . Instances in which sonnets = songs: 1581 J. Bell HAO. 360. . .women and maydens spinning and carding, might debate of the holy Scriptures, and sing some sonets and songs of the same. 1583 Greene M. 11. 259. Prattling Poets, .seek with Syrens songs, .to bewitch the mindes of young and tender virgines,.. painting out in Songs and Sonets their great affection, and deciphering in fained rimes theu forged fancie: 1588 Byrd (title) Psalmes, sonets & songs of sadness and pietie, made into musicke of five partes. 1589 Nash AA. 1. 34. Hence came our babling Ballets, and our-new found Songs and Sonets, which every rednose Fidler hath at his fingers end, and euery ignorant Ale Knight will breath foorth ouer the potte, as soone as his braine waxeth hote. Shakspere MWW. 1. i. 206. Slen. I had rather than forty shillings I had my booke of Songs and Sonnets heere. 1600 Holland tr. L. 1027b. The souldiours chaunted such Songs and sonnets [L. carmen] as a man might easily see were composed to feed the humor of a Generall desirous of glorie. 1602 Jonson P. 11. i. Lusc. .away with your songs and sonnets; and on with your gowne and cappe, quickly: 1609 Jonson CA. IV. v. Enter lunvper in his shop singing: to him Cnion. Oni. Fellow Iuniper, no more of thy songs and sonets, sweet lumper, no more of thy hymnes and madrigals, thou sing'st, but I sigh. 1611 Byrd (title) Psalmes, songs and sonnets for voyces or viols of 3, 4, 5, and 6 parts. IV. AMBIGUOUS INSTANCES

I n m a n y quotations it is impossible to determine the precise meaning of the word sonnet, for the same writer sometimes uses the word in all three of its major senses. For example, Shakspere applies the word sonnet to a 14-line stanza, to a lyric poem, and to a song. In LLL. IV. iii. 59 [in 1st quarto and in 1623 folio] the stage directions have these words 'He reades the Sonnet'. T h e n follows a 14-line poem; but after 40 lines more again in the stage directions we have 'Dumane reades his Sonnet'. These words are followed by a lyric poem of 20 lines. In both cases the poems are read. T h e latter poem, however, is also number xvi of PP. under the title 'Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Musicke'. 1588 Lyly E.IV.ii. 26-21. Saw. Is he still in loue ? Epi. In loue? why he doth nothing but make Sonets. 1589 Greene M. vi. 82. . .you cannot but haue some rare Paragon to your Mistres, whome I would haue you, in some sonnet, describe: 1595 Sidney DP. 30. They say the Lirick is larded with passionat Sonets, the Elegiack weeps the want of his mistresse, and that even to the Heroical, Cupid hath ambitiously climed. 1601 Jonson EMH. 111. i. 31. I am melancholy my selfe diuers times sir, and then doe I no more but take pen, and paper presently, and ouerflow you halfe a score, or a dozen of sonnets, at a sitting. 1609 Dekker GHB. EE. 240. Take occasion (pulling out your gloues) to haue some Epigram, or Satyre, or Sonnet fastned in one of them. 1615 Goddard NW. 78. Poetus with fine sonnets painteth forth This and that fowle ladies, bewties worth Hee shewes shale witt thereby. 1622 J. Mead (letter) Ellis, Ser. 1. iii. no. 280. But that I guess I am prevented by others, I would have else sent you the Kings Sonnet of Jack and Tom, and other such like tricks. 1655 Vaughan SS. 246. The hills and woods with pipes and sonnets round And bleating sheep our swains driue—resound. V.COMPOUNDS SONNET-BOOK

1657 Cokayne OL. 312. I gave Philander, .a lock of hair, and see into what vein it has put him! I'me sorry he had it not a week sooner. I should then perhaps a had a Sonnet-book ere this: 'tis pitty wit should lie obscurely in any, if a lock will give it vent. FIGURE SONNET-MAKER

1691 Wood FO. in Antiq. 1. 761. He [Green] was at this time a pastoral sonnet-maker and author of several things which were pleasing to men and womeD of his time. SONNET-WISE

1588 R. Greene P. VII. 88. The young Prince..writ him an answer Sonnet-wise to this effect. c. 1645 Howell Lett. 1, v. xxii. 272. I sent you the inclos'd Verses Sonnet-wise.

1

(Cont..)

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the OED occupies only 120 square centimeters. Clearly the format of the sample entry could not be used in the dictionary of 100,000 entry words that Fries projected, since the allocation of space in the printed volumes would enlarge the OED by four or five times. Nonetheless, the sample entry for sonnet reveals some of the ideas that Fries hoped to develop in the dictionary. As can easily be seen from Figure 1, he provided discursive commentary for the word as a whole and briefer but, by dictionary standards, prolix headnotes for each sense. Citations of modern scholarship are likewise entered, and abbreviations are often avoided (see, for instance, Shakespeare's name spelled in full). Indentation of each citation gives a pleasing appearance to the page, even though this practice could hardly be sustained in a full dictionary. More important, however, is the abundance of citation. Where the OED employed fifteen quotations from Early Modern uses of sonnet, Fries included seventy-four (not counting those repeated within the entry by crossreference) . All but one of the OED quotations are here, and most of them are given in a more extensive form even when the greater fullness does little to amplify the sense of the word (see the quotation from 1586 under sense I for a typical example). Here is Murray's notion that each word should tell its own history in abundance, though hardly in a form that could be expanded into a dictionary that the Clarendon Press at Oxford estimated in December 1932. Two additional features of the specimen are worthy of note. Fries preceded the division into senses with seven citations labelled "contemporary comments." According to his manuscript plan for the dictionary, Fries intended to report such evidence wherever possible except "where there

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RICHARD W. BAILEY

are no particular problems concerning the meanings or use of a word." "These contemporary comments/1 he writes, "are to be regarded not solely as evidence of meaning or use but as the explicit thought of some of the people of the time concerning their own language. This thought is valuable even where the remarks are not true to fact." In the entry for sonnet, these comments primarily illustrate the narrowing application of the word to the familiar poem in fourteen lines, a point additionally illustrated by the arithmetical notes appended to several of the quotations that follow. More typically, one might imagine, such a section would reveal varying points of view concerning neologisms or the etymology of a word, the naturalization of a foreign borrowing, the elevation of cant and jargon into respectable use, or the association of a word or phrase with persons or social roles (like the usages of the "comfit-maker's Wife" scorned by Shakespeare's Hotspur). Such commentary ought, I believe, to be given the kind of treatment that Fries here illustrates, for our historical dictionaries have seldom recognized that the linguistic domain is paralleled by a systematic pattern of beliefs and attitudes that intersect with language and influence its use and history. Unfortunately, this useful idea was soon abandoned as Fries was counselled by Craigie and others to develop a more practicable design compatible with the Oxford model. A second major innovation is illustrated by section IV of the definition in Figure 1, "ambiguous instances." No parallel arrangement is found in other historical dictionaries; instead, lexicographers have followed Samuel Johnson's example of skirting the issue of ambiguity: "When words are used equivocally," Johnson says, "I receive them in either sense," and, to any discerning user of the

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OED, it is clear that certain citations might well be placed under more than a single sense division. In the headnote provided for sonnet, Fries points to indeterminacy of sense as the crucial issue that must be left unresolved. His manuscript plan, however, suggests a broader purpose for the collection of ambiguous instances. Citations to be ranged under this heading "will serve (1) to explain a transition in meaning; (2) to demonstrate the existence and range of double or unspecialized meanings that were later either lost or clearly separated; [and] (3) to oppose recorded judgments that will have given either wrongly specialized or the specialized meanings." Within these three categories, Fries discerns the kind of systemic variability of use that inevitably surrounds language change. Rigid sense divisions typical of dictionaries fail to capture the synchronic fact of variation that is present in every living language community. As in his proposed treatment of "contemporary comment," Fries grasped an important fact about language behavior and attempted to organize his dictionary to reflect it. Once again, however, the superior claims of "practicality" led to the early abandonment of this plan. 10 In 1934, Fries began editorial work with the letter L, a starting-place chosen in an attempt to balance the Oxford files (which were more and more abundant toward the latter end of the alphabet) and the newly collected material. Basing its decisions on the estimates he provided, the University entered into a publishing agreement with Clarendon Press in November 1935 that would allow him to increase the size of the published Dictionary to eight volumes (or 8000 pages). The contract called for the Dictionary to be completed by January 1, 1946.

18 4

RICHARD W. BAILEY •J* X i a s c i ' v i e n t , a. Obs, [ad. L. lascïvient-em, pres. pple. of lascïvïre to be wanton, f. lascïvus wanton.] Wantoning, lascivious. 1653 H . MORE Conject. Cabbal. (1713) 21 Set upon doing things, .according as the various toyings and titillations of the lascivient Life of the Vehicle suggested to him [Adam]. a 1703 BURKITT On N. T. 1 Cor. v. 5 For the destruction of the flesh, so lascivient in him.

Hence f Lasci-viently adv. 1664 H . MORE Myst Iniq. 331 Men ran up and down in Vizards madly and lasciviently.

t Lascivio'Bity. Obs. rare—0,

Lasciviousness.

[f. next +-ITY.]

17*7 m BAILEY vol. II.

L a s c i v i o u s (lasi'vias), a. Also 5 lassivyous, 6 lacivious. [ad. late L. /ascîvws-us (Isidore), f. L. lascïvi-a (n. of quality f. lascïvus sportive, in bad sense lustful, licentious) : see -ous.] 1. Inclined to lust, lewd, wanton. c 1435 LYDG. Assembly of Gods 686 Lastyuyous [readlascyuyousje lurdeyns, & pykers of males. 1494 FABYAN Chron. vu. 402 Y lassiuyous and wanton disposicions of the sayd Pyers of Gaueston. 1555 EDEN Decades 141 H e chaunced to lyue in those lasciuious and wanton dayes. 1567 M A PLET Gr. Forest 88 The Gotebucke is verie wanton or lasciuious. 1601 SHAKS. Airs Welliv.iii. 248, I knew the young Count to be a dangerous and lasciuious boy. 1601 HOLLAND Pliny I I . 544 One picture there is of his doing, wherein he would seeme to depaint Lascivious [quoted in mod. Diets, as ' lascious '] wantonnesse. 1667 MILTON P. L. ix. 1014 Hee on Eve Began to cast lascivious Eyes. 1781 COWPER Anti-Thelyphthora 199 T h e Fauns and Satyrs, a lascivious race, Shrieked at the sight. 1856 M R S . BROWNING Aur. Leigh in. 767 Thin dangling locks, and flat lascivious mouth. Comb. 1586 W. WEBBE Eng. Poetrie D iiij, H e . .is wholy to bee reputed a laciuious disposed personne.

b . Inciting to lust or wantonness, f Also in milder sense, voluptuous, luxurious. Obs, 1589 PUTTENHAM Eng. Poesie 11. ix. [x.] (Arb.) 97 Carols and rounds and such light or lasciuious Poèmes. 1594 SHAKS. Rich. Illy 1. i. 13 H e capers nimbly in a ladies Chamber, T o the lasciuious pleasing of a Lute. z6oa T . FITZHERBERT Apol. 36 b, How many are there . . that . . make no scruple to keep lasciuious pictures to prouoke themselues to lust? i6ai BURTON Anat. Mel. 11. ii. 11. (1651) 240 By Philters and such kinde of lascivious meats. 1660 F. BROOKE tr. Le Blanc's Trav. 155 Their garments are something lascivious, for being cut and open their skin is seen. 1671 L. ADDISON W. Barbary 150 That they should have Chaires there to sit in with as much lascivious ease, as a t home. 1780 COWPER Table T. 462 T o the lascivious pipe and wanton song, That charm down fear, they frolic it along. 1838 LYTTON Leila 1. iv, Not thine the lascivious arts of the Moorish maidens.

II 2. Used for : Rank, luxuriant. 1698 FRYER ACC. E. India $ P. 243 Forded several Plashes where flourished lascivious Shrubs.

FIGURE 2 : a . OED

lascîvic adj. [From L lascïvia.] Lascivious. al500 Dlscip.Cler. 27: [They] callen and clepen their loves and with hem abiden, clippyng and kissyng, and so of theym and in theym accompüsshen and fulfillen their lascivic and foul lustis. lascivious adj. Also (error) lastivious. [Prob. ML; cp. CL lascïvia.] Lustful. cl450 -De CMulieribus 1381: Take hede, all virgyns, and withdrawe your sight From lascyuyous and wanton 3onge personysl cl500(?al475) Ass. Gods 686: Tregetours, tryphelers, feyners of tales, Lastyuy- FIGURE 2 • b ous [read: Lascyuyous] lurdeyns, & pykers of mâles.

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DICTIONARY L A S C I V I E N T , adj. [L. lascivienlem, from L. lascivité to be wanton.] Lascivious; wanton. Hence lasciviently, adv., immoderately, wantonly. 1653 H . More Cabbala 47: The various toyings and titillations of the lascivient Life of the Vehicle. 1664 H. More Iniquity 331: Men ran up and down in Vizards madly and lasciviently, committing m a n y immodesties. 1671 MacWard Non-conform. 137: You should finde more Soul-satisfaction in walking at true liberty in the observing of his precepts; then in the Lascivient fancies of your own vain Imagination.

LASCIVIOUS, adj. lasciviouse ; lascyvious ; lacivious ; lassivyous ; lasyvius ; lastyuyous. [ME. lascivious.] l a . Lustful, incontinent, or lecherous; tending to lewdness or sensuality ;—said of persons, of gods and goddesses, of animals, etc., hence, by metanomy, of the eyes, arms, lap, or the like. Also metaphorical. Nonce-compound in quot. 1586. a i 4 9 8 Assembly Gods T 686: Tregetours, tryphelers, feyners of tales, Lastyuyous lurdeyns, & pykers of males. 1569 Fenton Wonders 71 : An other h e a r b e . . makes suche as vse the same, lasciuious,.. and readie to the Venerian actes. S h a k s . Titnon v. iv. 1. [ax647] 1657 Poole Parnassus 97: Flora. Merry, mirthful, joyous, pleasant, delightful, painted, gay, gaudy, pompous, enamelled, pearly, amorous, wanton, lascivious, perfumed. 1671 Milton SA 536 P : Lascivious lap. 1677 (ed. 2) Cox Recreation iv. 5: The Sargus is a Fish so lascivious,, . t h a t when he cannot finde change of Mates enough in the Sea, he will get ashore and Cuckold a Goat.

b . Characterized by, or suggestive of, the presence of lust or sensuality ;—said of a person's thoughts or disposition, of appearance, of actions, and of a state or condition. Hence, communicating the idea or notion of lust;—said of language. [C1500] 1516 F a b y a n Chron. vu. E 402: The lassiuyous and wanton disposicions of the sayd Pyers of Gaueston. 1563 Rainolde Rhetorike 19: The pampered, and lasciuious life of man. 1575 Gascoigne Posies To Rev. Div. C 3: Some. . h a v e , .bene offensive for. .wanton speeches and lascivious phrases. 1655 Culpepper & Rowland tr Physich x v . v. 417: The Patient utters wanton and lascivious Speeches. 1698 Fryer E. India C I. 148: The W o m e n , .act the Masculine Part in their Lascivious Twines.

c. Inciting lust; tending to produce sensuality and wantonness; salacious. [ai593] 1594 Marlowe Edw. II 959 B : Lasciuious showes. . H a u e drawne t h y treasure drie. [1600] 1603 Dekker etc. Pat. Grissill 1570 H : 1651 (?ed. 2) Sir H . W o t t o n Archit. 305: There m a y be a Lascivious..use, both of Picture and of Sculpture. 1697 (ed. 3) Tryon Way Health xix. 423: All young people ought, . t o avoid. .Lascivious Pictures.

d. Resulting from a lustful act; caused by wantonness. [ai593] C1597 Marlowe tr Ovid 1. viii. 98 B : T h y neck with lasciuious markes made blew.

2 . Tending to produce pleasure of the senses;—without the sexual implication of sense 1. 1594 Drayton Endim. & Ph. Ill H : Theyr flaxen hayre. .Wove with flowers in sweet lascivious wreathes. 1671 L. Addison Barbary 150: They should have Chaires there to sit in with as much lascivious ease, as at home.

3 . Characterized by lack of restraint; immoderate; excessive; also, of vegetation and its growth, rank, or luxuriant. 1698 Fryer E. India 178: The creeping C o w - I t c h . . , upon the Shrubs and Under-woods, there spending in Lascivious Twines its Verdure. ?i594 D r a y t o n P. Gaueston 92 H : I seeme lascivious in m y prayse.

FIGURE 2:

FRIES (c.1935)

185

18 6

RICHARD W. BAILEY His editorial practice at this second stage of the

work is illustrated in Figure 2 (c) with entries for

lasci-

vient and lascivious. The expansive format of sonnet is now much reduced, Shakespeave is now abbreviated to Shakes., the extensive headnotes have disappeared along with organized analysis of "Contemporary Comments" and "Ambiguous Instances," and the space occupied by the entries is only twice that of the OED instead of being six times larger. Duplication of citations is still apparent, though only four quotations are shared by the two dictionaries in the entry for lascivious. Once again, ample quotations are provided by Fries, but now they have been shortened to exemplify only the usage and edifying but irrelevant portions are pruned. A finer gradation of senses, additions to the inventory of forms, and a greater variety of quotation help to justify the separate treatment of lascivious in an Early Modern Dictionary. But the virtual repetition of the Oxford entry for lascivient suggests a deeper problem of the justification for such a dictionary. Even more disquieting is the nearly total loss of the innovative features of the earlier scheme. Errors in the proof (e.g., the reference in sense la to an inadvertently omitted citation for 158 6 and the misspelling of metonymy in the definition--are evidence of a lack of firm editorial control that typifies the entries from L to Lewavdness surviving from this phase of the work, which resulted, finally in eighty-two meters of copy of the kind illustrated in Figure 2 (c). Continued work on this scale would have eventually led to a dictionary of nearly the same size as the OED, one considerably larger than was desired by Craigie and the officials of the Clarendon Press. Early in 1938, Kenneth Sisam visited Ann Arbor to

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DICTIONARY

187

discuss the dictionary projects with Fries and with Thomas A. Knott (the editor of the Middle English Dictionary) , and shortly thereafter he wrote to them about the importance of making a "long-term policy" for the organization of the work. Such plans were particularly needed, as everyone involved knew, since the external funding from the foundations had ceased and the University was not in a position to provide an adequate budget for two large-scale dictionary projects. Sisam outlined various alternatives, and particularly recommended that the MED be suspended to allow both staffs to concentrate efforts on the EMED. "I give the E.M.E.D. preference solely because the University has entered into an agreement with the Delegates [of the Clarendon Press], who are prepared to publish and provide part of the charges of production." The MED, he added, "is not less important--in fact, the Oxford English Dictionary is much weaker for Middle English than for Early Modern English."11 Sisam was in a strong position to make recommendations because of the contract signed between the University and the Clarendon Press in 1935 and because of his close connections with Craigie and others who had endorsed the removal of the citation collection from Oxford to Ann Arbor. Extending his suggestions to matters of particular detail, he said that he would recommend that the contractual completion date for the dictionary be extended from January 1, 19 46 to January 1, 1948 on the presumption that ten years would be required to produce a dictionary of 8,000 pages. Producing 800 pages of finished dictionary copy a year, he recognized, would "tax the powers of the best workers in both staffs," but it would be irresponsible to propose a longer time "owing to the chances and changes of life." His most immediately shocking recommendation was that

18 8

RICHARD W. BAILEY

"the part of 'L' so far printed, except the specimen, be forsaken for a time and work begun at the letter

f

A I ."

That suggestion arose from his discovery that the first entries that had been produced were more than twice as long as the projected scale for the dictionary while the ones produced later were more than thirty percent too long.

Re-

vision of the existing proofs would be nearly as costly as recomposition, and the edited material in L would be available when the editors reached that point under the new editing plan.

Finally, he asked for "tangible evidence"

that the contract would be fulfilled:

"there should be a

complete volume of 1,000 pages ready for printing and another complete volume composed or available for composition by 1st January 1940." This letter

led

to an immediate response from Fries.

Within a week he had prepared a report to the University Committee on Dictionaries giving his views and criticizing Sisam's recommendations. 1 2

He was particularly distressed

at the idea that the MED be abandoned since "sound lexicography" required that an EMED be based on the foundation of a thorough study of Middle English.

Though it was not

necessary for the MED to be fully prepared for publication, he regarded it as essential that the entry words and sense divisions for that dictionary be available to the editors of the EMED. On the matter of scale, Fries displayed the allocation to each letter of the alphabet he had formulated in 193 4 and acknowledged that he and Knott had attempted "to cut down the material to the limits set" when the first proofs had been received from the Press in September 1936. Failing to do so, they then corresponded with Sisam in March 1937 about the charge for additional pages and settled on an increase of twenty percent

(estimated to cost

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DICTIONARY a further $18,400).

18 9

Through careful comparison with the

OED, Fries found that the 8,000 page limit made it virtually impossible to produce a dictionary that would retain all of the information for the period found in the OED and to include additional information that he had unearthed.

Entries, variant spellings, etymologies, and

definitions as exemplified for the L entries would require 28 00

pages alone, and merely to reprint the Early Modern

quotations that had already appeared in the OED would require an additional 6000 pages, a total 10 percent over contractual limit.

On that scale, there could hardly be

room for any of the innovations he had planned even in the L editing effort.

Yet he still believed it was possible

to complete the dictionary:

"By reducing the amount of

space taken by references, by cutting to the minimum the number of quotations used for common senses of common words which appear also in Middle English and in Late Modern English, by the use of references rather than full quotations to indicate range and use by well known writers, space enough can be saved to include in our Dictionary the most important new matter we have gathered providing an expansion of approximately twenty five percent is available for the complete dictionary." Fries concluded his report by putting into context Sisam's request for two volumes to be delivered by January 1, 1940--a date only nineteen months away.

To reach that

goal, Fries calculated, "there must be produced one page of copy every 1 1/2 hours of working time in addition to correcting completely one page of proof both in galley and in page every three hours."

For that rate to be achieved,

he estimated that ten full-time editors would be required to devote their exclusive energies to the work. 1 3 production rate might be possible with a staff of

Such a

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190

Appetite ( ), sb. F o r m s : 4-5 a p e t y t e , 5 -yght, a p p e t i t , -yt, a p p a t y t , 5-6 a p e t i t e , 6 - i d e , appetyd(e, 4-6 a p p e t y t e , 4 - a p p e t i t e . [a.OFr. apetit, ad. L. appetitus desire toward, f. appetěre see APPETE.] Const, for; formerly to, of and inf. 1. Bent of the mind toward the attainment of an object or purpose; desire, inclination, disposition. 7.38a WYCLIF Ezek. xxi. 16 Whidir euere is the appetit, or desier, of thi face. 1494 FABYAN VII. ccxxii. 247 T o staunche y 8 apetyte of his couetyse mynde. 1528 MORE Heresyes IV. Wks. 273/1 Suche cruell appetyte . . ascrybe they to the benygne nature of almyghtye God. 1621 BURTON Anat. Mel. 1.11.111.XI,These Concupiscible and Irascible Appetites . . twining about the heart. 1756 BURKE Vind. Nat. Soc. Wks. 1.12 This society, founded in natural appetites.. I shall call natural society, a 1871 GROTE Eth. Fragm. v. (1876) 129 Obeying without reflection the appetite of the moment. b . with the object of desire expressed. c 1400 Destr. Troy xxn. 9104 Achilles hade appetite.. The Citie for to se. 1549 LATIMER 7 Serm. bef. Edw. VI (Arb.) 103 She dyd it not for appetite of vengeaunce. 1614 RALEIGH Hist. World I I . IV. vi. § 5. 239 Ptolomie had a great appetite .. to the Isle of Cyprus. 1775 SHERIDAN Rivals v. 1, With such an appetite for consolation. 1875 HAMERTON Intell Life 11. i.48 Gratification of an appetite for melody or colour. 2 . vaguely, Inclination, preference, liking, fancy. To or after one's appetite: just as one pleases, so as to suit one's tastes, arch. 1490 CAXTON Eneydos xix. 71 That I myghte vse my lif to myn appetyte and . . be at my fre wyll 1526 SKELTON Magnyf. 1437 Syr, ye shall follow mine appetyte and intent. 1534 LD. BERNERS Gold, Bk. M. Aurel. (1546) Z ij, This oratour spake after the appetite of them that bee in prosperitie. 1580 LYLY Euphues 248, I have an appetite it were

FIGURE

3:

a . QED

best for me to take a nap. 1860 MOTLEY Netherl. (1868) I. v. 237 H e will make a treaty according to the appetite and pleasure of his Highness. 3 . esp. The determinate desire to satisfy the natural necessities, or fulfil the natural functions, of the body; one of those instinctive cravings which secure the preservation of the individual and the race. 1366 MAUNDEV. xix. 157 T h e folk . . han but litille appetyt to mete. 1393 GOWER Conf. I I . 102 Which giveth great ap petite To slepe. c 1485 WYNTOUN Cron.VIII.Prol. 3 Naturally As Woman and Man has appetyte. 16o1 HOLLAND Pliny II. 443 Craifishes . . in w i n e . . moue appetite to the. siege. 1711 ADDISON Spect. No. 120 p 4 The most violent Appetites in all Creatures are Lust and Hunger. 1855 BAIN Sens. & In telL 11. iii. § 1 (1864) 255, I am of opinion that Appetite, being a species or form of Volition, is . . a combination of instinct and education. 1876 MOZLEY Univ. Serm. vii 147 We have those appetites so long as we remain in the flesh. 4 . spec. Craving for food, hunger. 1303 R. BRUNNE Handl Synne 7235 Sum of hem [chyldryn] wex ful tyte, parfore ys more here appetyte. X375 BARBOUR Bruce 111. 541 Thai eyt It with full gud will, That soucht nane othir salss thar-till Bot appetyt. 1444 Pol. Poems 11. 220 Whoo that is hungry, and hath no thyng but boonys T o staunche his apetyght. 1509 FISHER Wks. 294 She restrayned her appetyte tyl one mele and tyl one Fysshe on the day. 1605 SHAKS. Macb. 111. iv. 38 Now good digestion waite on Appetite, And health on both. a 1653 BROME Demoiselle Prol., 'Tis appetite makes dishes, 'tis not cooks. 1857 BUCKLE Civilis. xi. 629 Men must have appetite before they will eat. b . transf. ox fig. 1605 BACON Adv. Learn. 1. viii. § 2 Learning doth minister to all the diseases of the mind . . sometimes helping digestion, sometimes increasing appetite. 1825 Bro. Jonathan I I I . 286 The truth was too insipid for. .your pampered appetite. 5 . Capacity for food, feeling as regards food; relish. c 1398 CHAUCER Fortune 55 Wikke appetyt comth ay before sykenesse. X542 BOORDE Dyetary ix. (1870) 252 Althoughe he haue eate ynoughe, whan he seth better meate come before hym, agaynst his appetyde he wyll eate. 1711 ADDI SON Spect. No. 7 F 2, I have seen a Man in Love . . lose his appetite. 1830 HOR. SMITH Tin Trump. 30 Appetite—a relish bestowed upon the poorer classes, that they may like what they eat, while it is seldom enjoyed by the rich, because they may eat what they like. † 6 . Of things: Natural tendency towards. Obs. 1626 BACON Sylva § 293 In all Bodies, there is an Appe tite of Union. 1667 BOYLE Orig. Forms & Qual.t Matter hath no appetite to these Accidents more then to any others. 7. The object of desire or longing, arch. c 1386 CHAUCER Knts. T. 822 Hontyng . . is his joye and his appetyt. c 1500 Partenay 2896 H a ! Melusine, my hertes Appetite. 1643 ROGERS Naaman To Reader § 2 Adam was so created, that God was his appetite. X798 WORDSW. Lines Tintern Abb. 81 The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood . . were then to me An appetite. † 8 . Something used to create an a p p e t i t e ; a whet, a relish. (So in Fr.) Obs. 1693 EVELYN De la Quint. Compl. Gard. I I . 191 English Cives [Chives], otherwise called Appetites. 1725 BRADLEY Fam. Dict.s.v. Herring, Red Herrings . . salted and dried . . they cry in the Streets of Paris by the Name of Appetite.

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DICTIONARY

appetid(e - ap(p)etlt. ap(p)etlt n. Also appetid(e, appatit, appitid, abitits, apertide, appete. [OF apetit & L appetitus.] 1. Physiol. & psych. An Inherent urge or drive attrib uted to the various organs of the body (such as the genitals, the stomach, the senses), to the mental 'faculties', or to the organism as a whole; louer, sensual or bestial ~ ; sensitif ~ : higher ~ . (C1390) Chaucer CT.Mcp.H.182: Lo, heere hath lust his dominacioun And appetit flemeth discrecioun. (cl390) Chaucer CT.Pars. 1.207: Delices ben after the appetites of the fyue wittes, as sighte, herynge [etc.]. (al398) *Trev. Barth. 20b/a: pe soule.. takep hede to pe bodiliche wittis & appetite of binges bat longep to be body. Ibid. 22b/b: pe vertu of appetite bat drawib to be lymes couenabil foode. Ibid. 57b/b: [The spleen] sendip what sufficep to be stomak to comforte be appetite berof. Ibid. 80b/a: In be membres genytal god hab send suche an appetite in separable,bat eueriche beest schulde be comfortid to multeplie beestis of his owne kynde. Ibid.77b/b: Slepe is nou3t elles but appetite of reste in be uertu of felinge. Ibid. 259a/b: In alle bestes is appetit of loue. Ibid. 286a/a: Fauni & satiri . . beb sterne and cruel wib bestial appetite. Ibid. 321b/b: Pis vertue of appetite worcheb principalliche by hete and by druyenesse. al400 Lanfranc 171/28: Pe splene.. makip be moup of be stomac to haue appetite. ?al425(cl380) Chaucer Bo. 3.pr.11.88: Is ther any thing.. that forletith the talent or the appetyt of his beynge and desireth to come to deth? Ibid. 3.pr.11.105: Herbes and.. trees.. that ne han no felyng soules, ne no naturel werkynges servynge to appe tites, as beestes han. (cl454) Pecock Fol. 42/28: If pe ping be knowen and perceyuyd as a ping yuel. .be appetit of pe same witt.. refusip be same bing. Ibid. 43/15, 23: Pe appe titis of hem [beasts] also wirchen in no fredom to coueyts and to not coueyte.. Pe beestis appetit wilne and comaunde to be movyng power forto move be membris of pe bodi. Ibid. 45/2: pe sensitijf appetit comaundide to pe movyng vertu forto so move toward it. Ibid. 45/12: He folewith be movyngis of pe lou3er sensual appetitis. Ibid. 112/8.14: . Pe lou3er appetite and pe hi3er appetite in man ben knytt togidere sum what lijk as two whelis in a clok. .be lou3er appetite wole peruerte be resoun into sodeyn hasti doomes accordyng to be passions in be lou3er appetitis. Ibid. 162/8: Pe lou3er sensual appetit which is clepid pe lou3er wil or be sensual wil. cl475(cl445) Pecock Donet 11/25: Bodili wittis, wip her appetitis to desire what i s . . plesaunt . .or for to refuse.. what i s . . displeasaunt. Ibid. 13/34-5: Pe v outward wittis with her v appetitis, and be v inward wittis wip her v appetitis. Ibid. 14/9-10: And ri3t as eche of be seid x wittis hap his propre appetite, so be wil is be propre appetite of pe resoun. 1532 rev. (cl385) Usk TL (Skeat) 2/46: Moste creatures resonable have, .appetyte to their perfeccion. 2. (a) A desire, craving, or passion for food or drink; appetite; ~ to eten, ~ of eting, ~ to (in, of) mete; (b) ? an appetizing quality (of food). (a) (cl375) Chaucer CT.Mk. B.3390: [They] dronken whil hire appetites laste. cl390(al376) PP1.A(1) (Vrn) 7.251: ARys vp ar appetyt habbe I-3eten his Fulle. (cl390) Chaucer CT.Pard. C.546: Spicerie.. To make hym yet a newer ap petit. (cl390) Chaucer CT.Pars. 1.818: Glotonye is vnmesurable appetit to ete or to drynke. /Ibid.. 834: Mesure.. restreyneth by resoun the deslauee appetit of etynge, Sobrenesse. .restreyneth the outrage of drynke. (al393) Gower CA 5.257: The more ydropesie drinketh,The more him thursteth.. ther mai nothing fulfille The lustes of his appetit. (al398) *Trev. Barth. 124a/b: [In winter] appetite is a waked and more mete and drink nedith. al400(cl303) Mannyng HS 7234: 3unge chyldryn.. wex ful tyte; parefor ys more here appetyte. ?cl425 *Chauliac(2) 29a/b: The tokenes of antrax.. my3ti angwisshes and hetes and.. castynge downe of pe appetite. (al449) Lydg. Diet. 4: Drynk holsom wyne.. Wyth thyne appetite [vrr. appitid, appetide] ryse from thy dyner also. (al449) Lvdq.SSecr. 1230: Nor hyndre his Appetyght in mete nor drynk. al450 Parton.Q) 7591: He gan haue a-petyte To mete and drynke and eke to rest. cl450 Burg-Practica 207/17: For to prouoke appetyte.

FIGURE 3 : b . MED

191

Take sentory [etc.]. cl450 My ladves 51: To moysten ther your appetitys.. Ful spedfui ye rennyn. ?cl450 Stockfa. PRecipes 128/13: Thys siripe will maken a man to hawyn appetyte to hys mete and for to etyn. al475(?al430) Lydg. Pilar. 12873: Yiff thow the ffyllest.. Off metys.. Thyn appe tyt for to staunche. al500(1422) Yonge SSecr. 220/20: Good appetyde of mette. Ibid. 241/33: Whan a man sittyth atte mette. .durant the appetit he sholde cesse. al500(al460) Towneley Pl. 107/239: Good sawse, This is a restorete To make a good appete. (b) (al398) *Trev. Barth. 206b/b: Salt makep.. mete sauory and good appetit in all mete. 3. Sexual craving or passion; ~ of (to) lecherie, likerous ~. (cl390) Chaucer CT.Mcp. H.189: For men han euere a likerous appetit, On lower thyng to parformen hir delit Than on hire wyves. (al393) Gower CA 7.4477: Salomon, whos appetit Was holy set upon delit, To take of wommen the plesance. (cl395) Chaucer CT.WB. D.623: I loued rieuere by no discrecioun,But euere folwed myn appetit. Ibid. 1218: Syn I knowe youre delit, I shal fulfille youre worldly appetit. (C1395) Chaucer CT.Mch. E.1250: And folwed ay his bodily delit On wommen ther, as was his appetit. al400 Lancranc 275/23: He schal touche no womman to make him haue appetit perto. ?al425(1373) *Lelamour Macer 14a: That confortip pe stomake and lettip yoxing and stopith be appetide of lecherye. Ibid. 27a: And helyth be reynes and encresith appete to lechery. cl430(cl386) Chaucer LGW 1586: Thourgh his apetit To don with gentil women his delyt. (cl443) Pecock Rule 348: Appetite and lust to do such fleischly deede. cl450 Capgr.Rome 5: Sche was fayr and lech erous and grete appetite had to many men, and berfor was sche likned on to pis stynkyng beest. cl475(cl450) Idley Instr.2.A.1793: In suche foule lust Is hir most delite. .She spareth for no cost to geve men appetite. 4. (a) A desire, longing, or inclination (for sth., to do sth., etc.); -- with of, in, to or inf. phrase; (b) ~ of desire, impulse of (one's) desire or inclination. (a) (cl385) Chaucer CT.Kn. A.I670: Oure appetites heer, Be it of werre or pees, or hate or loue, Al is this ruled by the sighte aboue. Ibid. 1680: It is al his ioye and appetit, To been hymself the grete hertes bane. c1390(?cl350) SVrn.Leg. 75/814: He accused him self ek of delyt pat he hedde in appetyt In veinglorie of preisyng. (al393) Gower CA 4.3013: Lethes the rivere.. which yifth gret appetit To slepe. (1402) Topias 101: Ambicion, and the nyce appetite of worldly worship. (al420) Lydg. TB 3.3762: Hector in herte cau3te an appetite, .be same day Grekis for to veslte. al425(al349) Rolle MPass.(2) 49/24: I haue appetite to payne.' al425(cl384) WBlbled) Ezek. 21.16: Go thou.. whidir euere is the appetit or desier of thi face. al425(cl385) Chaucer TC 5.1851: Lo here, thise wrecched worldes ap petites. al425(?al400) Cloud 36/25: A teenful passion & an appetite of vengaunce, be whiche is clepid Wrap. al450 Treat.Music 265/28: Natural appetide.. feruentli desiripe mo musical conclusions. cl450(?al4OO) Wars Alex. 4609: For-pi neuire ailes 30W pat apetite, pir artis with to dele. (1451) Capqr. St.Gilb. 103/34: pe praysing of men, whech was euyr his appetite. Ibid. 111/20: He say.. a hy tour, to whech tour he had gret appetite to goo. (al464) Capgr. Chron. 210: Few men schuld have appetite for to leme. (al470) Malory Wks. 599/18: Yf ye. .have an appetyde to juste with me. cl475(cl450) Idley Instr. 2.B.2240: The ap petite of youre eye is neuer satisfied. al500(1446) Night ingale 13/355: Alias, what appetite Haue folkes blynde, such a lord to plese. al500(a1450) Parton(l) (Add) 11331: Ye haue noone apetite Neiper to slepe ne reste take. al500 Parton.Q) (Add) 7623: To speke of love she had noon apetite. al500 St.Jerome 339/42: Thense forthe was ther neuer none appetite in me in envye or of pride. (b) (al415) Wvcl. Lantern 115/19: God..refreyneb be vnordinat appetite of mannes desire. (al475) Fortescue Dial.UF 483: He. .folowed the apetyte of his desires and the opynyon of fooles. 5. (a) Philos. Of matter, the 'elements': a natural ten dency or trend; (b) alch. (fig.), thirst; (c) of plants: prefer ence. (a) (al398) *Trev. Barth. 104b/a: Schewinge Inclynacioun & appetite to fonge be more noble fourme and schap & be more spiritual is be matere, pe more inclinacioun & ap petite it hap to spiritual fourme and schap. Ibid. 130a/a: Matiere. .hap appetyte to endeles many fourmes and schappis. Ibld.l31a/b: Fyre.. hap kynde appetite to be aboue be eire. (al420) Lydg. TB 1.1876: Matere, by naturel appetit, Kyndly desyreth after forme. ?cl500(cl477) *Norton OAlch. 2437: Appetite of fyre hathe to worke in erth his chiefe de sire, (b) Ibid. 2214: Many liquors be requisite to our stone for his appetite. (c) (?1440) Palladius 2.358: In delues depe is sette their appetite.

192

RICHARD W. BAILEY A P P E T I T E 1 , sb. [ M E . appétit.] Constr. (in senses i , 2, 3, 4, 5, and 9) with of, to, or infinitive; also,« absolute. I . Desire (or an instance or particular kind of desire), whether of body or mind, toward the attainment of an object or purpose or toward the satisfaction of a want. C1500 tr Upton Alilit. B 33: Lawes And constitucions be ordeyned be cause the noysome Appetit of man maye be kepte vnder the Revvle of lawe. 1534 Whittinton tr Cicero Offyces A 8: To this desyre to se the truthe is adioyned a certayne appetyte to beare a rule. 1642 Naunton FR 26: My Lord of Essex..grew excessive in the Appetite of her favour. 1677 Hale POM 1. ii. 58: The Will therefore is that other great Faculty of the Reasonable Soul, and it is not a bare appetitive power as that of the sensual appetite, but is a rational appetite. 1694 Norris CB I. 88: God has provided Entertainment for all the Appetites which he has made, yet there are but two Appetites of Man which he intends to gratine to the heighth. .the Desire of being happy, and the Desire of being good. 2. Philos, and Psychol. Desire as moved by sense toward sense objects, as opposed to will which is moved by reason and acts as a moral control; the APPETITIVE 'faculty', or one of its manifestations. ?i535 Elyot tr Chil. D l b : T O vanquishe his appitites and desyres, with reason. 1594 Hooker EP 1. vii. § 3 B 170: The object of Appetite is whatsoever sensible good may be wished for; the object of Will is that good which Reason doth lead us to seek. Affections, as joy, and grief, and fear, and anger, with such like, being as it were the sundry fashions and forms of Appetite,.. Appetite is the Will's solicitor, and the Will is Appetite's controller. [1603] 1657 Holland tr Plut. 262: This m a n . . hath no wit at all in his head, for otherwise he would never have married according to the counsell and appetite of his eies only. 1695 Locke Hum. Und. 1, iii. 21: Principles of Actions, .are lodged in Men's Appetites, but these are so far from being innate Moral Principles, that if they were left to their full swing, they would carry Men to the overturning of all Morality. 3 . Physiological desire, or one of the physiological desires, as for sleep, sex, and food, necessary for the preservation of the individual and race ; instinct. 1525 tr Albertus Secretes E 8: An appetyte to commite lechery. 1526 Herball evii. G 3 : Moche eatynge of onyons causeth appetyte of slepe. [1682] 1700 Creech tr Lucr. 1 Note: The common natural appetite to Procreation. 4 . Desire to satisfy a need for food (and drink) ; hunger or an experiencing of hunger. 1489 Medicina Stomachi [1]: Wyth an appetyte ryse from thy mete. 1626 Oxinden Let. G 27: Love's hungrie Appetite, .doth often feast itselfe with such pleasant Apparitions in a dreame. 1673 [Arrowsmith] Ref. 1. i. 13: E a t to satisfie our appetite. 5 . Interest, esp. pleasurable interest, in food (and drink); relish. 1526 Herball xxxii. c l b : Flesshe eaten with vyneygre. .gyueth appetyte. 1604 Dekker / Hon. W in. i. S 47: One that is out of health, takes no delight, Weares his apparrell without appetite. 1615 Crooke Body 169: In the disease called Boulimos, there is hunger without appetite, and in the Dog-appetite, there is appetite without hunger. 1675 Character Toum-Misse 7: Flesh, .with poinant Sauces, to be tasted with the better Appetite at Night. 6 . Mental bent, liking, inclination, or preference; also, fancy or taste. To (at, after) one's appetite{s), just as one pleases; so as to suit one's taste. 1483 Burgh etc. tr Cato b 6: Men might not sodeynly and inmoderately auenge hym self upon his enemyes to hys appetyte. 1523 Ld. Berners tr Froiss. 1. cexxxiii. 324: He was a stranger,, .and had not that of his owne after his appetyte. 1557 tr Erasmus Mery Dial. D 65: J obserued his appetite and pleasure. [1559] 1677 in Spottiswood HCS in. 134: They had directed charges to the free Burghs to elect Magistrates at their appetites. 1663 N. Walker tr Courtier vi. 136: These, .conform.. to the Appetites of Great personages. 7 . T h e object of desire. C1515 A. Barclay Eclogues ii. 817 W : Milke is our mirth and special appetite. 1(42 D. Rogers Naaman To Rdr. § 2: Adam was so created, that God was his appetite. 8 . T h e fulfillment of desire. 1509 tr La Sale Maryage ii. c 4 b : To haue theyr pleasures appetytes and lust. 1556 J . He.ywood Spider i. 26: And hauyng herein had mine appetight I made returne. 9 . Attraction or natural tendency drawing two things together or one thing toward another. 1563 Fulke GG v. 70 b : Natural vertue, .as the Magnes, or loadestone to drawe iron, whiche is by a similitude of nature, and suche an appetite, as is betwene the male and the female. 1626 Bacon Sylva 1. § 24: The Air of it self hath no Appetite of Ascending. 1667 Boyle Formes: Matter hath no appetite to these Accidents more then to any others.

FIGURE 3: c. Fries (c.1938)

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experienced editors; "the resources available," he wrote, "will finally determine the size of the staff and therefore the speed of production as well as the limitation of the size of the Dictionary and the materials to be included."14 Despite Fries' misgivings, the Dictionary Committee voted to accept Sisam's recommendations; work on the MED was suspended and the combined staffs of the two dictionaries commenced editing with the letter A. Work from this period is represented in the entry for appetite in Figure 3(c). The entry is still larger than the corresponding one in the OED but this time about one and a half times larger rather than double the size as was the case with the entry for lascivious. Definitions are more condensed, phrases are treated within sub-senses, and only two of the thirty-one citations printed duplicate those used in the OED compared to four of the twenty used to illustrate the senses of lascivious. Evidence of the intensive reading program is provided by four citations of three works included in it, and the collection of non-literary material in the newlygathered slips is apparent in the quotations from a medical treatise and in the colloquial language of the Oxinden letters. Nonetheless, the distinctive virtues of the EMED Fries had planned are now altogether gone. Though the statement on the collocation of appetite with of, to or infinitive appears at first glance to be a useful addition to the OED headnote on the same point (Figure 3a), this information does not survive close scrutiny. The implication that these constructions do not appear with appetite in sense six is belied by the final citation included, and one can reasonably infer that the absence of the collocations in senses seven and eight is an artifact of the data rather than an observation about Early Modern usage. The MED entry (Figure 3b)—of course unavailable to the edi-

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tors of the EMED--adds further insight into the use and relative frequency of appetite in absolute constructions as well as with of, to, and infinitive. Since the example of appetite in appears in late Middle English (see MED, sense 4 ) , careful investigation might turn up an example for Early Modern, while the fact that the construction appetite for arose in the Early Modem period is not noticed. Michigan Early Modern English Materials contains an example of appetite for God from a work published in 152 0 but probably written about 1497. Perhaps appetite for seemed so modern that it escaped the notice of excerpters. In any case, the EMED editors are not to be faulted so much for insufficient data as for constructing a theory of that data in the absence of persuasive evidence to support it. The similarity in the structure of the definitions in the OED and EMED suggests that the latter is derivative from the former, particularly in OED sense 2 and EMED sense 6, and in the near identity of the definitions numbered 3 and 7 in both dictionaries.15 Yet Fries had gathered significant new information, including antedatings, abundant new evidence for sense discrimination, material on which accurate grammatical notes might be based, and words in Early Modern use not treated at all by the OED. The problem he failed to resolve was one of the economy and scale: how--in a reasonable time and with the funds available--to produce a dictionary of a size that could be printed and sold. Figure 3(b) shows what was possible for the MED: ten Middle English citations in the OED are amplified by the 85 quoted in the MED in a format only a little more than three times the size of the OED entry for the same word. As can readily be seen, this result was achieved by placing severe limits on the number of words in each published citation, introducing a laconic definition style,

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and reducing paragraph divisions to eliminate many unfilled lines. Though the MED lacks the various fonts and faces of the OED, the loss of elegance is thoroughly compensated by an abundance of new information. In the months that followed consolidation of the staff and commencement of editing in A, Sisam and his advisors were scrutinizing the work that had been accomplished. Writing in July 1938, Sisam found it "a very pleasant surprise" that so much copy for A had already been prepared. On the whole, his letter was approving, but he urged vigilance for "latent minute errors" and hoped that someone-Craigie was then fully occupied with his Dictionary of American English and with the Dictionary of the Older Scottish

Tongue--could

be found to provide regular review and

oversight for the work. 16 At the same time, Sisam submitted a lengthy and detailed critique of some of the L entries prepared by J.M. Wyllie, "our best young man on principles." In reply, Knott wrote that "we cannot express adequately our appreciation of your criticism of the first three galleys of proof," and he then responded to all the criticisms and suggestions that Sisam and Wyllie had offered during the previous months. Despite a generally cordial tone in these exchanges, Sisam's misgivings about the work seem to have increased during the summer and fall, particularly when the University made no move to increase the staff to a size adequate to produce copy at the promised rate. "I am always reluctant to criticise," Sisam wrote, "as one not doing the work, any arrangements approved by those responsible for doing it, and I am no doubt prejudiced in favour of the method to which I am accustomed. I should, then, be greatly delighted if your method is shown to be successful, but I should regard it as a miracle." 17 Knott carried on the correspondence with Sisam in the

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summer and fall of 1938 while Fries was on sabbatical in Freiburg and thus out of touch with developments in the dictionary work. But in early January, Fries received a letter from Craigie that must have alarmed him: "From the copy and the galley-proofs which I have seen and carefully studied it is evident that there must be a marked improvement in the quality of the work before it can be satisfactory to the scholars and students who would naturally use it. The defects are due to two causes: lack of any clear idea as to the character of the dictionary, and inexperience in those who are producing the copy."18 Receiving authorization from the University to negotiate with the Press, Fries hastened to Oxford. Immediately following his visit, Sisam wrote to the Dean of the Graduate School: "We have serious doubts about the quality and uniformity that is being obtained by the present method.... My advice to your University is that it would be better to drop the project now than to rely on quantitative production without sufficient quality, or on qualitative production without regular and sufficient quantity."19 In summarizing his visits with Craigie and Sisam, Fries was obliged to report that Craigie "was very vigorous in his denunciation of the Early Modern English Dictionary in its present form" and that he "feels that his own reputation is somewhat involved because he has had to overcome serious opposition in England in order to have the Oxford material, especially the 'Supplement,' released to us at the University of Michigan and has frequently asserted in public that he was following the work closely as a consulting editor, and in general has, in England, been the sponsor for the work at Michigan."20 Sisam said that the Press would not set additional copy in type until some resolution had been found for the problems that he and Craigie had identified. They were, however, willing to examine a small

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DICTIONARY

197

portion of the "latest material," but Sisam suggested a five-year delay to allow time for a better definition of the principles of an EMED. Nothing in these conversations gave Fries hope that uninterrupted work could continue toward the completed Dictionary. On his return to Ann Arbor, Fries reluctantly recommended that work toward the EMED cease so resources could be devoted to the MED. He had some hopes that the Clarendon Press might publish the edited entries in L, but he cannot have been optimistic about that prospect.21 The University Committee on Dictionaries acted promptly and voted on March 16, 1939 "that full work upon the Early Modern English Dictionary should be postponed and the available resources concentrated on work upon the Middle English Dictionary."22 The Committee was willing to allow Fries to salvage what he could from the work already completed, though they refused his request to enlist "a small amount of secretarial time and other assistance from the workers upon the Middle English Dictionary." As he had promised, Craigie provided a detailed commentary on the "latest material" and addressed himself to the problem of the relation between the OED and the EMED; there was little in his review to alter the decision that the Dictionary Committee had already reached.23 Knott visited Oxford in July 1939 and met with Sisam. Shortly thereafter, Sisam wrote that "the Delegates appreciated the efforts that your University has made to carry through this difficult project, and that if the decision to defer it for many years, or indefinitely, is reached, it will in no way diminish the feeling of goodwill which has marked our relations, and which alone makes possible the joint undertaking of such long-range projects."24 In reply, the President of the University wrote "that our present inability to carry on that Dictionary will in no

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RICHARD W. BAILEY

way diminish the feelings of good will which have marked our relations with you." 25 The correspondence continues with a proposal to offer the Press the opportunity to publish the Middle English Dictionary , a possibility that Sisam had opened for consideration a month earlier. Whatever plans might have developed were abruptly abandoned with the outbreak of war in September 1939. Hazards of transatlantic shipping, suspension of unnecessary printing in England, and, eventually, declaration of war by the United States brought editing to a quiet conclusion. When dictionary-making in Ann Arbor resumed six years later, University authorities offered assistance to only one of the two dictionaries that had been in progress before the war--the Middle English Dictionary. Surviving records, the nature and composition of the citation file, and the finished entries reveal that Fries began his career as historical lexicographer with enormous energy, considerable enthusiasm, and a dedication to appropriate and worthwhile innovations. Each year of work, however, seems to have brought added frustrations as he was unable to persuade others of the need to find improved means for collecting, interpreting, and disseminating new information and of the value of seeing established facts from a new perspective. The authority of Oxford editing and Oxford publication (including details of format and style) was a powerful example, and Fries was unable to find a persuasive alternative better suited to his own vision of the finished dictionary. Lexicography regards assiduity more generously than it does innovation, and Fries' energies were diffused among his other roles--teacher, director of the Linguistic Institutes (in the summers from 1936 to 1941), descriptive grammarian, leader in scholarly and pedagogical societies, and promoter of new techniques for

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DICTIONARY

199

teaching English as a second language. Such demands on his time delayed his return to the EMED even after the MED had made a substantial beginning, but he continued to include his position as editor of the Early Modern in his scholarly biographies and devoted part of the last year of his long life to plans for renewed editing. Fries and his associates failed to produce a dictionary for reasons partly practical and partly personal, yet they enjoyed an opportunity on which they failed to act, the opportunity to do more than merely to complete a dictionary on a pre-established plan or to describe in a conventional way the lexicon of a linguistic domain not yet given serious attention. They, unlike any of the others foreseen in Craigie's scheme for supplemental dictionaries, might have produced a "second-generation" dictionary, one aimed beyond filling in small gaps or clarifying obscure phrases or allusions. Linguists have shown that the defining idea of a "grammar" can be looked at afresh from time to time with great profit: those lexicographers had the opportunity to take a similarly new look at the "dictionary," particularly the "dictionary on historical principles." Fries might have seized the chance to provide that new look since there was relatively little to occupy his imagination within what the OED had already accomplished in establishing a format. He did not do so and the opportunity remains. Progress toward an Early Modern English Dictionary does not end with Fries, though more recent work can be briefly summarized. In 1965, R.C. Alston and Bror Danielson (advised by A.J. Aitken) proposed to make use of the materials stored in Ann Arbor, supplement them with newly collected data (primarily from manuscript sources), and edit a Tudor Dictionary devoted to the English of 147 5 to

2 0 0

1640.

RICHARD W. BAILEY While the funds for this work proved difficult to

raise, Alston did stimulate interest among (and some would-be lexicographers)

lexicographers

in Ann Arbor.

Thanks to

support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, subsequent work with the citation file has led to the publication of Michigan

Early

Modern

ditional computer-processing base, and a published

English

Materials,26

ad-

to enlarge the MEMEM data

collection of some 4,000 Early Modern

English citations designed to supplement vocabulary, senses, and dates in the OED.27

In the opinion of the

Endowment, additional funding for the project should be reserved for the editorial stages; from the point of view of the University of Michigan, editing of an Early English Middle

Dictionary English

Modern

still must await completion of the Dictionary.

FOOTNOTES

1

Portions of this essay were earlier published as "Progress Toward a Dictionary of Early Modern English, 1475-1700," in Proceedings of the Second International Round Table Conference on Historical Lexicography , ed. , W. Pijnenburg and F. de Tollenaere (Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1980), pp. 199-226. They are used here by permission of Foris Publications. Since that publication, I have located additional records in the Michigan Historical Collections, Bentley Historical Library, the University of Michigan; I am grateful to the staff of that institution for permission to copy correspondence in their files. 2

W.A. Craigie, "New Dictionary Schemes Presented to the Philological Society, 4th April 1919," Transaction of the Philological Society , 1925-1930 (1930):8.

At Craigie's invitation, Fries attended the lavish banquet in the hall of the Goldsmith's Guild in London to celebrate the completion of the OED--a project brought to its conclusion with financial assistance from the Guild. Agnes Carswell Fries did not attend: "I was told that the women would be 'skied' if they wished to come. It was explained to me that being 'skied' meant that women could sit in the

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DICTIONARY

2 01

balcony above the hall and watch the men eat, I felt insulted and refused to go under those circumstances." Skied in this sense does not appear in the OED. 4

In her reminiscenses, Agnes Carswell Fries thus describes the work of selecting the slips: "During 1928 we lived in Oxford and worked with a team of about ten people at tables in the Old Ashmolean building, emptying the boxes of slips which were brought to us there and sorting out, one by one, those slips which had to do with the period 1475 to 1700. It was a monotonous job. At the end of each week Charles piled all the materials into the trunk of our car and took them home to our room on the third floor at number 2 Wellington Square. On Sunday he spent most of the day carefully wrapping them in strong waterproof paper and tying them in 22 pound bundles, sealed with red wax into which he pressed the seal of the University of Michigan. On Monday morning we took them to the post office. The post office would not accept more than 22 pounds for parcel post. Two long summers were spent that way."

5

Craigie, p. 8.

6

The importance of these new discoveries for the history of the English language should not be underestimated. According to the most reliable estimates, "90,066 of the O.E.D. 's 240,165 lemmas can be antedated from texts examined by O.E.D. readers" (Jürgen Schäfer, Documentation in the O.E.D. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980], p. 66). The growth spurt in the English vocabulary centered on 1600 is almost certainly an artifact of the method used by the OED rather than a historical fact.

7

The principal senior staff members before 1936 were Fries, Hereward T. Price, Morris Palmer Tilley, Vernam E. Hull, Hope Emily Allen, and Leo L. Rockwell. These five names were listed on the title page that Clarendon prepared with the entries for L. The following people also worked on the EMED for periods of varying length: Harold B. Allen, Frederic G. Cassidy, Irene L. Coats (Office Manager), Katherine Fellows, Irene T. Lauterbach (Office Manager), Albert H. Marckwardt, Margaret R. Marckwardt, Henry V.S. Ogden, Charles E. Palmer, Eugene B. Power ("Photographer" and, as a consequence of his discovery of the market for facsimiles of eary books, the founder of Xerox University Microfilms), Katharine H. Ripman, Helen M. Snyder, Emily W. Woodburne, and Joseph K. Yamagiwa.

8

Qne aspect of this work reflects Fries' life-long interest in new technology to assist him in his linguistic work: he invented an alphabetizing machine consisting of an endless belt with attached pockets for each letter of the alphabet. This apparatus made sorting the slips received from the volunteers or created by the resident staff considerably easier. His subsequent use of wire recorders to

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RICHARD W. BAILEY

collect oral English is a second instance of his interest in applying new machinery to the collection of data. A third was his recognition in 1967 that computers could be invaluable to lexicographers. Despite the efficiency of his machine, however, Fries was forced to admit in February 1934: "The actual physical preparation of this huge mass of material for the files has been a task that greatly exceeded our early estimates of the time required for this portion of the work" [Fries, "The Early Modern English Dictionary from July 1, 1929 to February 1, 1934" (typescript), p. 4 ] . 9

While Fries called these words 'concrete,' he might better have identified them as 'commonplace' since adjectives like fine, adverbs like very and more, and verbs like have, be and seem were also insufficiently represented. His point appears to echo Johnson's: "Care will sometimes betray to the appearance of negligence. He that is catching opportunities which seldom occur, will suffer those to pass by unregarded, which he expects hourly to return; he that is searching for rare and remote things, will neglect those that are obvious and familiar; thus many of the most common and cursory words have been inserted with little illustration, because in gathering authorities, I forbore to copy those which I thought likely to occur whenever they were wanted. It is remarkable that, in reviewing my collection, I found the word sea unexemplified" ("Preface to the

Dictionary," in Johnson's

Dictionary:

A Modern Selection,

McAdam, Jr., and George Milne [New York: 23) . 10

ed., E.L.

Pantheon Books, 1963], p.

Correspondence between Fries and Kenneth Sisam at Oxford reflects a belief by both that "practicality" and "scale" in the OED were defined on scholarly and even aesthetic grounds. J.M. Wyllie reports events in the dictionary offices that suggest otherwise: "Much of Bradley's output was not seen by the editor himself until it was in first proof. Craigie, on the other hand, not only read every definition and every selected quotation with care, but he also read the rejected quotations, which were on the average twice as many as the selected, in case anything of value were being overlooked. Thus it was that he noticed one day that some quotations, which he had seen in the 'copy,' were missing in the first proof; and he proceeded to find out what had happened to them. It was only then that he discovered that there was one man in the Dictionary Room whose business it was to ensure that all the 'copy' sent to the printer was right for scale. The scale originally agreed on was ten times that of the edition of Webster current in 1879—the 1869 Webster, if my memory is to be trusted. Having salvaged some of his own missing quotations and some of Bradley's which had met the same fate, he showed them to Bradley who, till that moment, had no idea that this rigid scaling of the 'copy' was going on. It was as obvious to Bradley as it was to Craigie that this Procrustean treatment of their work was intolerable, and from that day all adjusting of the scale ceased.

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DICTIONARY

2 03

The ultimate effect of this was that the second half of the dictionary expanded to seven volumes instead of the five that had been originally planned" ("Sir William Craigie, 1867-1957," Proceedings of the British Academy, 1961, pp. 279-80). I am grateful to A.J. Aitken for bringing this incident to my attention. 11

Letter from Kenneth Sisam, March 24, 1938, Michigan Historical Collections. All of the correspondence quoted below is to be found in the records of the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies housed in the Michigan Historical Collections, Bentley Historical Library.

12

Fries, "To the University Committee on Dictionaries," March 31, 1938.

13

This estimate was based on the dubious method of figuring productivity against the 3040 working hours in the nineteen month period. Each of ten editors would thus need to produce one finished page— proofing included—in about 15 hours. These numbers, contained in his report to the University Committee on Dictionaries (March 31, 1938) may have been intended only to persuade the Committee of the impossibility of the pace that Sisam had demanded.

14

During the fall of 1938, the Dictionary employed four editors full time (two were "beginners") and six part time.

15

Writing to Sisam on August 19, 1938, Knott reported: "We have felt, guiltily, that we follow the O.E.D. with scandalous closeness in those parts that do the same job that we are doing.... We have an office proverb, 'Better to err with the Oxford than to do worse alone.1" I have concluded from conversations with Frederic G. Cassidy and Harold B. Allen (both of whom were associated with the EMED when the entries for A and B were written) that Fries' interest in and devotion to his dictionary project waned during the last stages of the work, and many of the entries, like appetite, were probably written by infrequently supervised graduate students.

16

Sisam to Fries and Knott, July 7, 1938.

17

Sisam to Knott, October 25, 1938.

18

Craigie to Fries, January 9, 1939.

19

Sisam to C.S. Yoakum, February 3, 1939.

20

Fries to Yoakum, February 12, 1939.

21

Fries to Yoakum, March 18, 1939.

22

Louis I. Bredvold to President Alexander G. Ruthven, March 21, 1939.

2 04

RICHARD W. BAILEY

23

Craigie, "The Early Modern English Dictionary" (typescript copy) , April 29, 1939.

24

Sisam to Yoakum, July 5, 1939.

25

Ruthven and Yoakum to Sisam, August 14, 1939.

26

Richard W. Bailey, James W. Downer, and Jay L. Robinson, Michigan Early Modern English Materials (Ann Arbor: Xerox University Microfilms and the University of Michigan Press, 1975). This work consists of a handbook and bibliography that accompany a microfiche index to a million words of Early Modern English drawn from the EMED files. A computer-readable version is available through the Oxford University Computing Service.

27

Richard w. Bailey, Early to the Record of English Olms, 1978). Additional base bringing the total Modern English to about

Modern English: Additions and Antedatings Vocabulary, 1474-1700 (Hildesheim: Georg effort added citations to the MEMEM data corpus—representative of the usage of Early 1.5 million textual words.

C.C. FRIES ON STANDARD ENGLISH

James C. Stalker

The variety of topics addressed in this reconsideration of C.C. Fries' career underscores the breadth of his interests, and unquestionably, his lifelong assertion that usage rather than correctness be the defining criterion for standard English is one of the more volatile and more important of these interests. For Fries the definition of standard English was not a political matter, as it has become in many quarters today, but was broadly humanistic; that is Fries believed that language well understood and well used could help people achieve a self-reflective, self-aware, self-fulfilling life. In short, he was interested in language in its broadest use, not simply as a basic, functional communication tool, but as a means for achieving an understanding of literature and a comprehensive liberal education, a view presented in some detail in The Teaching of Literature (1926) and Liberal Education Reexamined

(1943).

With this basically humanistic view of language use as a background, we can understand Fries' interest in standard English, and his involvement in the controversy over correctness versus usage as the definitional base for standard English, because, of course, he knew that the definitions

2 06

JAMES C. STALKER

of standard language frequently entail assumptions about learning ability and societal usefulness, and that those assumptions can interfere with education for people whose language is labeled nonstandard.

Of course, Fries held the

position that there were no degenerate dialects, as most linguists do, and one of Fries' great contributions to the development of contemporary linguistics was proof of that position derived from careful, thorough analysis of synchronic and diachronic data. shall

and will

(1925a), English word order (1940b), and the

inflected genitive Grammar

For example, his analyses of

(1938), as well as American

English

(1940a), all clearly demonstrate that contemporary

usage is the product of regular and persistent patterns of change, and each of these studies leads as well to the conclusion that the usage of the uneducated is often more conservative than that of the educated, as Fries points out in American

English

Grammar

(1940a:288).

Fries is decorous

enough to refrain from pointing out the logical conclusion —-that we the educated are the linguistic degenerates, if change equals degeneracy. Although Fries' work is a careful documentation of linguistic equality among dialects, Fries also clearly accepts standard English, and his definition of standard English is a social one.

In "Usage Levels and Dialect Dis-

tribution," part of the forematter of the American Dictionary,

College

Fries defines standard English as "the practice

of the socially accepted, those who are carrying on the important affairs of English speaking people"

(1947b:277).

We find the seeds of this definition in his first major publications which not only set the tone for most of his later statements on standard English, but also demonstrate his reliance on data rather than on opinion as a base for his statements.

In "The Periphrastic Future with Shall

and

STANDARD ENGLISH

2 07

Will in Modern English," Fries examines the school grammar shall/will rule, which many students still learn, to determine its source and its validity. Fries surveys 56 grammars and dictionaries published in the 16th through the 19th centuries and finds that the rule was first given in its modern form in John Wallis1 Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae in 1653, and not again until Robert Lowth's grammar of 1762 and then William Ward's grammar in 1765. After these two, the rule became a standard part of grammars, right up to the present day, although the precise statement of the rule has always shown wide and confusing variance. The data Fries uses to explore the validity of the rule are plays from the 16th through the early 2 0th centuries. Essentially, Fries finds in his data that there has never been a justification for the shall/will rule, as usually stated, in the actual use of the language, and concludes that early grammarians devised the rule to reflect reason and logic, i.e., so that English syntactic structure would mirror Latin syntax, but could never agree on what the "real" rule should be. Although Fries does not explicitly define standard English in the periphrastic future article, the very fact that he chooses to compare actual usage with the correctness rule implies a preference for a definition of standard English based on actual usage. Fries concludes in this article that the 18th century grammarians' "use of 'reason' and their explicit repudiation of usage—even that of 'the most approved authors'—-as a standard and basis for their rules points to the conclusion that the conventional rules for shall and will then first formulated were probably arbitrary and without a validity based upon the practice of the language" (1925a:1023). This statement is not a rejection of standard English, but a clear statement that

2 08

JAMES C. STALKER

the basis for the standard is wrongly defined when that basis is correctness rules.

However, because the article

rejects the prescriptivist position "measure your language against rules based on reason and logic" without a detailed explanation of the criteria which will replace those rules, it is quite easy to conclude from the periphrastic future article that Fries' definition of standard English is simply "measure your language against those around you." The simplistic implication of this definition is that "anything goes," and by extension, whatever people do is right.

Thus,

to draw an analogy, if a majority of people throw candy wrappers and beer cans out of car windows and litter the road, then that is standard behavior.

In fact one must

throw beer cans on the roadside to engage in standard behavior. In order to draw such a conclusion from Fries' work, a reader must adopt a very narrow interpretation of Fries' position, or simply reject any definition of standard English which partakes of usage in any form.

Fries was

quite aware of the simplistic extension of his view of usage and standard English, and that the definition of "correct" and "standard" inevitably leads to the question "What is good English?" a question he discusses in another 1925 article with that title.

After discussing such items

as "it is me/it is I" and everybody--their restates the question as "what English is good?"

agreement, Fries grammatically

He answers first by restating the maxim that "con-

ventional rules...are not safe guides...to...correct and acceptable forms and constructions in English." writes:

He then

"The only basis for correctness in grammar must

be usage, the usage of those who are carrying on the affairs of English speaking people." more precisely.

He specifies his view

STANDARD ENGLISH

2 09

Where this usage is practically unanimous there is no appeal, but where it is divided no one form or construction is the sole correct one, and In cases of divided usage a reasonable guiding principle of decision would be to choose that form or construction which is in accord with the tendencies or patterns of English as these can be seen from the history of the language. (1925b:696-697)

For Fries, standard English is grammatically acceptable English, as defined by the usage of the culturally powerful, otherwise, make no rules. In 1927 in "The Rules of Common School Grammars," Fries delineates the underlying premises of school grammars and their growth from the 17th and 18th centuries through the 19th century and the first quarter of the 2 0th. He shows quite convincingly that the accumulated body of prescriptive grammars effectively constitutes an informal English language academy which generates correctness rules that are arbitrarily set up to satisfy the grammarians cultural and historical notions of what structures the language should contain--a situation which obtains today. In this article, Fries characterizes the 18th century view of grammar and usage as "the doctrine of original sin in grammar" (1927a:231). Although Fries' characterization seems quite appropriate for the 19th century grammarians' viewpoint, and for certain prescriptivists of the 2 0th, it fails to account for the 18th century notions of propriety, which, in many respects, closely approximate some 2 0th century notions of linguistic appropriateness. Perhaps the combination of his desire to repudiate the 19th century notions of linguistic sin and his concern for people as people overrides his usual careful assessment of his data when he interprets statements in the 18th century grammars.

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JAMES C. STALKER

His b a s i c c o n c l u s i o n t h a t we must blame t h e 18th c e n t u r y grammarians f o r our c u r r e n t v i e w p o i n t on c o r r e c t n e s s i s q u i t e a c c u r a t e , but h i s conclusion t h a t they believed in c o r r e c t n e s s i n t h e same way a s t h e 19th c e n t u r y grammarians i s much t o o s t r o n g . In f a c t , i n t h e 1927 e d i t i o n of h i s book The Teaching of the English Language , F r i e s h i m s e l f s t a t e s a p o s i t i o n t h a t s h a r e s f e a t u r e s w i t h t h e b e l i e f s of t h e 18th c e n t u r y . Whether for good or i l l , t h e schools seem t o be committed t o t h e program of equipping t h e p u p i l s with the language h a b i t s of those we have c a l l e d t h e s o c i a l l y a c c e p t a b l e group. This p r o gram i s d e f e n s i b l e on t h e ground t h a t t h e schools are p r e p a r i n g p u p i l s t o t a k e p a r t i n t e l l i g e n t l y in t h e a f f a i r s of our communi t i e s , and t h e r e i s no doubt t h a t t h i s s o c i a l d i a l e c t i s t h e one most used in t h e management of those a f f a i r s . This program i s , however, d e f e n s i b l e only i f i t i s accompanied by an i n t e l l i g e n t a t t i t u d e toward language and i f t h e d i a l e c t i s l i b e r a l l y viewed. (1927b:137)

Compare this statement with Lowth's. It is with reason expected of every person of a liberal education and it is indispensably required of every one who undertakes to inform or entertain the public, that he should be able to express himself with propriety and accuracy. It will evidently appear from these notes, that our best authors have committed gross mistakes, for want of a due knowledge of English grammar, or at least of a proper attention to the rules of it. (1763:xii)

Both Fries and Lowth expect competence in language use among those who will be responsible for public affairs, and that language use will be defined as standard. I certainly do not want to state or even imply that Fries' and Lowth's standards are congruent. Clearly Fries argues for a usage based standard and Lowth for an authority based standard; but they both argue for a standard. However, for Fries, usage is in fact an authority in its own right. In the broadest sense, of course, establishing usage as the authority for correctness can mean

STANDARD ENGLISH

21.1

that any widespread usage is correct because there are no inherent, logical, limits in usage on what is right. But it is clear from Fries' work that he does not subscribe to such a broad scope in acceptable usage. Not only does he hold the viewpoint that the usage of those who manage the affairs of the community is to be valued as the standard for public language use, he maintains as well that good language, good English is that "which on the one hand, most fully realizes ones impressions, and, on the other, is most completely adapted to the purposes of any particular communication" (1927b:120). Fries dealt with this question directly in American English Grammar. As he notes in the preface, he worked on the materials on which he based the analysis presented in American English Grammar during the summers of 1926 and 1927, so he initiated the study at the time that he was most intensely involved in his usage studies, although it was not published until 1940. Probably in part an outgrowth of his diachronic studies, the more direct impetus was chapter six of The Teaching of the English Language. The diachronic studies explained how contemporary English derived from the past forms of the language, but they did not deal comprehensively with the current structure of the language. Likewise, The Teaching of the English Language discussed the uses of English, but did not have a published, comprehensive study of current usage as a base. If current usage was to be the authority and guide for good English, then there had to be a presentation of that current usage--a thorough, unbiased, non-correctness determined study. American English Grammar supplied that. Although I will not claim that it is the first overtly sociolinguistic study, it certainly was among the first comprehensive ones. The linguistic atlas data must share

212

JAMES C. STALKER

some of the honors, but a good many of those data were collected through the depression years and into the 1940s. On the shelf of major sociolinguistic studies, it must have a place next to such studies as Shuy's Detroit study and Labov's New York City study. However, it is distinguished from those studies because while Shuy's and Labov's studies are focused on the Black English Vernacular of a particular city, as far as we know, Fries informants were white and represented the whole geographic nation. American English Grammar was focused as well on written English, letters to a government agency, while subsequent studies have centered on spoken language. Our concerns here are primarily with the definition of standard English that Fries develops and uses in the study. Chapter one is titled "The Social Significance of Difference in Language Practice and the Obligation of the Schools." In the first paragraph of this chapter, Fries notes that English is the "most frequently required subject" in the school curriculum and says that "This support rests upon the general belief that the mastery of good English is not only the most important asset of the ambitious, but also an obligation of every good citizen" (1940:1). The book will then be a definition of good English. He says later that "the first step in fulfilling the obligation of the schools in the matter of dealing with the English language is to record, realistically and as completely as possible, the facts of...usage" (1940:5). Fries then gives a definition of standard English. On the whole, however, if we ignore the special differences that separate the speech of New England, the South, and the Middle West, we do have in the United States a set of language habits, broadly conceived, in which the major matters of the political, social, economic, educational, religious life of this country are carried on. To these language habits is attached a

STANDARD

ENGLlSH

213.

certain social prestige, for the use of them suggests that one has constant relations with those who are responsible for the important affairs of our communities. It is this set of language habits...which is the "standard" English of the United States. Enough has been said to enforce the point that it is "standard" not because it is any more correct or more beautiful or more capable than other varieties of English; it is "standard" solely because it is the particular type of English which is used in the conduct of the important affairs of our people. It is also the type of English used by the socially acceptable of most of our communities and insofar as that is true it has become a social or class dialect in the United States. (1940a:13)

The linguist's goal, as Fries makes clear in subsequent chapters and in the conclusion to the study, is not to repudiate the notion of standard English, but rather to provide a firm, objective description of standard English based on usage data. In order to provide this objective description, Fries divided his source writers into three groups--Standard, Common, and Vulgar--before assessing the language they used. His criteria were the usual ones, or rather ones that have become usual: educational level, standing in the community (i.e., status of occupation: professional, businessman, laborer) , and one that is perhaps not so usual, evidence of literacy, that is, Standard writers used punctuation, capitalization and spelling according to conventional, educated requirements. Common writers were allowed only a limited number of spelling errors, hard or unusual words, and Vulgar writers were allowed to disregard the conventions. Only people who clearly satisfied all the criteria for each group were included in the data. Fries characterizes spelling, punctuation, and capitalization as "formal" and "non-linguistic" and includes them as evidence of the level of literacy of the writers. However, to include any literacy evidence at all to define his groups is perhaps the most serious flaw in the study,

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JAMES C. STALKER

because it makes his correlation of socio-economic status with language use not entirely pure. Because the "nonlinguistic" spelling, punctuation, and capitalization rules are usually taught with the "linguistic" rules governing choice of proved or proven, who or whom, we cannot be sure that the "non-linguistic" rules are any better (or worse) evidence of literacy than the linguistic rules. All we can be sure of is that the writer is aware of them and attempting to follow them. Because spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are often included as usage matters, they should not have been used as a screening criterion in a usage study. Nonetheless, the principle of objectivity that Fries established, that the groups should be selected, then the language examined, avoided the usual paradox of the correctness definition of standard English which maintains that the best writers and speakers are the models for standard English, but which also selects a priori the linguistic features that define standard English, then finds that the best writers and speakers violate the standard. Fries' basic methodology also has become the standard practice in research in language variation. The bulk of American English Grammar is the presentation and discussion of the data, so we can draw our own conclusions. However, Fries draws his conclusions in the last chapter where he notes little variance between Standard and Vulgar English. Over and over again in the preceding chapters it appeared that the differences between the language of the educated and that of those with little education did not lie primarily in the fact that the former use one set of forms and the latter an entirely different set. In fact, in most cases, the actual deviation of the language of the uneducated from Standard English grammar seemed much less than is usually assumed,.. (1940a:288)

STANDARD ENGLISH Not o n l y i s t h e r e

little

variance,

b u t where t h e r e

u n e d u c a t e d u s a g e i s more c o n s e r v a t i v e more o l d e r

in that

forms of E n g l i s h t h a n e d u c a t e d

ing which t o t a l l y deteriorated

also finds

language,

of t h e s t a n d a r d

t h a t t h e u s a g e of h i s

group does n o t follow c u r r e n t

correctness

n e i t h e r d o e s Common o r V u l g a r

usage.

But he d o e s f i n d cated

i s , the

retains a

and u n e d u c a t e d

find of t h e

t h a t uneducated English i s a

and c o r r u p t e d v e r s i o n

Fries

it

u n d e r m i n e s one of t h e b a s i c t e n e t s

c o r r e c t n e s s v i e w of l a n g u a g e , guage.

215

rules,

an i m p o r t a n t d i f f e r e n c e

lan

Standard and

between

edu

usage.

The most s t r i k i n g d i f f e r e n c e between t h e language of t h e two groups l a y i n t h e f a c t t h a t Vulgar English seems e s s e n t i a l l y poverty s t r i c k e n . I t u s e s l e s s of t h e r e s o u r c e s of t h e language, and a few forms a r e used very f r e q u e n t l y . Get, f o r example, i n i t s many senses appears in both t h e Standard English and t h e Vulgar English m a t e r i a l s , but i t i s employed t e n times as f r e quently in t h e Vulgar English l e t t e r s as i n t h o s e of Standard E n g l i s h . . . . On t h e o t h e r hand, t h e "expanded" form of t h e function word with s u b s t a n t i v e s , an expansion which amounts t o an a n a l y s i s and emphasis on t h e p r e c i s e meaning r e l a t i o n s h i p involved, occurs only one t h i r d as often i n t h e Vulgar English l e t t e r s as in t h o s e of Standard E n g l i s h . (1940a:288) However, t h i s

s t a t e m e n t c a n n o t be i n t e r p r e t e d

s t a t e m e n t of c u l t u r a l d e p r i v a t i o n . the facts

of s y n t a c t i c

intelligence

structures,

correlates.

Fries

a s an e a r l y

is reporting

only

f o r which he assumes no

On t h e c o n t r a r y ,

Fries

concludes

from h i s s t a t e m e n t t h a t we s h o u l d t e a c h more l a n g u a g e u s e and l e s s a b o u t

language.

I t would seem t o be a sound i n f e r e n c e from t h e r e s u l t s of our study t h a t perhaps t h e major emphasis in a program of language study t h a t i s t o be e f f e c t i v e should be in providing a language experience t h a t i s d i r e c t e d toward acquaintance with and p r a c t i c e i n t h e r i c h and v a r i e d r e s o u r c e s of t h e language. (1940a:288) After American

English

Grammar,

Fries spoke but little

216

JAMES C. STALKER

on s t a n d a r d E n g l i s h or u s a g e . In h i s a d d r e s s t o t h e NCTE i n 1946 on " I m p l i c a t i o n s of Modern L i n g u i s t i c S c i e n c e " ( 1 9 4 7 a ) , he d i s m i s s e s t h e r e a l m of s t u d y t h a t he dominated from 1925 t o 1940, and i n d i r e c t l y f o r many y e a r s a f t e r . "But an e x a m i n a t i o n of t h e s h i b b o l e t h s of t h e c l a s s r o o m d o e s n o t c o n s t i t u t e any l a r g e p a r t of t h e m a t t e r s t o which t h e l i n g u i s t i c s c i e n t i s t g i v e s a t t e n t i o n " ( 1 9 4 7 a : 3 1 5 ) . He r e p e a t s h i s c o n c l u s i o n y e t once a g a i n t h a t n e i t h e r e d u c a t e d nor u n e d u c a t e d l a n g u a g e u s e r s have much immediate e f f e c t on l a n g u a g e c h a n g e , and t h e n c o n c l u d e s h i s t a l k w i t h a s t a t e ment t h a t seems t o show a d i s a p p o i n t m e n t a t t h e l a c k of e f f e c t h i s s t u d i e s have had on t h e t e a c h i n g of l a n g u a g e . In t h e t e a c h i n g of E n g l i s h , even in our t i m e s , t h e s e t e a c h e r s are s t i l l g i v i n g more time t o a study of grammar and usage than t o almost any o t h e r aspect of E n g l i s h . U n f o r t u n a t l e y , from the p o i n t of view of modern l i n g u i s t i c s c i e n c e , much of t h i s work i s not only wasted time but harmful p r a c t i c e , as w e l l . I t i s wasted time because i t employs methods and m a t e r i a l s t h a t could not p o s s i b l y a t t a i n t h e ends d e s i r e d , no m a t t e r how much time was given t o E n g l i s h . I t i s harmful p r a c t i c e because t h e h a b i t s s e t up and t h e views i n c u l c a t e d t u r n t h e s t u d e n t s away from t h e only source of r e a l knowledge--the a c t u a l language of t h e people about them. (1947a:320)

Fries seems to have abandoned his attempt to influence the teaching of English in the classroom. He has downgraded the importance of studies in usage and essentially states that the information is available for those who have sense enough to recognize it and use it. On the other hand, he has not altered his definition of standard English or the importance of social influences on that definition. In a 1955 statement on the role of structural linguistics in the teaching of English, Fries defines one level of meaning as socio-cultural. He enumerates "three layers or kinds of meaning signals": 1. the signals by which one lexical item is distinguished from another;

STANDARD ENGLISH

217

2. t h e s i g n a l s by which c e r t a i n s t r u c t u r a l meanings are distinguished; 3 . t h e s i g n a l s by which v a r i o u s k i n d s of s o c i o - c u l t u r a l meanings a r e communicated. Under t h i s l a s t c a t e g o r y , F r i e s e x p l a i n s t h a t t h e l i n g u i s t i c meanings of our u t t e r a n c e s — t h e l e x i c a l meanings and t h e s t r u c t u r a l meanings, t o which we give g r e a t a t t e n t i o n - c o n s t i t u t e only a p a r t of t h e t o t a l meaning of t h e s e u t t e r a n c e s as they function practically in a society.... The u t t e r a n c e s of a language t h a t function p r a c t i c a l l y in a s o c i e t y t h e r e f o r e a l ways have both l i n g u i s t i c meaning and s o c i o - c u l t u r a l meaning. (1955:299-300)

Because language functions in society, not in isolation, it is necessary to recognize that there is a social component to the meaning of the language we use. In other words, there is a standard English defined in part by the social standing of the user and in part by the listeners' reactions to that user and his dialect. Fries' contributions to the literature on standard English are two-fold. Through his studies he brought the insistence on data analysis found in historical studies of the language to contemporary studies, and in this he was in the tradition of such men as Otto Jespersen. His original contribution was to turn that analysis to the question of correctness versus usage and to explore the ramifications of usage versus reason and logic as guiding principles in language education. His explorations led to the conclusion that if grammar books were to be of use to language learners, then they must state the facts of language rather than repeat the rules of yesteryear--even if those rules had been accurate statements when they were made. (See Taglicht (1970) on shall and will.) As we have seen, Fries always accepted a standard English; he was concerned with its definition, not its

218

JAMES C. STALKER

existence. Grammar

However, his conclusion in American

English

that there was little difference in the language of

the Standard and Vulgar groups in his study, and his cumulative evidence that Standard was in fact a social dialect rather than the clearest and most precise use of language opened the way for later researchers to both dispute the existence of a standard English or to maintain that there should not be one.

That is, he opened the door to current

studies in language variation, especially those studies which look quite closely at the structures and functions of nonprestige dialects.

Until correctness and usage had

been contrasted, explored, and documented, revealing questions about standard English could not be asked, nor a clear view of the practical matter of teaching English be gained.

REFERENCES

Fries, Charles C. (1925a). The Periphrastic Future With Shall Will in Modern English. PMLA 40:963-1024. Fries, Charles C. (1925b). What is Good English? The Journal 14:685-697. Fries, Charles C. (1927a). PMLA 42:221-237.

and

English

The Rules of Common School Grammars.

Fries, Charles C (1927b). The Teaching New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons.

of the English

Language.

Fries, Charles C (1938). Some Notes on the Inflected Genitive in Present-Day English. Language 14:121-133. Fries, Charles C (1940a). American English Appleton Century.

Grammar.

New York:

Fries, Charles C (1940b). On the Development of the Structural Use of Word-Order in Modern English. Language 16:199-208.

219

STANDARD ENGLISH

Fries, Charles C. (1947a). Implications of Modern Linguistic Science. College English 8:314-320. Fries, Charles C. (1947b). Usage Levels and Dialect Distribution. In Clarence Barnhardt (Ed.), American College Dictionary, xxixxxx. New York: Random House. Fries, Charles C. (1955). American Linguistics and the Teaching of English. Revue des Langues Vivantes 21:294-310. Fries, Charles C., James Holley Hanford, and Harrison Ross Steeves. (1926). The Teaching of Literature. New York: silver Burdett and Company. Greene, Theodore M., Charles C. Fries, Henry M. Wriston, and William Dighton. (1943) . Liberal Education Re-Examined: Its Role in a Democracy. New York: Harper and Brothers. Lowth, Robert. (1763). A Short Introduction to English Grammar With Critical Notes. London: Printed for A. Millar, in the Strand: and R. and J. Dodsley, in Pail-Mall. Taglicht, J. (1970). The Genesis of the Conventional Rules for the Use of Shall and Will. English Studies 51:193-213. Wallis, John. (1653). Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae. Schultzen.

Hamburg: G.

Ward, William. (1765). An Essay on Grammar As It May Be Applied the English Language. London: for Robert Horsfield.

to

1946

1961 In Japan with Agnes Fries and Archibald Hill

FRIES AND LINGUISTIC GEOGRAPHY

Raven I. McDavid, Jr. and Virginia G. McDavid1

In his corner of Valhalla, Fries must be shaking his head in wry amusement over the well-publicized decision of a Federal judge to require teachers in the Ann Arbor public schools to undergo special sensitivity training in linguistic differences to cope with the traumata that black children from public housing projects undergo in their exposure to elementary education. He would be further amused that the judge did not feel it necessary--nor did any of the plaintiffs' platoon of experts--to insist that sensitivity to cultural differences should be color blind ; that the same respect should be extended to those whose speech patterns are different from the prevailing Ann Arbor educated norm,but who have the misfortune to be white.2 His amusement would have become tinged with distress, however, on learning that the Ann Arbor school board was so intimidated by the lynching posse mustered by the plaintiffs that it failed to appeal the decision. He would have felt even more distress to learn that among the leaders of the posse were putative linguists from the departments of English and linguistics that he had adorned for so many years, and that

222

McDAVID AND McDAVID

these were able to convince the judge that they represented the consensus of American linguists, since no linguists had testified on the part of the school board.3 To those who remember Fries as a teacher there is more than a little irony in the narrow focus of the Ann Arbor case. Emphasizing that a primary obligation of American schools is to see that students master the usage of the educated while acquiring fluency, facility, and versatility in expressing themselves (American English Grammar, ch. 3 ) , he also recognized that linguistic propriety is not a simple binary opposition between good and bad but that each situation in which human beings communicate involves many interlocking dimensions (see Allen, 1964:272-272; Joos, 1962ab; R. McDavid, 1967b). For some dimensions the speaker or writer must rely on his own social experience for intelligent judgment: H o o s i e r is generally innocuous today when used to or about those who live in Indiana; in the Southern uplands it connotes rusticity, a cruder type of hillbilly; in St. Louis it is a fighting word. For three dimensions, however--the historical, regional, and social--one needs extensive reading, or at least informed instruction based on teachers' familiarity with the evidence. This evidence is to be found in a variety of reference works: historical grammars, from Jespersen and Poutsma to Visser and Quirk; historical dictionaries, such as the Oxford and the works modeled upon it; and the linguistic atlases. Although summary statements are helpful, the original evidence must always be accessible, so that later observers may replicate or revise the conclusions of their predecessors, and use the earlier statements as points of departure for new investigations, especially those dealing with a later state of the language. Fries was not only familiar with these reference

LINGUISTIC GEOGRAPHY

223

works, and saw to it that his students acquired the same sort of familiarity; he contributed to this kind of basic knowledge through his own research. He produced several important studies of the status of particular linguistic forms over the centuries, notably shall and will; he launched the Dictionary of Early Modern English, whose materials, even unedited, are invaluable; he approached the problems of usage and descriptive grammar in two rigorously defined works, the American

English

Grammar

(1940) and The

Structure of English (1952). However, objectivity in language matters is not always appreciated (see Bloomfield, 1944). Because Fries' studies indicated that many of the cherished shibboleths in the handbooks had no basis in fact, he was under frequent fire from the self-appointed guardians of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Hardly a year passed without some attack in the Detroit newspapers. In Warfel's diatribe Who Killer Grammar? (1952) Fries is depicted as the arch-villain; in the attack on the Merriam Third of 1961 he appeared as a sinister force behind the degradation of the language at the hands of the National Council of Teachers of English and other agencies in whose activities he had taken part (no matter that repeatedly, especially in the concluding chapter of the American English Grammar, he has emphasized the fact that the real difference between "Standard English" and "Vulgar English"--to take his terms--lies less in the observation of grammatical shibboleths than in the fluency, facility and versatility with which the language is used). Details such as like as conjunction, it's me, and the reason is because were not acceptable to these purists, no matter how often they had been used by the best writers. Even within the University there were those who decried Fries' objectivity, especially those in the

22 4

McDAVID AND McDAVID

D e p a r t m e n t of

Speech.4

As F r i e s p u t i t r e p e a t e d l y , t h e o r e t i c a l f a n c y i s a p l e a s a n t e x e r c i s e , b u t s c i e n t i s t s s h o u l d be c a u t i o u s a b o u t d e p a r t i n g from o b s e r v a b l e d a t a . G r e a t t h e o r e t i c a l l e a p s can l e a v e one f l o u n d e r i n g i n a m o r a s s . The need t o work w i t h a c o r p u s was e m p h a s i z e d , p a r t i c u l a r l y , i n t h e seminar which he and Al Marckwardt s h a r e d on t h e r i s e and d e v e l o p m e n t of s t a n d a r d E n g l i s h . Marck w a r d t t o o k t h e f i r s t s e m e s t e r , d e a l i n g w i t h l e x i c o n and p h o n o l o g y ; F r i e s t h e s e c o n d , d e a l i n g w i t h morphology and syntax. Both s e m e s t e r s d i s c o u n t e d t h e o r y i n f a v o r of t h e c l o s e e x a m i n a t i o n of t e x t s , an e x a m i n a t i o n which c a l l e d f o r t h e s t u d e n t s t o do a good d e a l of c o u n t i n g . Perhaps t h e s t a t i s t i c s were u n s o p h i s t i c a t e d by s t a n d a r d s we have a c h i e v e d t o d a y , b u t t h e r e were a t l e a s t numbers and c o n texts. One of t h e most i n t e r e s t i n g d e t a i l s of E n g l i s h grammar which F r i e s d i s c u s s e d i n h i s seminar i n v o l v e d t h e c o m p e t i t i o n between hem and them a s o b j e c t - f o r m s of t h e t h i r d p e r son p l u r a l p r o n o u n : . . . i f we were l i v i n g i n London a t t h e c l o s e of t h e f i r s t q u a r t e r of t h e f i f t e e n t h c e n t u r y , t h e bare f a c t t h a t t h e a l t e r n a t i v e pronoun forms them and hem were used with a r e l a t i v e frequency of approximatley 20 p e r cent of them t o 80 p e r cent of hem would t e l l us l i t t l e without t h e knowledge t h a t hem was t h e form t h a t was being superseded and t h a t t h e tendency t o use them in i t s p l a c e had already progressed one f i f t h of t h e way along which the forms they and their had a l r e a d y gone much f a r t h e r . ( F r i e s , 1940:38)

The evidence in the seminar went deeper than this. Before approaching the usage of the early fifteenth century (or indeed that of the late fourteenth, as represented by Chaucer on one hand and on the other by the first petition to Parliament in English), we had examined in detail two versions of an Ælfric sermon (set down in 1000 and 1100 AD),

LINGUISTIC GEOGRAPHY

22 5

the Poema Morale of 1200 and Robert of Gloucester's metrical chronicle of 13 00, to understand changes in time within the West Saxon literary dialect. Then, to see geographical differences at a particular time, we had turned to the Northern Cursor Mundi of about 1300, and finally to the Londoner Adam Davy's 1307 dreams about Edward II, before turning to the English of Chaucer's time. Adam Davy had no examples of they , their or them; but all were normal usage in the Cursor Mundi, along with other forms not yet in use in London but later to be established there. The presentation, with conclusions based on the rigorous inductive analysis of the evidence, showed that historical change was often influenced by the prestige of regional patterns, and that linguistic geography, of which we were both tolerable practitioners by this time, especially in its synchronic aspects, was part of the evidence needed to assay linguistic change.5 So, keenly aware of linguistic geography in Middle English, and coming from an area where local diversity reflected the colonial interests of Yankees and Quakers and Germans, Fries saw its importance to those who would understand the competing prestige of linguistic forms in North America. For this we rely not only on Fries' publications but on conversation with him and his colleagues, and on the extensive correspondence of Hans Kurath about the Linguistic Atlas project. When John Manly (who preceded Raven I. McDavid as a student at Furman University and as professor at the University of Chicago) reorganized the structure of the national conventions of the Modern Language Association, Fries was one of the members who established the section for the study of present-day English in 1920--along with Kurath, Manly, Charles Grandgent and Samuel Moore (whom

226

McDAVID AND McDAVID

Fries joined at the University of Michigan). Throughout his life, Fries was actively interested in this section; he contributed many papers, served as secretary and chairman and member of its executive committee, and participated in the lively discussions which--under Kurath's leadership --led the section to draw up plans for a study of regional differences in American English. He was active in securing the endorsement of the Linguistic Atlas project in 1928 by the NCTE and the MLA, though he was unable to attend the New Haven conference in August 192 9 which formally established the project, he was active in the exchange of views which made Kurath the Director. The American

English

Grammar,

which concentrated on

social differences as reflected in personal correspondence, specifically indicates interest in doing a similar study of regional differences. Though Fries gathered some evidence to be analyzed for such a study--notably a collection of materials from local newspapers throughout the United States--he never actively pursued it. His interest, however, is reflected not only in his support of the Atlas project, but in his continuing concern for the long-deferred dialect dictionary, first proposed by the American Dialect Society in 1889. A member of the ADS from 1917, he took part in the discussions beginning in 1948 that led to revived interest in the project, and ultimately to its successful completion by Frederic G. Cassidy of Wisconsin, who had studied with Fries and Marckwardt at Michigan.6 But most important of the ways in which Fries advanced the study of linguistic geography was his continuing concern with the regional linguistic atlases. Three of the five Linguistic Institutes directed by Fries before World War II (1936, 1937, 1940) offered courses in field methods in American linguistic geography--an offering that

LINGUISTIC GEOGRAPHY

227

continued on the Institute program well into the 1950s. Kurath was one of three visiting faculty members for the 1936 Institute, and he was assisted by Guy S. Lowman, Jr., principal field investigator for the Atlas project till his death in 1941; the courses in 1937 and 1940 were both offered by Bernard Bloch, assistant editor of the Linguistic Atlas of New England, whose later distinction as theorist and editor has caused historians of linguistics to overlook his superb work as a field phonetician and teacher of phonetics. (He also taught the course at the Ann Arbor Institute of 1947.7) The roster of these seminars is a remarkable one; among the participants—some of whom became distinguished in other fields—were Harold Allen, Barbara and Dave Maurer, Grace and Al Marckwardt, Charles Hockett, Henry Lee Smith, Jr., John Echols, John Watson, Kenneth Pike, William Wonderly, and James Tidwell. The inclusion of the Atlas staff in Fries' Institutes was not purely altruistic, nor a gesture of friendship toward Kurath. Like Kurath and others, Fries was skeptical of the validity of the concept of a uniform "General American": two of those who publicized the term, John S. Kenyon and George Philip Krapp, were Ohioans, but from the Western Reserve and Cincinnati respectively, with one of the strongest dialect boundaries of the New World between them. After the 1937 Institute, Marckwardt suggested to Kurath an investigation of the Great Lakes region and the Ohio Valley; with characteristic generosity, Kurath not only endorsed the project and recommended investigators for the preliminary survey (the generalized short work sheets for the Atlas were designed for this stage of the North-Central project), but suggested that it include not merely the old Northwest Territory but the western parts of Pennsylvania and New York as well. (When funds for

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McDAVID AND McDAVID

surveying these areas later became available--they were not forseen in 1938--they were included in the plans for an Atlas of the Middle Atlantic States, merged with the South Atlantic Atlas in 1945.) For administrative reasons-Marckwardt was a junior member of the Michigan faculty in 1938--Fries appears as director of the survey in the first report to the American Council of Learned Societies, but he soon handed over the reins to Marckwardt. This was in keeping with Fries' policy of bringing younger scholars into linguistic research and giving them responsibility, since there is more than enough work for everybody. The Atlas of the North-Central States bore Fries' imprint almost as much as Marckwardt's. Several of the field workers were trained in the Ann Arbor Institutes or had studied with Fries: Allen, Cassidy, A.L. Davis, Virginia McDavid, and Raven McDavid; on Marckwardt's death in 1975, these last three became the most active members of the committee that has since supervised the publication of the field records by microfilm and the editing of the summary volumes.8 Fries was also responsible for the fact that the dialect archives for the Atlantic Seaboard--the field books and list manuscripts for the published Linguistic Atlas of New England and the files for the Middle and South Atlantic States--were brought to Michigan. Although the Dictionary of Early Modern English was the original project of the Ann Arbor English department, it was soon joined by the materials for the Middle English Dictionary , begun at Cornell; Samuel Moore and then Thomas A. Knott became editor. With the deepening depression, it was apparent that one large-scale dictionary was all that Michigan could honestly support; and since the growing threat of war led Fries to devote greater parts of his time to

LINGUISTIC GEOGRAPHY

22 9

teaching English as a second language, it was logical to give the Middle English Dictionary priority, since it would involve sifting a much smaller body of evidence and would provide background for the Dictionary of Early Modern English whenever Michigan could provide additional funds.9 On Knott's death in 19 45 Fries became,for a second time, godfather to the Middle English Dictionary. With the New England Atlas published and editorial work proceeding slowly for the Middle and South Atlantic States, Kurath appeared available. Thanks to the strong representations of Fries, he was persuaded to leave Brown for Michigan and a new kind of editorial work. Although there was some skepticism about the appointment--Kurath was not known as a student of Middle English--the steady progress of the Middle English Dictionary, though for many years the staff was very small, has fully vindicated it. When Kurath came to Michigan, it was hoped—indeed it was an informal unwritten part of the arrangement--that Michigan would provide support for continuing editorial work on the Atlas. But though a great deal of interpretative work was done--much by students who were also teaching with Fries in the English Language Institute--no candidate arose in the Michigan faculty who might provide the kind of single-minded leadership necessary. Though some promising outsiders appeared, it was impossible to make appointments without external funds, and they were not forthcoming (in all of his professional activities, Kurath naturally placed the Middle English Dictionary first as a commitment). To these outsiders Fries always offered encouragement; he took great satisfaction when their distinction made them expensive properties. Language Learning, begun by Fries' junior colleagues in the English Language Institute, was an outlet for linguistic geographers as well as for other

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McDAVID AND McDAVID

kinds of linguists; the summer linguistic forums, a feature of Fries' Institutes from the beginning, provided opportunities for airing interpretations of the data.

Like many

others who had found their way into American English through the Ann Arbor Institutes, we both felt that Michigan was one of our academic homes, which we were always happy to visit, for professional and personal refreshment. The dedication of Fries to objective examination of the data as the basis for valid theories extended to occasions on which we happened to refute one of the conclusions

he had drawn from his evidence. In The Structure of English he stated that though two types of two-object sentences could be found--indirect object plus direct object, and direct object plus objective complement--three-object sentences did not occur. In our skepticism, we tried to think of a counter example, but none came naturally (an experience which has since made us doubly skeptical of introspective techniques and intuitive judgments of grammaticality, recently publicized by other schools of linguists); so we forgot the issue. Then eighteen months later, in a political discussion over the telephone, we produced an example without thinking of it: "We've elected us Ike president, and now we're stuck with him."10 Later we noticed a few other examples. Such three-object sentences are not common, but their existence must be recognized. Fries was pleased, as all good scholars are pleased when an older statement is revised in the light of new evidence, and particularly when the revision is made by a journeyman from the same guild. It is a mark of greatness in a scholar to encourage this kind of revision, as we have found not only with Fries but with Kurath and with the Miltonist Sir Allan Gilbert (see R. McDavid 1954, 1972, 1981).

LINGUISTIC GEOGRAPHY

231

We were not as closely associated with Fries as some others were, such as Pike and Allen; our professional interests made us more deeply involved with Kurath and Marckwardt. But we always found him stimulating, whether in a class, a special lecture, a discussion at a meeting, or simply in casual conversation. We found him, as many did, a catalyst, through whose agency we developed ideas and interests that we might never have had otherwise. The atmosphere of his Institutes, in particular, encouraged the kind of free informal discussion out of which develops personal and professional growth: it is hard to think of something like "Summer Limericks" (Kent, 1938) coming out of some of the other institutions where Institutes have been held. The last time we had contact with Fries was at the 1967 Bucharest International Congress of Linguists. Regrettably, only Raven I. McDavid was there. It is still a vivid recollection--walking into the dining room of the Athenee-Palas to find him and Agnes, fresh off the Russian boat they had taken down the Danube. During the week of the Congress there were many such informal meetings, at which the humanity and good linguistic sense of Fries were always in evidence, along with his apparently inexhaustible energy. No topic was too recondite or too trivial for lively conversation--the structure of the Congress, the omnipresence of Big Brother, the Woolworthian bad taste of the Hohenzollern summer palace at Sinaia, and the high cost of orange juice. When we heard of his death later that fall, it was with less recognition of loss than with admiration for someone who had lived his life fully to the last, and who had provided a model of energy, honesty,and generosity.

23 2

McDAVID AND McDAVID FOOTNOTES

This paper reflects the experience of both of us with the Linguistic Atlas project and our association with Fries, beginning for Raven I. McDavid with the Linguistic Institute of 1937 and for Virginia G. McDavid with that of 1947. It attempts to do justice to the experience of both of us; first person singular statements concern the experience of Raven I. McDavid. 2

0n a national scale one recalls how the soi-disant Eastern and Midwestern liberals, who sought to legitimize the speech of uneducated blacks, poked fun at the speech of educated Southern whites like Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter.

3

4

I was shocked to hear one of the ringleaders boast of this at a professional meeting; to one who had learned linguistics in Ann Arbor it was inconceivable that no Colonel Sherburne had arisen to face down the mob, however pious its pretensions. I would have essayed the role, but was not asked; nor was Juanita Williamson, black herself and a teacher in a predominantly black urban college, as well as a student of Kurath and Fries. (Raven I. McDavid)

Personally,I encountered the prejudice at Michigan in the summer of 1937. Advised by my college president (a Florida cracker who at West Point had enjoyed the ministrations of a broken-down actor) to do something about my unimpressive speech, I dutifully attended a course in "stage and radio diction" (= pronunciation) offered by the head of the speech department. Every non-Michigan pronunciation I used--no matter how well attested by educated people I had known--became the target for professorial humor. Fortunately, I spent most of my time at the Linguistic Institute, where the sub-Potomac quality of my speech was noted with a different attitude: as evidence of the diversity of educated American usage. On the advice of Fries and Bloch I resolved and continued to do what came naturally. (Raven I. McDavid)

5

A student of Harold Allen, Virginia G. McDavid already knew this, but on me it had an impact comparable to that of linguistic geography in 1937. From 1967 I have repeatedly emphasized the interplay of historical, geographical and social variation, much to the displeasure of some who enunciated simplistic theories. Fries also warned against too wide extrapolation from the fate of a single paradigm; what was true of the personal pronouns was not necessarily true of relative pronouns. Although they replaced hie long before them replaced hem, a study of the relative pronouns in the 1540 Book of Common Prayer found that still predominant as clause-

LINGUISTIC GEOGRAPHY

23 3

subject with personal antecedent, whether the clause was restrictive or non-restrictive, and which far more common than who-, but as object of a verb or as object of a preposition, whom was established usage. Nor did the periphrastic use of do develop pari passu in interrogative and in negative constructions. (Raven I. McDavid) 6

Awareness of linguistic geography is also shown in Pike's Intonation of American English (1945) , one of the first works published under the auspices of Fries' English Language Institute. Though the treatment is brief, it remains the only serious discussion of regional differences in American intonation. Bloch was probably the nearest American analog to the Britons Daniel Jones and A.C. Gimson as a successful teacher of phonetics. In the calibration of field transcriptions (a necessary exercise for linguistic geographers as well as an entertaining parlor game) those who have studied with Bloch have shown remarkable consistency: Alva Davis, James Downer, Raven I. McDavid and Virginia G. McDavid have repeatedly demonstrated this since 1947. I have a particular affection for Bloch, who found in me an interest and aptitude in phonetics despite little formal training, and developed my skill in transcription to the point where Kurath was ready to use me. (Raven I. McDavid)

8

Allen spun off the Atlas of the Upper Midwest, the second regional survey to achieve publication. Another of Fries' students, David W. Reed, has directed the Atlas of the Pacific Coast (California and Nevada), whose field records are available on microfilm (Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley), with further editing in progress.

9

Regrettably, editing has never been resumed--not only because funds have been lacking but even more because Michigan has found no one with the ability, energy and interest to take charge. Major projects demand major commitment.

10

Virginia G. McDavid overheard the conversation and recognized the utterance of an impossible structure before Raven I. McDavid realized what he had said.

REFERENCES

Allen, Harold B. (2nd ed.).

(1964). Readings New York:

in Applied

English

Appleton Century Crofts.

Linguistics,

2 34

McDAVID AND McDAVID

Allen, Harold B. (1973-6). Linguistic Atlas of the Upper Midwest. vol. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

3

Bloomfield, Leonard. (1944) . Secondary and Tertiary Responses to Language. Language 20:45-55. Fries, Charles C. (1940). American English pleton Century. Fries, Charles C. (1952). court Brace.

The Structure

Grammar.

New York: Ap-

of English.

New York: Har-

Gove, Philip B., et al. (1961). Webster's Third New Dictionary. Springfield, MA: G and C Merriam.

International

Joos, Martin. (1962a). The Five Clocks. Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore and Linguistics, Publication 22. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University. Joos, Martin. (1962b). Homeostasis in English Usage. College sition and Communication 13:18-22.

Compo-

Kent, Roland G. (1938). Summer Limericks (perhaps some aren't) by members of the 1938 Linguistic Institute. Ann Arbor: Privately mimeographed. Kurath, Hans, et al. (1939-43). Linguistic Atlas of New England. 3 vol., bound as 6. Providence, RI : Brown University for the American Council of Learned Societies. Reprinted 1972, 3 vol., New York: AMS Press. Kurath, Hans. (1952-). Middle English Dictionary. The University of Michigan Press. McDavid, Raven I., Jr. tion. Philological

(1954). Samson Agonistes Quarterly. 33:86-89.

Ann Arbor, MI: 1096: A Reexamina-

McDavid, Raven I., Jr. (1967a). Historical, Regional and Social Variation. Journal of English Linguistics 1:25-40. McDavid, Raven I., Jr. (1967b). System and Variety in American English. In Alexander Frazer (Ed.), New Directions in American English, 125-139. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. McDavid, Raven I. , Jr. (1972) . Carry You Borne Once More. Studies Presented to Tauno Mustanoja. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 73:192-195.

235

LINGUISTIC GEOGRAPHY

McDavid, Raven I., Jr. (1981). Low-Back Vowels in Providence: A Note in Structural Dialectology. Journal of English Linguistics 15:21-29. Murray, James A.J. , Henry Bradley, W.A. Craigie, and C.T. Onions (Eds.). (1933). The Oxford English Dictionary. Vols. 1-12. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pike, Kenneth L. (1945). The Intonation of American Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Warfel, Harry. (1952). Who Killed University of Florida Press.

English.

Ann

Grammar? Gainsville, FL: The

Williamson, Juanita V. (1968). A Phonological and Morphological Study of the Speech of the Negro of Memphis, Tennessee. Publi-

cation of the American Dialect Society

50.

About 19 57 In New York

FRIES' FUNCTIONALISM

Mackie J.V. Blanton

Though the proliferation of language models seems preeminent in contemporary linguistic thinking (Richards and Rodgers 198 2) , there is great virtue in being rudimentary, material, and familiar; for when the purpose is historical reexamination, our fundamental tendency should be a return of our attention to former linguistic perceptions. The advantage of proceeding from the familiar to the new suggests using the topic of language and linguistic perceptions as an introductory springboard to a study of linguistic history. Hence, reexaminations and studies of the influence of the thought of Charles Carpenter Fries, like any important work in the history of knowledge, involves a rediscovery of truisms so obvious that we have quite likely forgotten their significance altogether. They revive a classical perspective in traditional linguistic thought which can be applied most effectively in studying contemporary language models and theories and in seeking to understand the true nature of some aspects of language cognition in our modern times. By language cognition, I mean the using and the making of language, and the experience of language by the

2 38

MACKIE J . V .

language user

and m a k e r .

However u n s y m p a t h e t i c

suaded the g e n e r a l r e a d e r might p l a n a t i o n of

language cognition,

t h e whole p a t t e r n than the

of F r i e s '

t e n c e grammar,

by t h e

characteristic

torical,

cultural,

amounted t o no

ex

20s or

3 0 s n o r m e r e l y of

and t o n e .

that

less

language in the

sense

To F r i e s

sen lan

value but differed

Discourse development,

o f human d e v e l o p m e n t ,

social,

unper-

soon becomes c l e a r

structural

t h e i r discourse development. highest

it

or

be t o t h i s

n o t of

b u t of d i s c o u r s e

guages were equal in t h e i r

initially

thinking

s t u d y of r h e t o r i c ,

t h a t was t r a d i t i o n a l

BLANTON

and l a n g u a g e

entailed

in

the his

development.

Human D e v e l o p m e n t Language > S o c i e t y > C u l t u r e > H i s t o r y > D i s c o u r s e

As we e x p l o r e F r i e s i a n guistics,

thinking

we r e m a r k i n t h e t o t a l i t y

on l a n g u a g e a n d

lin

of h i s w o r k a b e l i e f

in

•a c o g n i t i v e adaptive behavior i n t h e l e a r n e r •an i n d u c t i o n t o deduction t o i n d u c t i o n r e l a t i o n s h i p between l e a r n e r and s u b j e c t m a t t e r , l e a r n e r and t e a c h e r , t e a c h e r and l i n g u i s t - a s - t e a c h e r - t r a i n e r , and, f i n a l l y , between l i n g u i s t and language d a t a , t h e o r e t i c and pedagogic • a t t r i b u t e s peculiar t o a successful

learner

•a t e a c h e r as communicative f a c i l i t a t o r

( r a t h e r than as stimulus)

•an i n t e r p r e t i v e force i n h e r e n t t o r e a d e r s and l i s t e n e r s •a reshaping of h i s t o r i c a l - c u l t u r a l experiences as t h e value b a s i c t o l i t e r a t u r e and language l e a r n i n g

One s e n s e s t h a t , w r i t i n g f o r t h e f i r s t t i m e i n 1918, F r i e s w r o t e o n l y a f t e r he had come t o c o n c e i v e of an e n t i r e h u m a n i s t i c u n i v e r s e . He w r o t e from an i n n e r s o u r c e of

FUNCTIONALISM

2 39

thought that would surrender constantly, until 1967, to the shaping of the world of historical and cultural experience. It was as though he first had to discover the primacy of human experience; as though he first had to discover that human experience was the essential tie binding the inner life to outward acts; as though, before he could write a public word, he first had to discover a great theme that could guide his intellectual life. Henceforth, garnering evidence from here and there, from intellectual history, from the history of education, from philosophy and social humanism, which would confirm his belief in the primacy of human experience, Fries was to concentrate his analytic and pedagogic energy on the scientific study of literature, language, and education, and on the humanistic principles that governed how each enterprise contributed to the total experience of the individual. The student was for Fries a questing individual. Noting the feature of Greek tragedy which he was to claim to be its limitation, he commented that in Aeschylus 1 Choephorae,

Sophocles'

Eleetra,

and

Euripides'

Electva

[t]he power of Greek tragedy lay in situation and in action significant in the light of situation. The conditions in which the characters are placed, and the things they do, make the interest of the Greek dramas , (Fries, 1918:13)

The v a l u e of S h a k e s p e a r e ' s a r t , therefore, portraiture spirit.

h o w e v e r , and t h e m e r i t ,

of t h e modern w e s t e r n w o r l d was t h e

emphatic

of t h e g r o w t h and d e v e l o p m e n t of t h e human

What we l e a r n from F r i e s i s t h a t

for

t h e modern

w e s t e r n world the play of human motive holds the center of attention; actions and situation have significance not as ends in themselves but as they serve to illuminate and objectify the development of

2 40

MACKIE J . V .

BLANTON

t h e i n n e r l i f e of t h e c h a r a c t e r s . ( F r i e s , 1918:14)

Fries was not denying action and situation their elemental value in human conditions; nor was he attributing exclusive importance to an inner life. He felt rather that the contribution of modern scholarship and art was their attention to human development, and that the theme of human development shaped modern experience when the inner growth of human character and situation resonated throughout one's theory and art. Hence, the growth of the human spirit had to be the great theme of all scholars—of scientists and artists. Thus, two years before he was to leave Bucknell University in 1920 (at the age of thirty-three) as full professor, in order to go as a doctoral candidate to the University of Michigan, where he was to receive his Ph.D. in 1922, Charles Carpenter Fries, writing ostensibly on Shakespeare's great advance beyond the Greek tragedians, was reflecting for the first time in print on the grand, vital, timeless theme that was to guide his scholarship until his death in 1967: that "man's spirit, its growth and development, constitutes the most important part of life" (Fries, 1918:12). Reading (for reexamination or otherwise) Fries' first work, "The Greek Tragedies and Shakespeare," and then all or much of his subsequent work, one sees that Fries' belief in the development of the human spirit permeated all of his scholarship: linguistic, philosophical, psychological, educational--and controlled his assumptions regarding human language and human learning, his principles regarding linguistic science, and his practices regarding language and literature pedagogy. Fries' 1918 piece on Shakespeare and the Greek tragedians does more than simply afford us a look at the

FUNCTIONALISM literary life;

tradition

in this

of a m a l g a m a t i n g

last quarter

situation

of t h e t w e n t i e t h

l o o k beyond t h e work t o i t s a u t h o r , Fries late

felt

and t h e

inner

century,

a s we

we s e e t h a t ,

t h i s t r a d i t i o n was o u r s t o i n h e r i t ,

i n t o our f u l l e r

a place

2 41

experiences,

i n h i s own s c i e n t i f i c

because

to

assimi

t h i s very t r a d i t i o n

found

work.

"The p r i m a r y and i m m e d i a t e aim i n t h e t e a c h i n g of literature

is that

o u r s t u d e n t s may r e c e i v e

perience,"

F r i e s was t o c o n t i n u e

what was t o be t h e p r o p e r t o come

object

(Fries e t a l , 1926:54).

i n 1926, naming of a l l o f h i s His philosophy

ence i s today t h e key t o our u n d e r s t a n d i n g tor. of

In fact,

Literature,

goals

as

i n an e x p l i c i t Fries

offers

a literary

footnote

us a c l e a r

ex-

finally

scholarship of

Fries

as

experi educa

i n h i s The

Teaching

idealization

of h i s

educator:

We cannot afford t o make l i t e r a t u r e t h e t e x t from which t o t e a c h m o r a l s , e t h i c s , high i d e a s , p a t r i o t i s m , i n t e r n a t i o n a l good w i l l . Such a choice and use of l i t e r a t u r e s u b s t i t u t e s t h e t e a c h e r ' s p o i n t of view f o r t h a t of t h e a u t h o r ; t h e t e a c h e r , i n stead of removing d i f f i c u l t i e s , t h u s i n t e r p o s e s o b s t a c l e s t o allowing t h e mind of t h e l i t e r a r y a r t i s t t o make by i n t i m a t e c o n t a c t i t s own impression upon t h e pupil. 1 ( F r i e s e t a l , 1926:53) Fries' theory of mind, of experience, of learning was functionalist in perspective:

it was a specific system of

interrelated experiential and cultural constructs, inferred for heuristic purposes.

Thus, for Fries, these constructs

--which as educator he found first in literature and later, as linguist, in language—operate to resolve large human problems and, therefore, contribute to the development of the social spirit of a learning mankind. Understanding Fries as educator is tantamount to our understanding him as linguist.

His initial aim was to make

literature and language more coordinated in the school system.

He saw that when students understood language as well

2 42

MACKIE J . V . BLANTON

a s t h e y m i g h t know l i t e r a t u r e ,

t h e y t h e n knew

t h e o n l y way t h e y c o u l d b e t t e r

know t h e m s e l v e s w a s t o e x

perience not only t h e formal p o s s i b i l i t i e s

themselves;

of d i s c o u r s e

but

a l s o t h e c u l t u r e r e a l i z e d by l a n g u a g e . The c o n c e p t s of e x p e r i e n c e s e n s e of h i s t o r y , i t must be c l e a r

that

multiple

want t o s a t i s f y others

something.

thinking;

justification

their

would want t o l e a r n

heritage

garner the correct learning, native

The h i s t o r y

holistic

But

scholarship

curiosity,

would

f o r why o n e

a n d f o r why o n e w o u l d of t h e E n g l i s h actual

(i.e.,

teach

l a n g u a g e was

native)

or

t h e s t u d e n t had only

s e t of h a b i t s

for

h i s or her a c t u a l or

o r p o t e n t i a l new c u l t u r e .

in his translation

and a

work.

n o , they were t o be t h e

and, therefore,

and r e a l i z i n g

culture,

about t h i s

Fries'

f o r why s t u d e n t s

intellectual

something,

a l r e a d y p a r t of t h e s t u d e n t ' s potential

a l l of

they d i d n o t inform h i s

as mere g u i d e s t o l u c i d rational,

a n d human g r o w t h ,

were t o pervade

o f The Battle

to

experiencing, potential

F r i e s was c l e a r of

Maldon:

Nowhere i n Old English p o e t r y can one obtain a c l e a r e r r e a l i z a t i o n of some of t h e f e e l i n g s and motives which dominated our a n c e s t o r s . . . . One must f e e l with them t h e weight of those s o c i a l p r e s s u r e s t h a t played so l a r g e a p a r t i n forming t h e i r a t t i t u d e s toward l i f e , and t h e v a l i d i t y of t h o s e measures by which they considered some t h i n g s honorable and praiseworthy and o t h e r s d i s g r a c e f u l and b a s e . (1925:"Preface") Fries' concept of literary experience rested on what to teach meant to him (1926:49-53).

He reasoned that a

sound educational philosophy can not be derived directly from teacher opinion, nor from frequency studies of the current, favored activities of a society, nor from the combined judgments of school boards and prominent citizens. Moreover, in deciding what the teaching of literature entailed, he understood that it did not include merely knowing the facts of literary history, such as, for example,

FUNCTIONALISM

2 43

that Milton, many years before Paradise Lost was begun, had noted the possibility of its subject matter for some such later work; or that a younger Wordsworth had embraced the principles of the French Revolution. Nor did the teaching of literature mean merely transferring facts regarding the literary work to be read, as, for example, that Chaucer's Prioress spoke an Anglicized French and not that of Paris. Nor, finally, was the literature to be read to be treated as a source for moral or ethical philosophy. We must not conclude from these dicta of his that Fries overlooked the myriad mundane events that constitute social life. To make sense of concrete events (to interpret them within a cultural context) typically requires linking them with abstract principles. Fries' abstract principles lay in his concept of what meaning entailed. He was fond of citing Dewey (Fries, 1927:110; Fries et al, 1940:30), especially such observations of Dewey's as the following: .... Since intellectual life depends on possession of a store of meanings, the importance of language as a tool of preserving meanings cannot be overstated. (Dewey, 1910:175)

The concrete event e s t a b l i s h i n g the connection between cul t u r e and meaning, for F r i e s , was the word. . . . A word i s a combination of sounds a c t i n g as a stimulus t o b r i n g i n t o a t t e n t i o n any of t h e a r e a s of experience t o which i t has become a t t a c h e d by u s e . Whatever experience i s t h u s brought i n t o a t t e n t i o n by such a stimulus i s i t s meaning. (Fries e t a l , 1940:32)

It would be glib, miscalculated enthusiasm to fault (even through hindsight) Fries' use of "combination of sounds" or "stimulus." Ironically, to fault or praise his concept of meaning, for whatever scholastically-trained reaction

2 44 it

MACKIE J . V . BLANTON stirs

i n u s , amounts t o s u p p o r t i n g

t i o n of l a n g u a g e m e a n i n g , dimension

since

Fries'

it entails

characteriza

a

historical

as well as a s o c i o - c u l t u r a l one.

F a r f r o m q u i b b l i n g o v e r w h a t t h e p a s t may n o t h o l d f o r the present,

and p i c k i n g up on t h e e v e r - p r e s e n t

p o r a r y s c o p e of F r i e s i a n there

thought,

i s i n t h e work of F r i e s

experience. revolves

The f u n c t i o n a l i s t

lus standing prior in one's

language

tion rests listener

we s h o u l d n o t e

perspective

t o communication, i n a c e r t a i n way.

experiences.

but the organization

of h i s work

but is a

illocutionary

Meaning i n force

Meaning i n v o l v e s of e x p e r i e n c e .

precipitator

t o be

expressive communica

a reader

Interlocutors

thereby organizing

social experience

and r e c e i v e

of l a n g u a g e , s e n s e of

or

n o t raw e x p e r i e n c e ,

t h e e x p r e s s i o n s of a l a n g u a g e , e a c h from t h e o t h e r ' s

is

a word i s n o t a s t i m u

cultural predisposition

on w h a t e v e r

that

t h e t h e o r y t h a t meaning

around t h e a s s e r t i o n t h a t

triggering one's

contem

share their

impressions

organization.

We m u s t . . . r e c o g n i z e t h e h i g h l y i n d i v i d u a l c h a r a c t e r of t h e experience i n t h e a t t e n t i o n of any p a r t i c u l a r u s e r of a word both i n r e s p e c t t o what i s u s u a l l y c a l l e d t h e d e n o t a t i o n and t h e connotation of t h a t word. Wherever t h e i n d i v i d u a l c h a r a c t e r of t h e "meaning" happens t o cause f r i c t i o n i n s o c i a l u s e , an adjustment i s made and e v e n t u a l l y something approximating a core of common experience emerges • ( F r i e s e t a l , 1940:32) It is important to note Fries' concept of "a core of common experience," lest we put too much emphasis on the individual speaker's experience.

Fries was less inter-

ested in the meanings individuals receive than he was in the meanings communities of speaker-listeners arrive at. This is no less true for Fries regarding literature. Thus, in handwritten notes for a lecture (probably delivered during the mid 1950s),

(Fries, nd:6) describes

the aims of literary study as deriving "a valid reading of

FUNCTIONALISM t h e poem" o r sponse

"a v a l i d response t o a p o e m . . . - - a

[which i s ]

He t h e n n o t e s t h a t response"

2 45

c o h e r e n t t o more t h a n one t h i s does not n e c e s s a r i l y

s i n c e o n e "may h a v e a v a r i e t y

f a c t which i s

"entirely

personal

and

social

re

individual." imply

"the

of r e s p o n s e s , "

a

individual":

Of course t h e r e i s always and i n i t i a l l y an individual read ing of every poem; i . e . , my response must always be colored by s p e c i a l unique f e a t u r e s of "my experience" as a g a i n s t those of t h e group immediately around me. [But t h e s e are] nonpredictable . . . . The q u e s t i o n i s - - I s t h e r e a common core of responses for a group: a s o c i a l reading,..."common f e a t u r e s " in the responses of s e v e r a l i n d i v i d u a l s ? [ F r i e s ' emphasis] ( F r i e s , nd:7) As F r i e s Maldon, dividual

intimated

in his translation

" a c o r e o f common e x p e r i e n c e s " e m e r g e s o u t of

emerges from.

a past that

I n 19 40 h e w o u l d s a y

of The

available

one's

Battle t o an

language

of in

also

that

only i f one understands t h e s i g n i f i c a n t f a c t o r s of a s o c i a l problem, t h e sources t h a t have c o n t r i b u t e d t o i t , and t h e range of choices a v a i l a b l e , i s he free t o make an adequate d i a g n o s i s and reach an i n t e l l i g e n t , s e l f - d e t e r m i n e d , d e c i s i o n concerning a course of a c t i o n . No democratic s o c i e t y can t h r i v e without a broad base of l e a d e r s h i p t h a t has a s a t i s f a c t o r y historical perspective, ( F r i e s , 1940:39) Evidence abounds t h a t l a n g u a g e and l i t e r a t u r e education.

In

jectives

literature

of

(1926:49)

Fries'

conduct as a s c i e n t i s t

was i n f l u e n c e d

by h i s p h i l o s o p h y

h e q u o t e s T . P e r c y Nunn on t h e

of of ob

teaching.

[The b e s t t e a c h e r s in England] t e n d , both in t h e i r t h e o r y and t h e i r p r a c t i c e , towards t h e view which r e g a r d s each s u b j e c t of t h e school curriculum as r e p r e s e n t i n g a h i s t o r i c type of i n t e l l e c t u a l a c t i v i t y , pursuing a d i s t i n c t i v e aim and animated by a d i s t i n c t i v e s p i r i t ; and t h e c e n t r a l problem of t e a c h i n g method as they regard i t i s t h e problem of g e t t i n g t h e i r p u p i l s t o understand and adopt t h a t aim and t o a c q u i r e something of that spirit. (T. Percy Nunn, 1924:483-484)

246

MACKIE J . V . BLANTON The b o o k s F r i e s r e a d

cumstantial

confirmation,

w h a t a n d who i n f l u e n c e d annotate

supply today t h e c l u e s , i f you w i l l ,

him.

t o our

supposing

i n t h e m a r g i n s of b o o k s , o n e n o n e t h e l e s s

method of c h e c k i n g o f f p a s s a g e s

in books.

a g r e e a b l e p a s s a g e w i t h a ?; a h o r i z o n t a l marks i n d i c a t e d heavy d i s a g r e e m e n t . √ indicated

agreement;

cir

A l t h o u g h he was n o t one t o

what he d i s a g r e e d o r a g r e e d w i t h by n o t i n g h i s

cated wholehearted

the

of c o u r s e ,

agreement.

can

He n o t e d a d i s series

A simple a series

of

such

righthanded

of t h e s e

indi

Some o f t h e i d e a s o f

he a g r e e d w i t h he e v e n t u a l l y worked i n t o

tell

contrastive

lectures

w o r k s o f h i s own on l a n g u a g e a n d on l i n g u i s t i c s

others

and i n t o

as a

science. He h a d t h u s l y (Rose 1 9 3 1 ) ' s Rose,

agreed,

editorial

of K i n g ' s C o l l e g e ,

t h e p l a n n i n g of t h e

f o r e x a m p l e , w i t h t h e scope of

policy.

In his

"Introduction,"

The U n i v e r s i t y of London,

explains

text.

The planning of t h e p r e s e n t book w a s . . . b a s e d on t h e assump t i o n t h a t t h e only way t o provide a conspectus of t h e a c t u a l achievements of s c h o l a r s h i p and thought would be i n a s u f f i c i e n t number of p r e s e n t a t i o n s by leading a u t h o r i t i e s who a r e them s e l v e s o r i g i n a l i n v e s t i g a t o r s i n t h e e s s e n t i a l f i e l d s of study. Each c o n t r i b u t o r o u t l i n e s t h e p a s t h i s t o r y of h i s s u b j e c t before leading up t o an e x p o s i t i o n of t h e p r e s e n t s t a t e of knowledge and t h e r e l a t i o n of h i s f i e l d of work t o t h e l i f e and thought of to-day. (Rose, 1931:xiv) Knowing one's past was for Fries the first assent one made in preparing oneself to acquire knowledge that nurtured the growth of the human spirit.

He felt the historical per

spective to be so fundamental to the function of the human species that he not only saw it as essential to scholarship and art, but to learning also.

One's experience would be

incomplete without an essential reexperience of the cul tural and social past that reshapes the cognition and

FUNCTIONAL:: SM

247

c u r r e n t s t r u c t u r e of our l a n g u a g e . Rose, t o o , had i n t u r n been g u i d e d by t h e i d e a s of o t h e r s on t h e p a s t . In the words of Dr. Marett: "To consider ourselves in the light of what we may reasonably hope to become i s our f i r s t and l a s t duty as self-directing beings." If we ask what i s the value of the study of the past, Professor Hearnshaw points out that i t s aim i s the explanation and elucidation of the present, that the purpose of the historian i s t o attain to an understand ing both of his environment and of himself 2 (Rose, 1931:xiv) Combing t h r o u g h books he once p o s s e s s e d , one comes a c r o s s e n d l e s s c l u e s of t h i s s o r t t o u n d e r s t a n d i n g F r i e s ' heritage. Are t h e s e a l s o c l u e s t o our u n d e r s t a n d i n g F r i e s ' l e g a c y a s w e l l ? I t h i n k s o . We need n o t say i n some i n s t i t u t i o n a l , academic s e n s e t h a t F r i e s was a p h i l o s o p h e r or a h i s t o r i a n or a p s y c h o l o g i s t . We can say more: we can a g r e e t h a t he had no l e s s t h e good commonsense of a p h i l o s o p h e r t h a n of a h i s t o r i a n o r of a p s y c h o l o g i s t . I t was h i s sense for ensuring a r o l e in h i s s c h o l a r s h i p for the p h i l o s o p h y of e x p e r i e n c e , t h e h i s t o r y of c u l t u r e , and t h e p s y c h o l o g y of human development t h a t we must a d m i r e . He welcomed a f e e l f o r t h e p a s t t o b r o a d e n t h e s c o p e of h i s c o n c e p t of e x p e r i e n c e . His c o n c e p t of e x p e r i e n c e i l l u m i n a t e d h i s a n a l y s i s of t h e p l a c e of l a n g u a g e meaning i n human d e v e l o p m e n t . His c o n c e p t of l a n g u a g e meaning u n d e r l a y h i s view of t h e p o t e n t i a l i n l a n g u a g e a v a i l a b l e t o t h e self-determined learner. The s p i r i t of F r i e s i a n t h o u g h t a g r e e s w i t h L a s c e l l e s Abercrombie on t h e n a t u r e of t h e a c q u i s i t i o n of e x p e r i e n c e : In l i t e r a t u r e , experience is expressed in language. But i t i s also represented in language. The two ideas are combined if we say t h a t , in l i t e r a t u r e , language communicates experience. In l i t e r a t u r e as an a r t , experience i s communicated for i t s own sake, to be valued as such. This means that the author's ex perience must be re-created in the reader. Language in l i t e r ature must be a symbol of experience, communicating both i t s

2 48

MACKIE J . V .

BLANTON

substance and i t s v a l u e , and so used as t o u n i t e a l l i t s p a r t s i n t o a s i n g l e complex whole. (Abercrombie, 1931:859) In the F r i e s i a n

system,

to

l e a r n means t o

t o e x p e r i e n c e means t o d i s i n t e g r a t e ject of

of

learning

literature

into its

parts

or a n a t i v e

guage,

to reintegrate

Hence,

t h e l e a r n i n g mind i s

impressions regarding

nistic

stimulus-response

v e a l s t o us t h e the

linguist,

knowledge, but both,

s e n s e of

of

acquirer

of

both.

realizes

And t h e e d u c a t o r ,

acquisition,

learning

learning,

of h i s The

Structure

nor

generativist,

like

English

structuralist

of

rationalist-nor

deductive

the

t h i s w h o l e and and

re

Fries

as a l e a r n e r

scientist entire

use. psychology

One n o t a b l e

i n 1955 where he d i s c u s s e s of

a mecha

For

his functionalist

t i m e and t i m e a g a i n .

of h i s v i e w o c c u r s

t h a t we c a n

Fries the educator

language,

should manifest

unity.

Anyone who

linguistic practices

i s neither merely e m p i r i c i s t

artist,

artist lan

composite

learning.

literature

notion.

ob

once again i n t o a

he was a l w a y s t o b e .

F r i e s was t o r e i t e r a t e of

like the

neither merely inductive reasoner

reasoner--but and t h e

linguist

the

and t h e n ,

a mind r e c e i v i n g

the object

i n n o way a s c r i b e t o F r i e s '

t h e u n i t y of t h e

s p e a k e r of a p a r t i c u l a r

these parts

reads through the Friesian

experience,

delineation the

to the e a r l i e r ,

tradition

in

relation

i.e.,

pre-

linguistics.

[My approach] t o language t e a c h i n g which has been derived from [the - t e n e t s of a n a l y s i s of d e s c r i p t i v e - s t r u c t u r a l i s t l i n g u i s t i c s ] is not in any way limited to the mechanical aspects of language. This approach t o language t e a c h i n g does not in any way narrow cur view of what has t o be done in order t o l e a r n a language w e l l . I t assumes t h a t the fundamental purpose or objective of language teaching is to achieve an understanding, as complete as possible, between people of different linguistic backgrounds. I t f u r n i s h e s a s y s t e m a t i c method of finding out

FUNCTIONALISM

249

the functioning patterns of not only the sound segments of a language, but also of its rhythm and intonation, its grammatical system, its lexical sets (i.e., the functioning verbal contexts), as well as its whole range of social and cultural meanings. [Fries' emphasis] (Fries, 1955:300-301) T h i s p a s s a g e r i n g s w i t h an i n s i s t e n t b e l i e f i n o b s e r v a b l e and i n t u i t i v e a s s u m p t i o n s a b o u t t h e n a t u r e of a l l of l a n g u a g e . Can we deny t h a t F r i e s would have f e l t v e r y much a p a r t of f o u r t h - q u a r t e r t w e n t i e t h - c e n t u r y American l i n g u i s t i c s ? No, we can n o t . Like S a p i r and B l o o m f i e l d i n l i n g u i s t i c s , and l i k e Dewey i n p h i l o s o p h y and e d u c a t i o n , F r i e s i s v e r y much a p a r t of o u r s c i e n t i f i c h e r i t a g e t o d a y . By 1927, from Dewey, he had l e a r n e d of t h e i m p o r t a n c e of l a n g u a g e t o an i n t e l l e c t u a l l i f e . The chief i n t e l l e c t u a l classifications that constitute the working capital of thought have been built up for us by our mother tongue. . . . . Since i n t e l l e c t u a l l i f e depends on the possession of a store of meanings, the importance of language as a tool of preserving meanings cannot be overstated. (Dewey, 1910:174, 175) Note the occurrence and the context of the term meanings in the quotations both from Fries and Dewey. The use of the plural is not capricious in either case; for we could replace Fries1 "...whole range of social and cultural meanings" with "...whole range of social and cultural experiences." Likewise, we could substitute Dewey's "... the possession of a store of meanings" with "...the possession of a store of experiences." We could do so in either case without damage to the interpretation of the passages. For Fries experience undoubtedly implied human beings actively recognizing and interpreting the objects, events, and relations of their environment. "There is no language apart from a mind active in expression," he

2 50

MACKIE J . V . BLANTON

claimed

and t h e n e m p h a s i z e d m o r e o v e r

that

t h e word expression must be d i s t i n g u i s h e d from communication. Expression [ s i g n i f i e s ] t h e mental p r o c e s s of c l e a r l y grasping and formulating i m p r e s s i o n s . ( F r i e s , 1927:107-108) F o r F r i e s e x p e r i e n c e was m e a n i n g . everything everywhere: art,

our science;

able object tist.

in our s o c i e t y ,

E x p e r i e n c e was our culture,

experience--meaning--was

for the student than for the a r t i s t

I f one imbued o n e ' s

interpretation

our

no l e s s a or

of t h e

learn-

scien

experience

of e v e n t s o r s i t u a t i o n s w i t h a h i s t o r i c a l p e r s p e c t i v e , would e n c o u n t e r no d i f f i c u l t y in context.

in establishing

t u r e t h i s way, language t h i s way, l i n g u i s t i c s way.

C o n s i d e r F r i e s on ( S a p i r ,

characterize

true

F r i e s was t o s e e e d u c a t i o n t h i s way,

the inchoate

1 9 2 2 ) , whose

one

meaning litera

itself

this

statements

s u c c e s s of e a r l y - c e n t u r y

American

structuralism: They a r e statements concerning h i s experience when he was t r y i n g t o r e c o r d , a n a l y z e , and d e s c r i b e some of t h e American Indian languages. ( F r i e s , 1927:113) Fries' point was that in order to understand the structuralist strain, one must have a sense of its cultural roots, or its origin, and see that its attempts grew not out of nineteenth-century European success to describe languages whose structures differed markedly from Amerindian languages, but from twentieth-century efforts to analyze and describe diverse and complex language experiences heretofore untold of in linguistic studies. surely themselves experiences.

Such efforts were

As experiences they con-

tributed to the development of a new scientific culture, wholly American, which had its own functional purpose. The scientist's purpose generates his or her experiences.

As such new experiences develop, so does the

FUNCTIONALISM meaningfulness tellectual record

of

American tail.

of

discipline. such

growth

Fries

expressive perceived

of t h e i n n e r

structuralism,

He o b s e r v e d

creation

t h e emerging

such

2 51

the

spirit

in particular—in growth

taking

power

of

of t h e i n

historical science—of

the minutest

shape

even

de

in the

o f new t e r m i n o l o g y .

The t e c h n i c a l t e r m i n o l o g y . . . i n American s t r u c t u r a l l i n g u i s t i c s came slowly i n t o u s e a f t e r t h e p u b l i c a t i o n of B l o o m f i e l d ' s Language i n 1933. The word phoneme i s but one of t h e s e t e c h n i c a l words t h a t follow a p a t t e r n . . . and d e r i v e s i t s meaning for us, n o t from i t s former European u s e , b u t from our p a r t i c u l a r e x p e r i e n c e i n t h e s t r u c t u r a l a n a l y s i s of languages. ( F r i e s , 1927:295) Fries (1927:119) found in Benedetto Croce justification for universalizing the experiential, linguistic functions of art and science. ...[T]he language process is fundamentally the same in the use of language for artistic purposes and the use of language for scientific purposes. In both there is the attempt to express experience fully, accurately, vividly. In the artistic purpose the attention centers on the individual aspects of the impressions, the immediate intuitive experience; in the scientific purpose the attention is carried away from the individual aspects of the experience to significant relationships. (Croce, 1909:14) In linguistics, Fries was not alone in establishing a cognitive relation between meaning and experience.

Fries

(1927:11) cites Bloomfield on this very point: Every experience is composed of a number of elements whose individuality is due to their having occurred in other contexts in past experiences.... Each element of experience recalls those past experiences in which it figured. But it does this obscurely, until language has given the experience a fixed and easily handled symbol.... Once language exists,...the analysis of the experience into these elements is bound to develop. At least it takes place in all known languages and is in all of them, as time goes on, being perfected by a gradual but unceasing process of development, to which we must ascribe also its origin....

252

MACKIE J . V .

BLANTON

The development of language, a c c o r d i n g l y , raust have ad vanced in i n s e p a r a b l e connection with t h a t of t h e mental powers generally. (Bloomfield, 1914:56, 57)

Like S a p i r ' s i n t e r e s t , Bloomfield' s i n t e r e s t in a u n i v e r s a l c h a r a c t e r of l a n g u a g e i n t i m a t e d F r i e s ' o b s e r v a t i o n s on t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p of l a n g u a g e t o t h e human s p i r i t and, i n t u r n , t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p of t h e human s p i r i t t o t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of t h e i n t e l l e c t u a l , i . e . , l i n g u i s t i c , powers of t h e human s p e c i e s . F r i e s i a n t h o u g h t on t h e c o g n i t i v e , s h a p i n g power of l a n g u a g e has always embraced a view t y p i c a l of S a p i r . F r i e s (1927:112-113) c i t e s S a p i r ' s d e c l a r a t i o n t h a t language i s t h e most s i g n i f i c a n t and c o l o s s a l work t h a t the human s p i r i t has e v o l v e d - - n o t h i n g s h o r t of a f i n i s h e d form of e x p r e s s i o n for a l l communicable e x p e r i e n c e . This form may be e n d l e s s l y v a r i e d by t h e i n d i v i d u a l without thereby l o s i n g i t s d i s t i n c t i v e c o n t o u r s ; and i t i s c o n s t a n t l y reshaping i t s e l f as i s a l l a r t . Language i s t h e most massive and i n c l u s i v e a r t we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious genera tions. (Sapir, 1921:235)

S p e a k i n g i n c o n t e m p o r a r y l i n g u i s t i c t e r m s , we can say t h a t f o r F r i e s t h e b e a u t y and t h e e x p e r i e n c e of l a n g u a g e were n o t a m a t t e r of i t s s u r f a c e s t r u c t u r e , of i t s o b s e r v a b l e s y l l a b l e s , v o c a b u l a r y , o r grammar. The e x p e r i e n c e of l a n g u a g e l a y i n i t s f u n c t i o n t o communicate c u l t u r a l and s o c i a l m e a n i n g s , and t o imply h i s t o r i c a l r e s h a p i n g . Today we speak of t h e c r e a t i v e c h a r a c t e r of human l a n g u a g e . Our b e l i e f i n t h i s c h a r a c t e r of l a n g u a g e h a s i t s r o o t s i n F r i e s ' work. There a r e some who would s t r i v e for t h e a r t i s t ' s "beauty of language" by means of r e c i p e s and r u l e s and formulas d e a l i n g with t h e e x t e r n a l s of l a n g u a g e . . . . There can [however] be no s a t i s f y i n g beauty of l i n g u i s t i c forms a p a r t from t h e use of t h e s e forms in t h e function of language t o mediate e x p e r i e n c e . ( F r i e s , 1927:117-118)

FUNCTIONALISM

25 3

F r i e s ' t e r m f o r l a n g u a g e was n o t creative but artistic. The a r t i s t i c f u n c t i o n of l a n g u a g e p r o v i d e d him w i t h an e x p l a n a t i o n f o r l a n g u a g e c h a n g e . In t h e s c i e n t i f i c view of language the a r t i s t i c purpose i s recognized as one of t h e fundamental f a c t s of language and i t must be accepted as f u r n i s h i n g a t l e a s t one of t h e "whys" of language change . ( F r i e s , 1927:121)

We m i g h t even s a y , i n l i g h t of F r i e s ' f u n c t i o n a l i s t p e r s p e c t i v e on l a n g u a g e , t h a t l a n g u a g e p o s s e s s e s b o t h a c r e a t i v e t e n d e n c y and an a r t i s t i c c h a r a c t e r , and t h a t t h e c r e a t i v e t e n d e n c y i s a f u n c t i o n of t h e a r t i s t i c c h a r a c t e r . The a r t i s t i c p u r p o s e of human l a n g u a g e p r o v i d e s an i n d i v i d u a l l a n g u a g e w i t h a u n i q u e l y c r e a t i v e v a r i a b i l i t y and t e n d e n c y toward c h a n g e : The a r t i s t i c motive t h u s f u r n i s h e s t h e dynamic of most l a n guage change and development. We may even i n s i s t t h a t a l a n guage p r o g r e s s e s as i t develops p o s s i b i l i t i e s of a more and more c a r e f u l a n a l y s i s of human e x p e r i e n c e . . . . The r e c o g n i t i o n of t h i s a r t i s t i c purpose as t h e o b j e c t i v e of our language t e a c h i n g implies t h e s u b o r d i n a t i o n of our a t t e n t i o n t o t h e e x t e r n a l s of language forms. ( F r i e s , 1927:120)

Thus, the functionalism inherent in Friesian thought is humanistic and does not in any way avoid logical problems by viewing language forms as having a more selective advantage over the cognitive drive underlying the human use of language. The humanism behind Friesian thought rests on Fries' certainty that there is some theoretical and psychological zone on which language user, language analyst, artist, and scientist all potentially participate in the same self-determined end to communicate through communal self-expression. Fries' words speak for themselves :

254

MACKIE J.V. BLANTON We must not view the artist's purpose as essentially different in kind from the practical language purposes of the ordinary man. The difference is one of degree, not of nature. The ordinary man, like the artist, receives the impressions of experience; he also needs a medium which to grasp, to possess, to communicate these impressions; he likewise uses language for these needs of expression. To be sure he may be less sensitive to impressions; he may be less keen in his realizations, and he is usually satisfied with a more crude and inaccurate representation. But his object in the practical use of language is part of the same purpose which controls the artist (he may be less conscious of his purpose and his tools) and the measure of success must be the same in both cases--vivid realization and complete representation. (Fries, 1927:118)

And t h e tist

creative

and of

bility

of

the

force

of

scientist,

individual

"the lies

o r d i n a r y man," in

the

of

the

contrastive

ar

capa

languages:

. . . T h e g r e a t r e s o u r c e s of human language a r i s e o u t of i t s s t r u c t u r a l base by which t h e c o n t r a s t i v e p a t t e r n s i n each of t h e v a r i o u s a s p e c t s of t h e language m a t e r i a l p r o v i d e t h e frames f o r i n f i n i t e v a r i a t i o n i n t h e c o n t e n t of u t t e r a n c e s - - a v a r i a t i o n and a f u l l n e s s t h a t makes language t h e c a r r i e r of a l l our s c i e n c e and a l l our l i t e r a t u r e . Herein l i e s t h e m i r a c l e t h a t i s human language . ( F r i e s , 1957:15) Only a humanist with a functionalist perspective on language and the human species could have written and not

miracle

mystery.

FOOTNOTES

1

Although this book was co-authored with James Holly Hanford and Harrison Ross Steeves, any quotations from it will be from only those chapters penned by Fries himself, i.e., Chapters II, III, IV, and V. (Albert H. Marckwardt, 1968;205-210) lists 1925 as this work's date of appearance.

2

Rose was here referring specifically to contributions to his Outline: Marett's "The Beginnings of Morals and Culture" (pp. 395-430) and Hearnshaw's "The Science of History" (pp. 773-811).

FUNCTIONALISM

255

REFERENCES

Abercrombie, Lascelles. (1931). Principles of Literary Criticism. In William Rose (Ed.) , An Outline of Modern Knowledge, 859-907. London: Victor Gollancz, Ltd. Bloomfield, Leonard. (1914). Introduction New York: Henry Holt and Company.

to the Study

of

Language.

Croce, Benedetto. (1909). Aesthetic As the Science of Expression General Linguistic. Translated from the Italian by Douglas Ainslie. London: Macmillan and Co. Dewey, John.

(1910). How We Think.

Boston, MA:

and

D.C. Heath and Co.

Fries, Charles C. (1918). The Greek Tragedies and Shakespeare. Bucknell Journal of Education 3, 2:12-16.

The

Fries, Charles C. (1925). The Battle of Maldon: An English Poem of the Tenth Century Translated Into Modern English. Ann Arbor, MI: George Wahr, Co. Fries, Charles C. (1926). The Teaching of Literature. (With J. Hanford and H. Steeves.) New York: Silver Burdett & Co. Fries, Charles C. (1927). The Teaching of the English New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons.

Language.

Fries, Charles C., W.M. Sale and E.H. Zeydel. (1940). Language Study in American Education. New York, NY: Commission of the Modern Language Association of America on Trends in Education. Fries, Charles C. (1952). The Structure of English: An Introduction to the Construction of English Sentences. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co. Fries, Charles C. (1955). American Linguistics and the Teaching of English. Revue des Langues Vivantes 21:294-310. Fries, Charles C. (nd). Structural Linguistics and Literary Criticism. Manuscript. Fries, Charles C. (1957). On the Nature of Human Languages. In Essays and Studies, 8,. 1:1-15. Tokyo: Joshi Daigaku. Marckwardt, Albert H. 210.

(1968).

Charles C, Fries. Language 44, 1:205-

256

MACKIE J.V. BLANTON

Nunn, T. Percy. (1924). Educational Institute of Teachers College.

Yearbook of the International New York: Columbia University.

Richards, Jack C. and Ted Rodgers. (1982). Method: Approach, Design, and Procedure. TESOL Quarterly 16, 2:153-168. Rose, William. (1931). Victor Gollancz.

An Outline

of Modern Knowledge.

Sapir, Edward. (1921). Language: An Introduction Speech. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co.

London:

to the Study

of

PART THREE: ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

CHARLES C. FRIES AND JEROME S. BRUNER : COMMON-SENSE AND COGNITION IN LEARNING

James W. Ney

Throughout his writings, Jerome Bruner makes the distinction between analytical and intuitive modes of thought. These are paralleled neatly by learning from 'from the outside in'; that is, learning from the culture, and learning from 'the inside out'; the learning which takes place within the organism by virtue of the cognitive processes which it controls. Bruner, because of his reaction to an extremely narrow behaviorism, has been largely concerned with the learning from the inside out. C.C. Fries, on the other hand, by virtue of his work as a descriptive linguist viewed learning from the outside in. As a result, since Bruner does not neglect learning from the outside in and since Fries did not write as a doctrinnaire behavioral psychologist, there are many points of contact that these two scholars have in common since one represents the direction that learning is likely to take in future decades while the other represents the view of learning taken in recent past decades.

2 60

JAMES W. NEY The Development of a Deeper World View

In his discussion of the aims of education, Bruner points out that 'getting across the subject, 1 or teaching the message is only a small part of the education.

"Unless

the learner develops his skills, disciplines his taste, deepens

his view of the world, the 'something' that is

got across is hardly worth the effort of transmission" (1971:57).

Fries, of course, as a linguist-language

teacher, was interested in developing a skill which entailed not only learning a language but also opening the learner's eyes to the world view of another culture through reading.

He states, in one of his most famous sentences,

"No matter if the final result desired is only to read

the

foreign language the memory of the fundamentals of the language—the structure and the sound system within a limited vocabulary--must be through speech" (1945:6).

But

he was also interested in obtaining freedom for the individual through the acquisition of the knowledge of a language (1958:22-23) and the "...understanding between peoples..." which is so much a necessary function of language (1957:15-16).

This would place the priorities of

Fries on the same plane as those of Bruner.

Both were

attempting to deepen the world view of the students, the former through discipline in learning, the latter through learning a language through speech to reading. In his discussion of cultural orientation, Fries makes an even stronger, more explicit statement of the relationship of the acquisition of a cultural world view and a second language. Here I would press the necessity of a sound technique for 'contextual orientation.' The so-called 'knowledge of the life of the people' must not be just an adjunct or a practical language

FRIES AND BRUNER

2 61

course--something alien and apart from its main purposes, and therefore casual and haphazard. A thorough mastery of a language for practical communication with real understanding demands a systematic observation and recording of many of the features of the precise situations in which the varied sentences are used. (1945:57)

From this it is apparent that the true object of learning in Bruner's view is an intrinsic part of the Friesian language course. It would be impossible to learn a language by the methodology that Fries sets up and the objectives that he requires without a deepening of the world view and a disciplining of the tastes in the process.

On the Role of Generalizations in Learning

Unlike the other audio-lingual language teaching methodologists, Fries did not view the grammar-by-induction principle as being a hard and fast rule. In fact, he stated quite clearly that: "An adult can be helped considerably in building up the necessary habits if the basic matters of this required knowledge are definitely stated for his guidance" (1945:29). He then goes on to give the reason for his belief. "Unless the experienced linguist does formulate or describe them (the generalizations about grammar and phonology) for the learner, the learner must attempt to grasp them for himself or approach the language as if it were a multitude of disparate items to be memorized" (1945:29). He makes an even stronger statement of this principle when he writes "Generalizations concerning structure, or grammar, are a regular feature of the 'oral approach' although they are always intimately related to the oral practice of the language" (1945:7). The Fries position on this matter is in harmony with at least one

2 62

JAMES W. NEY

aspect of Bruner's thinking about the role of didactic statement in teaching.

"Instructions serve" he states, "as

a switching mechanism or set producer that brings different forms of coding into play and tunes the organism to the kind and level of generic activity that seem appropriate to the situation"

(Bruner, 1964:52).

As such, the

generalizations that Fries recommended or the instructions that Bruner writes about aid the student in the difficult task of transfering what he learns in the classroom to the real situations in everyday life.

For this, Bruner speaks

of the 'transfer principles' that aid the student in applying the knowledge he has gained to new situations (1962b: 18). Nevertheless, it is rather surprising that in the teaching of mathematics, cognitive psychologists have moved' the discipline towards the teaching of principles through induction, while in the teaching of foreign languages attempts at applying these psychologies have had the reverse effect.

Bruner, for instance, described the educators who

devised new approaches for the teaching of mathematics in the following terms: They have been active in devising methods that permit a student to discover for himself the generalizations that lie behind a particular mathematical operation, and they contrast this approach with the 'method of assertion and proof' in which the generalization is first stated by the teacher and the class asked to proceed through the proof. (Bruner, 1962:21)

C.C. Fries, as other structural linguists, believed that grammar should be learned by induction although, as it has already been pointed out, he was not as doctrinnaire on this issue as other proponents of the oral approach or the audio-lingual method.

He stated his commitment to the

grammar-by-induction principle in the following terms:

FRIES AND BRUNER

2 63

If by 'grammar' we mean any of these things—the memorizing of paradigms, or the logical analysis of sentences, or the learning of the rules of philosophical or universal grammar, then we can easily agree that we must approach a new language by a more 'natural' method. (Fries, 1945:10)

If students learn grammar by the 'natural method' (through induction) as suggested in the qualified recommendation of Fries, then the generalizations about grammar become peculiarly theirs--a feature of learning by this method that Bruner recommends highly (1962a:123). In any case, the learning of grammar by induction, which seems to be in harmony with Bruner's suggestions for the teaching and learning of mathematics, contrasts sharply with the 'cognitive code-learning theory' for the teaching of foreign languages that methodologists such as Chastain put forward. They advocate "the deductive explanation of all grammar prior to any practice with structure" (1968:269). It would seem, at this point, that the practice established by Fries and other structuralists is more in accord with the recommendations of the cognitive psychologist, Jerome S. Bruner, than are the actual practices of advocates of the cognitive code theory of learning foreign languages. These advocates seem not to have encountered statements such as Bruner's assertion that "...it is better to learn the basic conceptualization by induction from particular instances" (1966: 304) . Besides this, the grammar-by-induction principle of the structuralist language teachers is not only supported by direct and explicit statements from Bruner. It seems that psychologists have discovered some deleterious effects of the facile presentation of the deductive statement. Bruner points this out in the following manner:

2 64

JAMES W. NEY Premature symbolization of a conceptual relationship may have the effect of leading a learner away from the relationship between symbols and things.... It is necessary, if transferrable conceptualization is to result, for the learner to have some sense of the manipulative or picturable referent to which symbols apply. (1966:206)

Within the Friesian frame of language learning, the 'manipulative referent1 to which 'symbols apply' would be the meaning signalled by the language patterns which the student practices. It would then seem from the statements of Bruner that it may be deleterious to draw the verbal symbolization of a generalization about a grammatical structure before the student actually visualizes the grammatical relationship from the manipulation of structures. For this reason, it may be wise to allow the student to gain a 'pictorial' understanding of a grammatical pattern before the actual generalization concerning that pattern is provided by the teacher. This pictorial representation is undoubtedly akin to the oft-referred to Sprachgefühl of the speakers of languages, By extension, then, too early presentation of rules of grammar and pronunciation may hinder the formation of an intuitive Sprachgefühl in the language learner. If this is so, the actual practice of language teachers trained in the Fries tradition may be more beneficial than that of other language teachers. In all fairness to proponents of cognitive theories of language learning, their use of deductive statement for the teaching of grammar is undoubtedly based on the frequently stated dictum that an "understanding of fundamental principles and ideas...appears to be the main road to adequate 'transfer of training'" (1962b:26). But Bruner himself questions whether teaching by 'assertion and proof' is necessarily the best way to have students apprehend

FRIES

AND BRUNER

2 65

fundamental principles. For this reason, he states: "In point of fact, drill need not be rote, and alas, emphasis on understanding may lead the students to a certain glibness" (1962b:29). Because of this, it is fortunate that language teaching methodologists such as C.C. Fries adhered to grammar through practice and grammar-by-induction principles. But the questions of inductive or deductive presentation of grammar cannot be settled simply in conjunction with the question of the use of language drill or practice. From the foregoing, it would seem that the grammar by induction principle should not be abandoned, at least, not altogether. But even when this decision has been made, the question that Bruner poses must be answered: "...what methods of exercise in any given field are most likely to give the student a sense of intelligent mastery of the material" (1962b:30). It may be that Friesian pattern practices are not the best exercises for language teaching. It may be that exercises should be used which are similar to the exercises of this nature in the Lado and Fries English Sentence Patterns (1957:226, 228) since these exercises give students more practice in the creative aspect of language usage. But it does not appear that the language teacher should rely on the deductive presentation of grammar rules to the exclusion of inductive formulation of these rules by the language learner. Fries frequently stressed the fact that the features of a language should be practiced until they become 'matters of automatic habit' or until speech production is 'an unconscious habit' rather than a matter of 'conscious choice' (1945:3, 9). According to him, attainment of this level of language proficiency comes "Only after much practice of the same 'patterns' with diverse content..." so

2 6 6

that

JAMES W. NEY "...the

matic"

patterns

(1945:9).

Bruner's from t h a t

t h e m s e l v e s become p r o d u c t i v e l y

On t h e r o l e

of p r a c t i c e

o p i n i o n d o e s n o t seem t o d i f f e r of F r i e s .

He

in

auto

learning,

substantially

states:

For where we do not know the a p p r o p r i a t e coding system in ad vance, what i s the b e s t p r a c t i c e procedure for d i s c o v e r i n g i t ? Our r a t s and t h o s e of S t e r l i n g Reed obviously had t o do a f a i r amount of d r i l l i n g a t t h e i r t a s k before they learned i t in a g e n e r i c way. And i t seems t o be f r e q u e n t l y t h e case t h a t a c e r t a i n amount of s k i l l development i s necessary a t a simpler l e v e l of coding before more g e n e r i c recoding can o c c u r . . . . Learning often cannot be t r a n s l a t e d i n t o a g e n e r i c form u n t i l t h e r e has been enough mastery of t h e s p e c i f i c s of t h e s i t u a t i o n t o permit t h e discovery of lower-order r e g u l a r i t i e s which can be recombined i n t o h i g h e r - o r d e r , more g e n e r i c coding systems. (1964:19-20)

In simple terms, the foregoing would seem to indicate that a 'fair amount' of practice is needed by students before they form the concepts through induction which will be useful to them. Now it is true that, although both Fries and Bruner see the necessity for practice in learning, they each view a different function for the use of practice in learning. Fries views practice in terms of the classic 'practice-makes-perfect' habit formation. This practice helped students acquire 'structural meanings' (Fries and Fries, 1961:11). Bruner views practice in terms of what might be called 'practice-makes-proficient' concept formation. From the hindsight of Bruner's position, it is possible to state that Fries' method of teaching languages may have been producing effects beyond that which many of his later critics envisioned. That is, the constant practice, 'over-learning,' may have been giving students the ability to generalize beyond the corpus of the utterances that they learned to the 'generic code' which was necessary to enable them to construct sentences that they themselves had never uttered. Regardless of the truth or falsity of

FRIES AND BRUNER

2 67

this, Bruner views learning as much a matter of assimilating that which is outside of the learner as it is a matter of internalizing rules (Bruner, 1971:111, 119). The former of these modes of learning, the outside-in mode, requires many of the tactics that language teachers, including C.C. Fries, have used for years. In Bruner's own words, "Use of the 'outside-in' mode of development in the human species depends upon imitation and modeling" (1971:119). Moreover, the grammar-by-induction principle and the need for the practice that it required in the Fries methodology lead to the presentation of material with recursive loops in the program so that any given structure was practiced on several different occasions. A careful study of Fries and Fries' Foundations for English Teaching will show that any given structure is presented a number of different times in more than one place in the corpus. The wisdom of writing materials with this kind of repetitiveness is seen in another principle from Bruner: "It is rare for everything to be learned about anything on one encounter" (1966:206-207). This principle leads Bruner to his 'spiral curriculum' in which a 'domain of knowledge' is visited time and again. From the language texts produced under his supervision, it would appear that Fries was operating from this principle implicitly and, furthermore, he was doing so with a particular purpose in mind. His corpus repeated material with the specific purpose of setting up the next point to be taught (Fries and Fries, 1961:21-22). At this point, it may be judicious to dwell on a somewhat different emphasis that Bruner makes in his view of learning from that of Fries who did not explicitly refer to the cognitive domain but rather to the fact that language as "a tool of meaning" (1949:108) is learned through acquiring the proper habits which were, for Fries, the

268

JAMES W. NEY

correct underlying generalizations. It may be legitimate to argue that the emphasis of Fries on practice and habit formation obscures his concern for concept formation which enables the student to transfer his knowledge to new situations so that he can produce any number of the limitless sentences in a language. In the model of language learning that he proposed, Fries saw this aspect of language learning as being the main reason for requiring work quite beyond the confines of the classroom. In this vein, he wrote about the brief time that a language learner spends in the classroom, stating that, in this time, "...the learning adult will not become a fluent speaker for all occasions but he can have laid an accurate foundation upon which to build..." (1945:3). In this respect, he might have been following the only course possible for the teacher in crowded classrooms where individualized instruction in a foreign language might be an impossibility however great a sumum bonum it is for psychologists such as Bruner (1971: 117). The reason for this can be found in the writings of Bruner himself for as he points out, "Education takes learning out of the context of immediate action just by dint of putting it into school" (1971:102). From the way that young children acquire their native language one thing is apparent: language is best learned in the context of immediate action. Because of this, at some point, it might always be necessary to use the context-free pattern practices of Friesian methodology since this practice leads through the learning of a micro-segment of a natural language to the situations in which a learner becomes a 'participant' and develops an 'underlying competence' (1971:111). This is not to say that Fries did not emphasize the importance of context in language learning. The Fries programs at the University of Michigan always

FRIES AND BRUNER

269

emphasized the importance of learning English with native speakers in everyday situations (1945:61, note 7 ) . It is however a comment on the development of 'pattern practices1 within the Fries framework.

Contrastive Analysis and Language Teaching

C.C. Fries, as others among his structuralist contemporaries noticed that the language 'habits' from the students' native language tended to be carried over into their production of the foreign language sounds and structures (1945:16, 33). Although this tendency, which has been described by the contrastive analysis hypothesis, was never formulated with as many fine distinctions as it has been recently (Oiler and Ziahosseiny, 1970), the materials developed under the direction of Fries and his co-workers clearly recognized the fact of language interference and attempted to design exercises to help students overcome the 'interference' from the native language sounds and grammatical patterns. Fries himself, however, did write about contrasting meanings between two languages (Fries, 1961; and Fries and Fries, 1961). This was done by attempting to teach the 'problem areas' which had been identified through contrastive analysis. It is interesting to note that, in their discussion of transfer of set in learning, psychologists such as Bruner would seem to lend validity to the strategies employed by language-teacher-linguists such as Fries. Bruner, for instance, states: "...the manner and degree with which newly learned knowledge is coded generically can be influenced in a transient way by situational

270

JAMES W. NEY

instruction

a n d i n a m o r e p e r m a n e n t way b y t h e r e g i m e n

one's past experience" to

'situational

(1964:53).

learning'

Although t h e

role

of p a s t e x p e r i e n c e

the Friesian

reference

interference

k n o w l e d g e of h i s own l a n g u a g e

insofar

is part

the

support

and

as the

of h i s

state

to

i n l e a r n i n g would seem t o

approach t o language i n t e r f e r e n c e

coming p r o b l e m s of

reference

does not equate well with

ments t h a t F r i e s has made, y e t B r u n e r ' s

of

over-

individual's

'past

exper

ience. ' Besides t h i s , Whorfian h y p o t h e s i s

Bruner has evidenced and t h e r o l e of

I n e x p e r i m e n t s w i t h Wolof m o n o l i n g u a l s , and W o l o f - F r e n c h

bilinguals,

in i t s

statement

of t h e r e l a t i o n

is of

a bit

too

"...language

influences

perception

childhood"

(1971:39).

make h i s own s t a t e m e n t

the

monolinguals conclu

simplistic

language to the

s p e a k e r a l t h o u g h he does admit

least during

Whorfian h y p o t h e s i s

French

in

perception.

B r u n e r h a s come t o t h e

sion t h a t t h e Whorfian h y p o t h e s i s v i e w of t h e n a t i v e

interest

language in

world

that:

and n o t j u s t memory, This leads Bruner

of w h a t h a s come t o b e known a s

in the following

at

to the

words:

. . . l a n g u a g e a f f e c t s c o g n i t i o n only i f a l i n g u i s t i c coding o c c u r s , t h a t i s , only i f t h e stimulus i s given v e r b a l r e p r e s e n t a t i o n . It i s p o s s i b l e t h a t t h e s e c o n d i t i o n s p r e v a i l only when a t a s k i s d i f f i c u l t t o perform by means other than l i n g u i s t i c coding. But t h a t i s a moot p o i n t much in need of f u r t h e r i n v e s t i g a t i o n . Per haps , t o o , d i f f e r e n t c u l t u r e s vary in t h e i r tendency t o use such l i n g u i s t i c e n c o d i n g . . . . The i n f l u e n c e of encoding becomes s t r o n g e r as c o g n i t i v e c o n d i t i o n s become more d i f f i c u l t , making an i c o n i c approach t o t h e problem i n c r e a s i n g l y i n e f f e c t i v e and a symbolic approach more c r u c i a l . Such c o n d i t i o n s are produced as t h e s i t u a t i o n becomes l e s s ' s i m u l t a n e o u s ' and more a m a t t e r of memory. (1971:40-41)

In other words, Bruner has found that as the experimental task becomes more complex and as the experimental subjects are forced to use their memories, the effect of language on perception increases.

FRIES AND BRUNER

271

From this it would appear that an analogy can be drawn between the Brunerian statement of the Whorfian hypothesis and the contrastive analysis hypothesis. This analogy would lead to the kind of statement of the contrastive analysis that Newmark (19 66) has suggested under the catch word, 'padding.' Newmark believes that when the learners of the second language do not know the second language sounds, lexical forms or grammatical structures they simply fall back on their native language forms, structures or sounds and use them in their foreign language sentences. This view of the contrastive analysis hypothesis correlates well with the Brunerian perspective of the Whorfian hypothesis. To be more specific, Bruner has found that, as tasks become more difficult and as they place a greater load on memory, language patterns from different linguistic systems influence perception to a greater extent. So it would seem that as the tasks become more difficult for learners of a second language and as they place a greater load on memory, they fall back on their native language structures. This would suggest that the Newmark statement of language interference is accurate since difficulty and load on memory would be defined in terms of what the individual learners found to be difficult or an excessive load on memory. This should explain the failure of the contrastive analysis hypothesis to hold true in every instance when these predictions are made from the strong version described by Lado (1957) and undoubtedly subscribed to by Fries. But regardless of which version of the contrastive analysis hypothesis is supported, there is a point of contact between Fries and Bruner on this issue since both saw the influence of native languages and structures on perception in the second language culture.

272

JAMES W. NEY On t h e N a t u r e of

Both Bruner

a n d F r i e s make

knowledge gained

Knowing

a distinction

a s an i n t e l l e c t u a l

artifact

which can be p u t t o u s e .

Bruner r e f e r s

drawn d i s t i n c t i o n

'knowing about'

to'" for

(1969:51). former

between

He c r i t i c i z e s

and d e - e m p h a s i z i n g

has suggested t h a t to'"

there

fairs

(1969:52,

55).

the latter.

in this

emphasizing

From t h i s ,

s i n c e t h e former

For F r i e s ,

t o speak and u n d e r s t a n d

c a l and g r a m m a t i c a l pressed

for

he

leads t o " . . .

and t o problem f i n d i n g "

ledge about a language,

"...well-

a n d ' k n o w i n g how

the schools

that

a language,

an u n d e r s t a n d i n g

structure

i n human

the frequently

t i n c t i o n between knowledge of a l a n g u a g e , ability

and knowledge

to the

s h o u l d b e "more e m p h a s i s on 'how

and l e s s on " ' w h a t ' "

trouble recognition

between

made

af dis

i s , the

and t h e know

of t h e p h o n o l o g i

of t h e l a n g u a g e , was e x

fashion:

This 'knowledge' need n o t be consciously formulated i n order t o use a language; i t must, however, be so thorough t h a t i t func t i o n s a u t o m a t i c a l l y f o r a speaker or h e a r e r i n r e a c t i n g t o t h e c l u e s furnished by t h e forms and arrangements of words. (1945:29) It may be argued at this point that the Friesian knowledge of a language and the Brunerian knowledge of how-to exist for different purposes.

But just as certainly, linguistic

knowledge can best be used in trouble recognition and problem finding if it exists as knowledge of a language, the how-to of speaking and understanding a language.

But

it cannot be argued that Bruner and Fries disagree on which kind of knowledge should be given priority.

They

both prized the knowledge which leads to action most, the how-to knowledge.

FRIES AND BRUNER

27 3

Conclusion

Without doubt, the view of the work of Jerome Bruner in comparison to that of C.C. Fries cannot do justice to either scholar.

In the first place, it distorts the em-

phasis of the former since Bruner was concerned with intuition, discovery and cognition in human thinking.

In

the second place, it gives to the work of C.C. Fries a modernity that he never anticipated for his own work.

But

in either case, the comparison is justified because, on the the one hand, the statements of Bruner are made in the concontext of a historical reaction to a narrow behaviorism and, on the other hand, the suggestions of Fries were made in a manner that transcends the narrow behaviorism of his time.

In any case, it appears that the Fries grammar-by-

induction or natural method for learning grammar is in accord with the cognitive psychology of Bruner.

It also

appears that the Fries use of contrastive analysis for the construction of teaching materials is not altogether in error.

Furthermore, it would appear that these two

scholars are in agreement on the view of skill development and the reason for the acquisition of knowledge.

REFERENCES

Asher, James J. (1977). Learning Another Language Through Actions: The Complete Teacher's Guidebook. Los Gatos, CA: Sky Oaks Productions. Bruner, Jerome S. (1962a). On Knowing: Essays for Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bruner, Jerome S. (1962b). The Process Harvard University Press.

of Education.

the Left

Hand.

Cambridge, MA:

274

JAMES W. NEY

Bruner, Jerome S. (1964). Going Beyond the Information Given. In University of Colorado Psychology Department (Eds.), Contemporary Approaches to Cognition: A Sympositon Held at the University of Colorado, 41-69. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bruner, Jerome S. (1966). Theorems for a Theory of Instruction. In Jerome Bruner (Ed.), Learning About Learning. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Bruner, Jerome S. (1969). Notes on Divisive Dichotomies. In Thomas Holland and Catherine M. Lee (Eds.), The Alternative of Radicalism. New Orleans, LA: The U.S. Office of Education Tri-University Project in Elementary Education. Bruner, Jerome S. (1971). W.W. Norton.

The Relevance

of Education.

New York:

Chastain, Kenneth D. and Frank J. Woerdehoff. (1968). A Methodological Study Comparing the Audio-Lingual Habit Theory and the Cognitive-Code Learning Theory. The Modern Language Journal 52: 268-278. Fries, Charles C. (1945). Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Fries, Charles C. (1949). George Wahr.

The Teaching

of English.

Ann Arbor, MI:

Fries, Charles C. (1957). The Teaching of Modern Languages. Sydney, Australia: Australian National Advisory Committee for UNESCO. Fries, Charles C. (1958). On the Oral Approach. In Fumio Nakajima (Ed.), Lectures by C.C. Fries and W.F. Twaddell, 13-23. Tokyo: English Language Exploratory Committee. Fries, Charles.C.

(1961).

Letter to Peter H. Fries.

June 5, 1961.

Fries, Charles C. and Agnes C. Fries. (1961). Foundations for English Teaching. Tokyo: Kenkyusha Ltd. for the English Language Exploratory Committee. Kunihira, Shirou, and James J. Asher. (1965). The Strategy of the Total Physical Response: An Application to Learning Japanese. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 3,4:277-289. Lado, Robert. (1957), Linguistics Across The University of Michigan Press.

Cultures.

Ann Arbor, MI:

FRIES AND BRUNER Lado, Robert and Charles C. Fries. (1957). English Ann Arbor, MI: English Language Institute.

2 75 Sentence

Patterns.

Newmark, Leonard. (1966). How Not to Interfere with Language Learning, In Edward Najam (Ed.), Language Learning: The Individual and the Process, 77-83. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Oiler, John W. and Seid Ziahosseiny. (1970). The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis and Spelling Errors. Language Learning 20:183189.

About 19 5 7 In Ann Arbor

CHARLES FRIES AND CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

Marcel Danesi

Ever since the publication in 1945 of Fries' Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language , the view that the native language is of paramount importance in learning a foreign, or second, language has become a deeply rooted one in the field of second language teaching. The entrenchment of this view is due largely to classroom experience, for as second language teachers discover with regularity the unconscious transfer of native language structural and lexical patterns to the second language learning process produces characteristic errors in those areas of the target language where such patterns are either divergent or non-existent. This seemingly inescapable learning predicament has led some language educators to the extreme view that interference from the native language may constitute the major obstacle in learning a second language. As Spolsky (1979: 251-252) has pointed out, the recurrence of systematic, non-random errors in second language learning has, in fact, spawned three major pedagogical theories which have dominated the second language teaching field since 1945: (1) c o n t r a s t i v e analysis , i.e., the belief that any strategy of second language teaching should be developed

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from an analysis of the transfer mechanisms from the native language to the target language; (2) error analysis, or the view that second language teaching should not be limited to the contrastive analysis hypothesis since systematic errors are also caused by intralingual mechanisms such as overgeneralization and simplification which are characteristic of language learning in general (e.g., Corder, 1967; Richards, 1971, 1975); (3) the interlanguage hypothesis , i.e., the view that both types of mechanisms--interlingual transfer and intralingual error-production--characterize the learner's speech, or interlanguage, and that second language teaching should incorporate the analysis of both native language transfer and intralingual error patterns (e.g., Corder, 1971; Nemser, 1971; Selinker, 1972). The interlanguage hypothesis is clearly the more attractive one since it correlates errors to both interlingual and intralingual sources. As Sridhar (1981:232) has recently observed: "Interlanguage takes all three systems into account, explicitly incorporating the contrastive analysis of the learner's Interlanguage with both his native language and the target language. The difference is that, in Interlanguage, the contrastive analysis is an initial filtering device, making way for the testing of hypotheses about the other determinants of the learner's language." But the point I wish to emphasize here is that without Fries' pioneering study of 1945 and his subsequent writings on second language learning and teaching the importance of systematic errors for the design of pedagogical materials and curricula--as well as for the valuable insights they provide on the nature of the second language learning process--may have gone unnoticed. Actually, Fries' views on the crucial role played by the native language in shaping the second language learning

CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

27 9

process go as far back as 1927; and they were embodied in two major works, American Structure

of

English

English

(1952).

very influential on the modus

Grammar

(1940) and

The

These two works proved to be operandi

during the fifties and sixties.

of language teaching

Moreover, Fries' influence

on his student, Robert Lado, can be seen in one of the key contributions to the formalization of contrastive analysis, Linguistics

Across

Cultures

(1957).

Fries also founded and

directed for a number of years the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor).

Yet

despite all these facts, Fries 1 role in what may be called a veritable "revolution" in second language teaching is usually recognized only in a general, matter-of-fact way. It is therefore the purpose of this paper to look more closely at Fries' views on the second language learning and teaching processes--views which have become seminal for the influence they have had on both theorists and practitioners in language education. Before examining Fries' views, it should perhaps be pointed out that during the late sixties and seventies the mood in second language education vis-à-vis contrastive analysis changed abruptly.

The original association of

contrastive analysis to linguistic structuralism and psychological behaviorism became a stigmatic one in a period which saw transformational linguistics and cognitive psychology come to the forefront in both applied linguistics and language teaching.

Despite some significant ef-

forts to adapt it to transformational models

(e.g., Di

Pietro, 1968, 1976; Lado, 1968; Moulton, 1968; Nickel, 1968; James, 1969; Wagner, 1969), contrastive analysis was not able to dissociate itself from its structuralistbehaviorist origins.

However, the coordinates in applied

linguistics and language teaching are changing once again,

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MARCEL DANESI

and the renewal of interest in contrastive analysis (e.g., Fisiak, 1981) is due primarily to the "eclectic" point of view that now seems to dominate the second language teaching f i e l d — a view that draws on any technique, such as contrastive analysis, which proves to be effective for a specific learning task.

In this climate, contrastive

analysis is generally perceived as being valuable during the beginning stages of second language learning when one commonly observes a plethora of errors attributable to native language interference.

As Brown (1980:173) points

out, during the early stages, "before the system of the second language is familiar, the native language is the only linguistic system in previous experience upon which the learner can draw." But at this point it is more in line with the purpose of this paper to discuss Fries 1 views on the second language learning and teaching processes, since these constitute the underpinnings of contrastive analysis in its original version.

For the sake of convenience, I shall

proceed by formulating and discussing six general principles extrapolated from Fries' writings which underlie, in my opinion, his philosophy of second language learning and teaching.

PRINCIPLE 1:

The learning of a second is substantively different native language.

language as an from learning

This principle constitutes the raison trastive analysis.

d'être

adult the

of con-

Having lived and worked as linguist

and educator in the era of Bloomfieldian structuralism and behavioral psychology, it should come as no surpise that Fries adopted the view that the main difference between the learning of a native language and the learning of a second language as an adult can be expressed in terms of

CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

281

habit theory: "Learning a foreign language is always a matter of acquiring a new set of language habits against a background of an older set of language habits (Fries, 1955: 302) . It would be very easy to criticize Fries' views in this sophisticated psycholinguistic era. But it should be kept in mind that Fries had no intention of adopting a psycholinguistic explanation to justify contrastive analysis. His use of the term habit clearly did not signify the mechanical relation between stimulus and response of behavioristic psychology. Rather, he uses the term to indicate the ability to perform some action without being consciously aware of it. To criticize Fries from a psycholinguistic standpoint would be unfair. As James (1980:25) strongly emphasizes, the contrastive analyst has never claimed to be a psycholinguist: "It is the contrastive analyst's duty to chart the linguistic (structural) routes in L2 learning. His findings and those of the psycholinguist will be complementary, but their instruments and methods must be different." Fries' main rationale for using contrastive analysis was simply to find out what the students already know and then to specify what they have to know. Although some stress that first and second language learning reveal a similar process (e.g., Dulay and Burt, 1974a, 1974b, 1976; Carroll, 1981), there is general agreement on Fries' view (expressed as principle 1) that it is convenient, at least from a pedagogical standpoint, to consider the two as different processes. For one thing, the second language learner does not start tabula rasa, so to speak, but brings to the learning task some firmly established verbal skills. Moreover, parameters such as a different learning context, a different perception and

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MARCEL DANESI

understanding of language structure and use due to an increased cognitive maturity, a different series of affective variables, and so on, all have a direct bearing on making the second language learning experience a substantively different one from the acquisition of a native language. As Fries (1958b:55) succinctly puts it: "Learning a second language is never the same process as learning the first language." Perhaps the most appealing psychological theory relating first and second language learning is the so-called Monitor Model (e.g., Krashen, 1976, 1977). This model assumes that native language learning depends largely on a creative construction process that is uncontrolled or automatic. Second language learning, on the other hand, is viewed as depending mainly on a controlled or conscious monitoring of language understanding and production. But whatever psychological theory one uses to compare first and second language learning, principle 1 implies, as Fries (1958a:739) points out, that the "materials for teaching a second language cannot follow the so-called 'natural' method by which a child learns his first language." This pedagogical viewpoint has been reformulated in an interesting recent study by Fischer (1979:100) as follows: "similar linguistic subsystems should be taught in a manner that prevents the student from using the knowledge of his native language." PRINCIPLE 2: The native language is the crucial factor that determines the way a second language is learned. This principle follows logically from the previous one. Basically, it implies that the skills acquired in the native language are bound to influence the second language learning process. In those structural and lexical

CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS areas

where

the

native

transfer

of

but

same mechanism

this

spots," gent

as

native

Fries

structural

initial

learning

and

language

called and

can

target

languages

skills

is

produce

them,

lexical

for

'2 8 3

a

converge,

clearly series

a whole

patterns—at

an of

range least

the

advantage; "blind of

diver

during

the

stages:

We know now t h a t w h a t h a p p e n s when we d e v e l o p t h e p a t t e r n s , when we l e a r n t h e p a t t e r n s of o u r n a t i v e l a n g u a g e i s t h i s : t h a t we l e a r n t o h e a r r a p i d l y , q u i c k l y t h e d i f f e r e n c e s of sound w h i c h s e p a r a t e m e a n i n g i n o u r own l a n g u a g e and we l e a r n t o g i v e a t t e n t i o n t o t h o s e and t o i g n o r e many d i f f e r e n c e s w h i c h t h e l a n g u a g e does n o t use t o s e p a r a t e meanings. As a r e s u l t , t h e l e a r n i n g of o u r n a t i v e l a n g u a g e s e t s up b l i n d s p o t s a s we t r y t o h e a r a second language. L e a r n i n g a s e c o n d l a n g u a g e i s n e v e r t h e same process as l e a r n i n g t h e f i r s t language, because, in learning the f i r s t l a n g u a g e / we h a v e l e a r n e d t o p a y n o a t t e n t i o n t o t h e s o u n d d i f f e r e n c e s which t h e language does n o t u s e . As a r e s u l t , a s we come t o a s e c o n d l a n g u a g e , we h a v e b l i n d s p o t s w i t h r e f e r e n c e t o t h e p a r t i c u l a r s o u n d p a t t e r n s t h a t a r e u s e d i n t h e new l a n g u a g e t h a t a r e n o t used in our n a t i v e language. ( F r i e s , 1958b:55)

That principle 2 is a pedagogically valid and useful one is borne out by various experimental studies (e.g., Brière, 1968; Schmidt, 1977) and by classroom experience. As Sciarone (1970) observes, a comparison with the native language cannot be avoided for the simple reason that when teaching a second language one is continually confronted with the problem of interlingual interference. To quote Sajavaara: "At the onset of the second-language-learning process, the learner's cue detection mechanism is tuned to the phenomena and processes of his first language. He tends to hear the target-language utterances in terms of categories and structures of his native language, and it is not surprising at all that he also substitutes elements of his first language for the target structures" (1981:115). Principle 2 has often been called the strong contrastive hypothesis, and it has been criticized primarily for

284

MARCEL DANESI

three reasons 1972):

(e.g., Wardhaugh, 197 0; Whitman and Jackson,

(1) similarities and differences in structure and

lexicon between the native and target languages do not constitute the only factors shaping the second language learning process; (2) some of the difficulties predicted by contrastive analysis do not surface in the learner's interlanguage; (3) not all systematic errors in second language learning are due to native language interference. many prefer is a weak contrastive

hypothesis

contrastive analysis as an a posteriori rather than as an a priori

What

which views

diagnostic aid,

predictive device.

However, it

should be emphasized that it never was claimed by the original proponents of contrastive analysis, and especially by Fries, that contrastive analysis would predict all areas of learning difficulty.

Basically, contrastive analysis

was viewed as a heuristic device that would allow the teacher to identify which structures and lexical items can best be presented in terms of the native language and which ones can best be presented without reference to the native language.

Fries viewed contrastive analysis as an

indispensable tool to be used in helping teachers assess what

is

already

known by second

helping them decide how to are

to

where

one wants

them

get

languag e learners the

learners

to go:

from

and in where

they

"it is not the tools

and techniques of linguistic science that should be brought into the classroom; but, in some way, the substance of the knowledge and understanding won by linguistic science must be thoroughly assimilated and then used to shed new light upon the problems that arise wherever language is concerned"

(Fries, 1961a:37).

PRINCIPLE 3:

The most materials entific

effective are

those

description

teaching that of

strategies

are the

based

second

and on a

sci-

language

CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

28 5

compared with a parallel description of the native language. This principle follows directly from the second one. Given the crucial role played by the native language in second language learning, the logical first step in an effective teaching strategy is a scientific description of the native language in order to assess the kinds of skills the learner brings to the learning task, and a parallel scientific description of the target language in order to pinpoint potential areas of difficulty: "The fundamental feature of this new approach consists in a scientific descriptive analysis as the basis upon which to build the teaching materials" (Fries, 1949:90). Few would disagree with Fries on the point that the insights of linguistics are relevant to language teaching. Indeed, this point constitutes the raison d'être of applied linguistics. Given the era in which Fries lived and worked, it should come as no surprise that the model of linguistic description he suggests is the structuralist one (e.g., Fries, 1940, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1952, 1955, 1960a, 1961a, 1964). What is to be noted here is that, in addition to structuralist principles of linguistic analysis, the term "scientific" had two main implications for Fries. (1) It meant the elimination of ad hoc and trialand-error teaching approaches: "Good teachers of a foreign language have often, from their experience, hit upon many of the special difficulties of their students. But such good results from practical teaching experience alone are unsystematic and uneven because they are not related to any principle which would provide a thorough and consistent check of the complete language material itself and reveal the essential nature of the difficulties" (Fries, 1955:302). (2) It meant that the approach to structural and lexical

286

MARCEL DANESI

matters must be descriptive, not prescriptive.

The ap-

proach should not be based on how certain teachers or "linguistic authorities" think a language ought to be used, but on "how certain native speakers actually do use it in natural, practical conversations" (Fries, 1952:3).

PRINCIPLE 4:

A comparison of the target language with the native language furnishes a method for identifying, selecting and arranging the materials to be taught.

This principle is a derivative, or corollary, of the previous one; and it is therefore not necessary to dwell upon it here.

Suffice it to say that it expresses Fries 1

view that contrastive analysis in itself is not a classroom technique, but rather a heuristic device that allows for the identification, selection and arrangement of the structures and lexical items of the target language in terms of the learners' knowledge of their native language: "But these descriptions and this systematic comparison of the native language of the student with that of the lan-

guage to be learned is

not

the

material

to be taught.

It

constitutes rather the basic matter upon which to build satisfactory classroom exercises which will contain the significant contrasts that must be mastered as new molds or patterns for the new language material" (Fries, 1955: 302). Although it would probably be inappropriate, as Oiler (1972;72) has emphasized, to use contrastive analysis as the exclusive basis upon which to prepare teaching materials, contrastive analysis does play a vital role as a heuristic device, since its ultimate goal is the maximization of the transfer of similar structural and lexical patterns and the minimization of interference.

It would per-

haps be more appropriate to use contrastive analysis in

CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

2 87

conjunction with any other device deemed to be germane to the facilitation of second language learning. At this point, it might be mentioned that the controversial concept of hierarchies of difficulty is nowhere to be found in Fries' writings. As is well known, this concept grew out of attempts (e.g., Stockwell, Bowen and Martin, 1965) to formalize the predictive uses of contrastive analysis. It was suggested by some that contrastive analysis could identify different degrees or levels of difficulty. The problems with such a concept are apparent. Above all else, it is practically impossible to determine which level of difficulty a specific contrast fits into. As Di Pietro (1976:163) cautions: "If such hierarchies are to be applied' in planning programs of instruction, it should be remembered that every speech act is a complex act, containing elements of semantics, syntax and phonology occurring simultaneously." Fries himself seems to have issued a similar warning in a letter to his son, Peter (Fries, 1961b): "The formal structures of two languages differ both fundamentally and superficially in many, many ways. Comparison on a strictly formal level of structural devices is extremely difficult and, I believe, of very much less practical significance and use." In essence, Fries suggests the use of contrastive analysis basically to organize materials into a logical, coherent whole, PRINCIPLE 5: The ultimate goal of second language learning and teaching is full mastery of the target language. Once the teacher has made an appropriate identification, selection and arrangement of what to teach on the basis of a comparison of the native and target languages, then the focus should be on mastering the target language. Fries gave the name "oral approach" to his various peda-

288

MARCEL DANESI

gogical suggestions for leading the learner to mastery (e.g., Fries, 1955:301-304, 1958b, 1958c, 1960b, 1967). Briefly, the features of this approach can be summarized as follows. (1) The goal for the beginning stage of second language learning is a thorough learning of the materials selected so that they can be produced orally by the learners: "The word oral in the name 'Oral Approach' is used to describe what the pupil must be able to do with each lesson he learns. He must be able to use orally all the English he studies each day. To use it orally means that he can select at once and produce orally the English that is required for any of the meaning situations covered by what he has studied" (Fries, 1960b:2). (2) To achieve this goal, the learner must have the proper materials to practice and learn. These are, of course, those identified by contrastive analysis. (3) It is also appropriate that all aspects of teaching "proceed by contrasts of items in structure not by isolated items as items" (Fries, 1955: 3 03). Fries alludes in this quotation to the use of structural techniques in language teaching which "are devoted to recognizing and producing the contrastive features of sound segments, of intonation and stress, of structural arrangement and form" (Fries, 1958c:20). (4) To achieve mastery, it is important not to teach the skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) separately but simultaneously: "In the first stage of learning a new language, the end is that the basic structural patterns, with a limited vocabulary, are to be learned so well that they can be produced orally, automatically, and without hesitation, when the learner is confronted with the appropriate situation. To the accomplishment of this end, not only oral practice is used but also every other means of learning, including writing and reading" (Fries, 1955:301).

CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

28 9

(5) Pattern practice is important in order to develop the automatic control of the significant contrasts of the target language. But this does not imply simple osmosis and repetition: "Imitation and repetition is of course the first step. The next step involves productive conscious choice among several patterns--with the selection of the pattern as the point of attention. The third step aims at an automatic, spontaneous selection of a pattern with the attention centered not on the structural patterns themselves but on changing situations and shifted meanings, introduced by a variety of differing vocabulary items" (Fries, 1955:303). PRINCIPLE 6: The fundamental aim of second language learning and teaching should be an understanding of the second language culture and it s people. This last principle expresses Fries1 view of the fundamental aim of second language learning and teaching: to seek an understanding "between people of different linguistic backgrounds" (Fries, 1957:15). It is often forgotten that the early proponents of contrastive analysis did not focus entirely on structural and lexical matters in language teaching, but also on the cultural differences that result from the "words and linguistic forms of the users of each of the two languages" (Fries, 1955:305). Pedagogically, this means that a truly effective contrastive analysis must identify the culturally conditioned ways in which the people of the target culture shape their conversations. Fries emphasizes, in fact, the need to grasp the psychological and sociological nuances that are implied by the structural and lexical patterns of the target language. As he continually points out, Fries considered meaning to be centrally important in teaching methodology. One cannot teach items in isolation; they have to be contextual-

290

MARCEL DANESI

ized in a meaningful way.

In fact, it can be said that

contrastive analysis was considered by Fries to be "pragmalinguistic"

(see, for example., Di Pietro, 1970, 1978,

1980; and Riley, 1981 for similar views of contrastive analysis).

Indeed, Fries was among the first to emphasize

the importance of cultural content—in the sense of pragmalinguistic content--in material selection:

"We have

thus been struggling to develop not only our techniques of analysis to establish and define the functioning patterns of behavior of a foreign people and to gather the materials through which these patterns are clearly realized, but also our techniques for making a systematic comparison of the functioning patterns of two cultures and to break through the barriers that prevent the sympathetic vivid imaginative realization of understanding"

(Fries, 1955:

308) . To conclude, the word that perhaps best sums up Fries' contribution to the field of second language teaching is "pioneering."

Although some might take issue with several

of his views, no one would dispute the fact that in founding contrastive analysis he revolutionized second language teaching.

He became, in fact, the central figure during

the forties and fifties in making second language teaching less amateuristic and more systematic.

It is no wonder

that contrastive analysis became a synonym for applied linguistics for many years.

In fact, it can be claimed

that Fries was a pivotal force in the founding of applied linguistics itself, for as Marckwardt

(1968:206-207) has

remarked, it is "doubtful that anyone whom we can remember did more in bringing linguistics to bear upon every kind of language-teaching activity, in insisting that linguistics was not merely for the linguists but that it belonged in every curriculum designed for students who were prepar-

CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

2 91

ing for a professional career in which language

activities

play a significant role."

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Brière, Eugène. Interference.

(1968), A P s y c h o l i n g u i s t i c Study The Hague: Mouton.

of

Phonological

Brown, H. Douglas. (1980). Principles of Language Learning Teaching. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

and

Carroll, John B. (1981). Conscious and Automatic Processes in Language Learning. Canadian Modern Language Review 37:462-474. Corder, S.P. national

(1967). The Significance of Learners' Errors. Review of Applied Linguistics 5:161-170.

Inter-

Corder, S.P. (1971). Idiosyncratic Dialects and Error Analysis. International Review of Applied Linguistics 9:147-159. Di Pietro, Robert J. (1968). Contrastive Analysis and the Notions of Deep and Surface Grammar. In J.E. Alatis (Ed.), Georgetown Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics , 21:65-80. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Di Pietro, Robert J. (1970). Contrastive Analysis and Linguistic Creativity. University of Hawaii Working Papers in Linguistics 3:57-71. Di Pietro, Robert J. (1976). Language Structures vised ed.). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

in Contrast

(Re-

Di Pietro, Robert J. (1978). Verbal Strategies, Script Theory and Conversational Performances in ESL. In C. Blatchford and J. Schachter (Eds.), On TESOL, 149-156, Washington, D.C. TESOL. Di Pietro, Robert J. (1980). Verbal Strategies: ANeglected Dimension in Language Acquisition Studies. In Hans W. Dichert and Manfred Raupach (Eds.), Temporal Variables in Speech: Studies in Honor of Frieda Goldman-Eisler, 313-321. The Hague: Mouton. Dulay, Heidi C. and Marina K. Burt. (1974a). Errors and Strategies in Child Second Language Acquisition. TESOL Quarterly 8:129136.

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Dulay, Heidi C. and Marina K. Burt. (1974b). Natural Sequences in Child Second Language Acquisition. Language Learning 24:37-53. Dulay, Heidi C. and Marina K. Burt. (1976). Creative Construction in Second Language Learning and Teaching. Language Learning Special Issue No. 4, 65-79. Fischer, Robert A. (1979). The Inductive-Deductive Controversy Revisited. The Modern Language Journal 63:98-105. Fisiak, Jacek. (Ed.) (1981). Contrastive guage Teacher. Oxford: Pergamon.

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Fries, Charles C. (1945). Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Fries, Charles C. (1947). Implications of Modern Linguistic Science. College English 8:314-320. Fries, Charles C. (1948). Have as a Function Word. 'Language ing 1,3:4-8. Fries, Charles C. (1952). The Structure court Brace and Co,

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New York: Har-

Fries, Charles C. (1955). American Linguistics and the Teaching of English. Revue des Langues Vivantes 21:294-310. Fries, Charles C. (1957). The Teaching of Modern Languages. Australia: Australian National Committee for UNESCO.

Sydney,

Fries, Charles C. (1958a). Preparation of Teaching Materials, Practical Grammars, and Dictionaries, Especially for Foreign Languages. In Eva Sivertsen (Ed.), "Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Linguists , 738-746. Oslo: Oslo University Press. Fries, Charles C. (1958b). The Teaching of English as a Second Language. SHIKSHA, the Journal of Education Department (uttar, Pradesh) 53-57.

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Fries, Charles C. (1958c). On the Oral Approach. In Fumio Nakajima (Ed.), Lectures by C.C. Fries and W.F. Twaddell, 18-23. Tokyo: English Language Exploratory Committee. Fries, Charles C. (1960a). Linguistic Science and the Teaching of English. In Robert C. Pooley (Ed.), Perspectives on English: Essays to Honor W. Wilbur Hatfield, 135-155. New York: Appleton Century Crofts. Fries, Charles C. (1960b). A New Approach to Language Learning. ELEC Publications 6, March: 1-4. Fries, Charles C. 23:30-37.

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Fries, Charles C. (1964). Linguistics and the Teaching of Reading. The Reading Teacher 17:594-598. Fries, Charles C. (1967). Learning to Read English as Part of the Oral Approach. In Fumio Nakajima (Ed.), ELEC Publications volume 8: a special number commemorating the tenth anniversary of the founding of ELEC, 6-11. Tokyo: Kenkyusha Ltd. James, Carl. (1969). Deeper Contrastive Study. International of Applied Linguistics 7:83-95. James, Carl. man.

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Krashen, Stephen. (1976). Formal and Informal Linguistic Environments in Language Acquisition and Language Learning. TESOL Quarterly 10:157-168. Krashen, Stephen. (1977). The Monitor Model for Adult Second Language Performance. In Marina Burt, Heidi Dulay and Mary Finnochiaro (Eds.), Viewpoints on English as a Second Language, 152161. New York: Regents, Lado, Robert. (1957). Linguistics Across The University of Michigan Press.

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MARCEL DANESI (1968).

Charles C. Fries. Language 44:205-

Moulton, William G. (1968). The Use of Models in Contrastive Linguistics. In James E. Alatis (Ed.), Georgetown Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics, 21:27-38. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Nemser, William. (1971). Approximative Systems of Foreign Language Learners. International Review of Applied Linguistics 9:115123. Nickel, Gerhard. (1968). Bericht liber Ergebnisse der Kontrastiven Analyse Sprachlicher Phänomene im Deutschen und Englishchen. Deutsch Unterricht fur Ausländer 18:140-152. Oller, John W. (1972). Contrastive Analysis, Difficulty, and Predictability. Foreign Language Annals 6:95-106. Richards, Jack C. (1971). A Non-Contrastive Approach to Error Analysis. English Language Teaching 25:204-219. Richards, Jack C. (1975). Simplification: A Strategy in the Adult Acquisition of a Foreign Language: An Example from Indonesian/ Malay. Language Learning 25:115-126. Riley, P. (1981). Towards a Contrastive Pragmalinguistics. In Jacek Fisiak (Ed.), Contrastive Linguistics and the Language Teacher, 121-146. Oxford: Pergamon. Sajavaara, K. (1981). Psycholinguistic Models, Second Language Acquisition and Contrastive Analysis. In Jacek Fisiak (Ed.), Contrastive Linguistics and the Language Learner, 87-120. Oxford: Pergamon. Schmidt, R.W. (1977). Sociolinguistic Variation and Language Transfer in Phonology. Working Papers in Bilingualism 12:80-95. Schiarone, A.G. (1970). Contrastive Analysis: Possibilities and Limitations. International Review of Applied Linguistics 2:115-131. Selinker, Larry. (1972). Interlanguage. International Applied Linguistics 10:201-231.

Review

of

Spolsky, Bernard. (1979). Contrastive Analysis, Error Analysis, Interlanguage and Other Useful Fads. Modern Language Journal 63:250-256.

CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

2 95

Sridhar, S.N. (1981). Contrastive Analysis, Error Analysis and Interlanguage: Three Phases of One Goal. In Jacek Fisiak (Ed.), Contrastive Linguistics and the Language Teacher, 207-241. Oxford: Pergamon. Stockwell, Robert, J. Donald Bowen and John W. Martin. (1965). The Grammatical Structures of English and Spanish. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wagner, K-H. (1969). Probleme der Kontrastiven Sprachwissenschaft. Sprache im Technischen Zeitalter 32:305-326. Wardhaugh, Ronald. (1970). The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis. TESOL Quarterly 4:123-130. Whitman, Randal L. and Kenneth L. Jackson. (1972). The Unpredictability of Contrastive Analysis. Language Learning 22:29-41.

1967 At the National Council of Teachers of English meeting in Hawaii (last known photograph)

PATTERN-PRACTICE REVISITED

Frederick J. Bosco

There has been in recent years an almost routine denunciation of mechanical pattern-practice drills. Much of the criticism has centered on the artificiality of reducing language practice to repetitive tasks that require the learner to produce well-formed sentences on the model of one or more key examples by way of lexical substitutions and grammatical conversions. Critics of pattern-practice have charged that such activity fails to consider both the context of language use and the expressive needs of the student. Jakobovits (197 0) questioned the viability of pattern-practice as an effective classroom procedure. Lamendella (197 9) proposed discontinuing pattern-practice drills as a central component of any foreign-language curriculum on the grounds that such drills do not engage the communication hierarchy basic to second-language acquisition. Neurofunctional data is presented to support the hypothesis that pattern-practice drills engage functional systems which are inappropriate for language learning. Lamendella suggests that pattern-practice does not introduce the learner to the types of verbal strategies that underlie communicative interactions.

2 98

FREDERICK J. BOSCO Still, there have been certain initiatives directed

toward orienting pattern-practice along more communicative lines.

Recognizing the continued widespread use of pat-

tern-practice by classroom teachers, Jakobovits and Gordon (1979) proposed a new rationale for pattern-practice within a transactional framework.

Slager (197 3) and Rivers

(197 3) emphasized the importance of contextualizing language drills.

Bosco (1976, 1980) recommended the use of

"informative contexts" to channel pattern-practice.

Per-

haps the most reasoned article supporting the patternpractice concept is that of Brown

(1969) .

He points out

that pattern-practice techniques were developed for the purpose of overcoming influences from native language structure and argues that despite advances in linguistic and psychological theory, the need to help students overcome negative transfer from the native language still exists.

Brown presents cogent arguments to support the

thesis that neither transformational grammar nor case grammar is

incompatible with pattern-practice.

In his preface to English

Pattern

Practices

(Lado,

Fries, 1958), Fries states that "Pattern practice forms the most important activity of learning a foreign language." This paper examines Fries 1 concept of pattern-practice and points out certain basic discrepancies between Fries' view and current widespread conceptions.

I suggest that much

of what we call 'pattern-practice' is inconsistent with Fries' conception and is more in line with later formulations (particularly those of Brooks, 1960 and Mackey, 1967). The paper concludes with suggestions for creating a communicative framework for pattern-practice in order to foster the acquisition of grammar within contexts of language use. Pattern-practice for Fries is neither a technique for

PATTERN-PRACTICE teaching grammatical

s t r u c t u r e nor

grammatical teaching. to that

of M a c k e y .

Fries'

Mackey

is

position

299 it is

a substitute in sharp

for

contrast

writes:

Most of t h e v a r i o u s types of p a t t e r n - p r a c t i c e d r i l l s force t h e l e a r n e r t o make a grammatical or semantic choice in response t o a q u e s t i o n or c a l l - w o r d . P a t t e r n - p r a c t i c e makes grammatical ex p l a n a t i o n s superfluous and encourages l e a r n i n g by analogy. Since i t always involves t h e making of some s o r t of change in a sen t e n c e along a c e r t a i n p a t t e r n , t h e d r i l l must make c l e a r t h e type of change which i t r e q u i r e s t h e l e a r n e r t o make and the way he i s supposed t o make i t . The d r i l l s may c o n s i s t of i s o l a t e d and u n r e l a t e d sentences or may include m a t e r i a l from a s t o r y or dialogue. (1967:268)

Fries supports the explicit study of grammatical frames as a way of helping the student understand and produce English sentences. This rationale is embodied in English Sentence Patterns (Lado, Fries, 1957). The procedure, outlined in the Teacher's Introduction, comprises a number of steps: (1) a notation of the grammatical structure in question, (2) key examples incorporating the grammatical points, (3) a frame that contains an attention pointer, one or more key examples illustrating a previously learned pattern that contrasts with the pattern to be taught, a set of key examples incorporating the new pattern, and one or more comments that summarize the structural changes involved, (4) illustrative examples showing the pattern in a variety of linguistic environments or displaying minor variations, and (5) grammatical exercises that have as a point of cognition the grammatical devices in question. Following the presentation and practice of grammatical structure, the instructor is directed to introduce patternpractice (that is, integrated exercises that force the student to use a given pattern or constellation of patterns in a wide range of situations. Pattern-practice involves two

300

FREDERICK J. BOSCO

essential characteristics (Fries, 1961): (1) shifting the point of attention away from the structure being taught and onto the meaning of the sentences and (2) providing and maintaining the context of a communication situation. Both points are crucial. Pattern-practice involves shifting the point of cognition from grammatical structure to meaning. The aim of pattern-practice is to relegate the grammar of the language below the threshold of attention. Implicit in Fries' approach to the teaching of grammatical structure and the integration of what has been taught in pattern-practice is the distinction between exercises which have a grammatical focus and those which have a semantic focus. Each type of exercise involves a different point of cognition. Where the point of cognition involves a choice based on a consideration of grammatical structure, the exercise is grammatical; where the point of cognition involves a choice based on a consideration of meaning or use, the exercise is functional. In the strictest sense, pattern-practice for Fries attempts to bridge the gap between grammatical and functional exercises. The following examples illustrate the difference between the two types of exercises. Point of Cognition - Correlation of is/are with the item(s) identified. (An envelope) (Some typing paper) (Two airmail stamps)

There's an envelope on the desk. There's some typing paper on the desk. There are two airmail stamps on the desk.

Point of Cognition - Information listed in a schedule of air flights.

PATTERN-PRACTICE

301

F l i g h t s out of San F r a n c i s c o t o New York Lv, S.F.

Arr. N.Y.

8:15 a.m. 4:22 p.m. 9:00 a.m. 5:14 p.m. 1:04 p.m. 9:29 p.m. 4:30 p.m. 12:35 a.m. Are t h e r e any e a r l y morning f l i g h t s out of San F r a n c i s c o t o New York? There are two. morning.

T h e r e ' s one a t 8:15 and one a t 9:00 in t h e

Are t h e r e any e a r l y afternoon f l i g h t s ? Are t h e r e any l a t e afternoon f l i g h t s ? Grammatical e x e r c i s e s derstand

function

learner's

and u s e .

Pattern-practice

reinforce Fries

tained

words, e t c . ) ;

for Fries

that

involves

meaning

the

intro how

structure. focus be

article

and t h e T e a c h i n g of E n g l i s h "

opposition t o mechanical d r i l l s .

un

exercises

toward

e x e r c i s e s which,

t h e communicative In h i s

to

(inflection,

functional

and f u n c t i o n a l

in p a t t e r n - p r a c t i c e .

Linguistics

signals

"sames" of u n d e r l y i n g

insists

ability

a t t e n t i o n more d i r e c t l y

d u c t i o n of m e a n i n g f u l ever,

the learner's

and r e s p o n d t o g r a m m a t i c a l

word o r d e r , turn the

assess

sus

"American

he e x p r e s s e s

his

He w r i t e s :

The p a t t e r n p r a c t i c e t o make automatic t h e c o n t r o l of t h e s i g n i f i c a n t c o n t r a s t s of t h e v a r i o u s s e t s of s i g n a l s a language u s e s must not be simply r e p e t i t i v e d r i l l . I m i t a t i o n and r e p e t i t i o n i s of course t h e f i r s t s t e p . The next s t e p involves p r o d u c t i v e conscious choice among s e v e r a l p a t t e r n s - - w i t h t h e s e l e c t i o n of t h e p a t t e r n as t h e p o i n t of a t t e n t i o n . The t h i r d s t e p aims a t an a u t o m a t i c , spontaneous s e l e c t i o n of a p a t t e r n with t h e a t t e n t i o n centered not on the structural patterns themselves tut on changing s i t u a t i o n s and s h i f t e d meanings, introduced by a v a r i e t y of d i f f e r i n g vocabulary i t e m s . (1955:12-13)

This view is also expressed in Foundations Teaching. Fries writes:

for

English

302

FREDERICK J. BOSCO The end and aim of the whole process of learning is that the pupil may develop an ability to use English for real communication. We must never be satisfied with any lesson in which the pupil is merely parroting memorized sentences in formal exercises. Even the simplest pattern-practice should provide the context of a communication situation. (1961:342)

F r i e s warns t e a c h e r s about t h e dangers of turning p a t t e r n p r a c t i c e i n t o e x e r c i s e s t h a t amount t o l i t t l e more than mechanical manipulation of words in sentences. The danger i n t h e use of p a t t e r n - p r a c t i c e i s t h a t t h e p r o d u c t i o n on t h e p a r t of t h e p u p i l s may become mere mechanical manipulation of meaningless words i n s u b s t i t u t i o n and conversion e x e r c i s e s . To avoid t h i s d i f f i c u l t y p a t t e r n - p r a c t i c e should p r e s e r v e ( c e r t a i n l y a t t h e beginning) t h e s i t u a t i o n and c o n t r a s t s w i t h which the material i s introduced. These c o n t r a s t s and t h i s s i t u a t i o n a r e d e f i n i t e l y t h e c l u e s t o t h e meaning t h a t i s t o be g r a s p e d , and t h e p a t t e r n - p r a c t i c e must enforce t h e t e a c h i n g of t h e meaning. (1961:342) Brooks gives less importance to the communicative aspects of pattern-practice than does Fries.

Brooks states his

position in these terms: Pattern practice (or structure drill, as it is sometimes called), contrary to dialogue, makes no pretense of being communication. It is to communication what playing scales and arpeggios is to music: exercise in structural dexterity undertaken solely for the sake of practice, in order that performance may become habitual and automatic—as it must be when the mind concentrates on the message rather than on the phenomena that convey it. Pattern practice capitalizes on the mind's capacity to perceive identity of structure where there is difference in content, and its quickness to learn by analogy. Analysis is important in its proper sphere, but analogy is used instead through pattern practice to produce a control of language structure without the time and effort required for grammatical explanations... (1960:142) Various devices were proposed to help define the 'meaning1 of a pattern.

Stevick recommended the use of

'picture-pattern stories' which involves matching picture and pattern.

The following example is offered:

PATTERN-PRACTICE

303

Mr. L i t v a c k ' s club had a banquet a t a l a r g e h o t e l l a s t Friday evening. The soup was too s a l t y to e a t , t h e meat was too tough to c u t , and t h e coffee was too s t r o n g to d r i n k . But Mr. Litvack w a s n ' t unhappy, because he a r r i v e d too l a t e to e a t . (1950:34)

T h i s c l e v e r l y d e s i g n e d s t o r y c o n t a i n s f o u r i n s t a n c e s of t h e s t r u c t u r e t o be i n t e r n a l i z e d . Stevick proposed p i c t u r e s t o r y c o m b i n a t i o n s a s a means of i n t r o d u c i n g c l e a r and r e a l i s t i c contexts for p a t t e r n - p r a c t i c e . P i c t u r e s e q u e n c e s were w i d e l y used i n t h e e a r l y Mich igan m a t e r i a l s t o s t i m u l a t e p a t t e r n - p r a c t i c e . Many of t h e p i c t u r e - s e q u e n c e e x e r c i s e s i n t h e p a t t e r n - p r a c t i c e manuals were d e v e l o p e d by Maxine Guin B u e l l . In an a r t i c l e p u b l i s h e d i n Language Learning, Buell provides a r a t i o n a l e f o r t h e u s e of p i c t u r e s e q u e n c e s . P i c t u r e s make a t l e a s t t h r e e important c o n t r i b u t i o n s t o language t e a c h i n g . Foremost among t h e s e c o n t r i b u t i o n s i s t h a t already c i t e d . P i c t u r e s help us avoid verbalism in our t e a c h i n g ; they give r e a l i t y t o what we a r e e x p l a i n i n g . Second, p i c t u r e s help t h e t e a c h e r suggest c o n t e x t s which a r e o u t s i d e t h e classroom s e t t i n g . Some c o n t e x t s a r e very d i f f i c u l t t o r e c r e a t e in words a l o n e , and, i f t h e t e a c h e r does manage t o r e c r e a t e them, i t i s only with t h e l o s s of v a l u a b l e t i m e . The t h i r d advantage f o l lows c l o s e l y . P i c t u r e s h e l p t h e t e a c h e r change c o n t e x t s r a p i d l y and e a s i l y . . . (1950:15-16)

Buell stresses the need for meaningful contexts in these words: We need meaningful contexts to make our language teaching and practice effective,... Our teaching and practice, to be really effective, must provide the student with numerous speech situations each of which makes him feel the need for the same given pattern. He must, in short, be made to search for the pattern. All of us have probably found that for system and economy of presentation it is best to isolate patterns and work with items which pattern alike. The fact that we are centering the attention upon a particular pattern must not mean that we allow the pattern to become a floating piece of information which is not tied to the student's experience. Even at the very earliest

304

FREDERICK J. BOSCO levels of learning, the teacher must endeavor to engender the habits of language in the manner in which he expects the student to use them. Naturally, we wish our students to use their language habits in communication. Therefore, the practice of those habits should be, as far as possible, in situations of natural communication...

Creating realistic contexts as a basis for language use is certainly a valuable goal. It is not however easily achieved. An examination of English Vattevn Practices (Lado, Fries, 1958) reveals relatively few instances of "natural communication" in any real sense. The utterances are largely uncontextualized. They remain grammatical isolates--unrelated to contexts of use.

Strategies for Creating a More Communicative Framework for Pattern-Practice

In designing and conducting pattern-practice, can we maintain the context of language use while avoiding the repetitive and mechanical pitfalls that Fries warns us about? Certainly the task is not an easy one as evidenced by the proliferation of uninspired exercises that have found their way into our language manuals. I believe, however, that effective pattern-practice materials can be written if we give serious attention to the "communicative state of affairs" underlying language use and if we search for more effective strategies for shifting the learner's attention away from grammatical structure and onto the message side of language. To guide the instructor in designing and conducting patter-practice, I would like to put forward the schema in Diagram I as a conceptual guide.

INSTRUMENTALITIES OF THE MESSAGE

Features of language structure and discourse (grammatical properties, speech protocols, etc.)

ACTUAL MESSAGE

*The terms "focal awareness" and "subsidiary awareness" are taken from Michael Polanyi (1958). Polanyi distinguishes between the two ways of attending to a thing. Focal awareness refers to those things that we consciously attend to in the process of doing something. In reading, for example, the object of our attention is not on the words as graphic configurations, or on the texture of the paper, etc, but rather on the conceptions evoked by the text. The text itself— in all its particulars--is in subsidiary awareness. Polanyi views focal awareness and su sidiary awareness as being mutually exclusive. A pianist who shifts his attention from the music he is playing to such matters as the position of his fingers on the keyboard will evenr tually get confused and be forced to stop playing. This happens if our focal attention is shifted to particulars which are in subsidiary awareness.

STUDENT'S POINT OF AWARENESS DURING PATTERNPRACTICE

ASPECTS OF THE COMMUNICATIVE STATE OF AFFAIRS

Speech Event Transactional/Interactional Goals Physical and Social Settings Cultural Setting Roles Topics Referential and Informational Systems Interactional History (Old infromation)

DIAGRAM I

PATTERN-PRACTICE 305

3 06

FREDERICK J. BOSCO A reorientation of pattern-practice along more commun-

icative lines involves highlighting the conditions that give rise to discourse and not merely the sentences that surface as the result of discourse.

The notion "communi-

cative state of affairs," as used here, includes the nature of the speech event or happening, its participants, the physical and social settings, the communicative intent of the speaker/hearer, the interactional strategies used to achieve these communicative goals, the informational systems that serve as points of reference in the discussion, and so on.

The essential thing in pattern-practice is to

bring into focal awareness those relevant aspects of the communicative state of affairs which are basic to the understanding of the message.

Towards this end, we must

search for ways of visually displaying the critical aspects of the communicative state of affairs. To help shift the point of cognition in pattern-practice from grammatical structure to meaning and context, I would suggest the following general guidelines: 1.

Provide the learner with visual and informative contexts to channel the discussion;

2.

Exploit the concept of "connectedness" in establishing picture sequences and verbal cues ; and

3.

Utilize interactional frames in which the communicative functions are labeled. (See Wilkins, 1976 for a discussion of the concept of "communicative function").

Visual and informative contexts serve both to channel the discussion and to provide "clues" to meaning. elsewhere

I have

(Bosco, 1980) used the expression "Perceptual

Frames" to refer to visual displays that give information in an orderly and compact way.

Such representations as

the map of a city, a train schedule, a class schedule, a price list, a chart giving statistics about immigration

PATTERN-PRACTICE

3 07

patterns, a sequence of pictures which illustrate the steps involved in building something, a height and weight chart, etc. may serve as perceptual frames.

The following

perceptual frame provides the basis for talking about driving time between various cities.

This display can be

used to guide the student in generating such sentences as: "How long does it take to drive from Quebec to Montreal?" "It takes about three hours."

A considerable amount of information can be organized in column form as shown in the perceptual frame below.

308

FREDERICK J .

BOSCO

Invention

Inventor

Year

Nationality of Inventor

Introduction of First Practical Revolver

Samuel Colt

1835

American

Invention of LeverDriven Bicycle

Kirkpatrick Macmillan

1839

Scottish

Invention of Telephone

Alexander Graham Bell

1875

ScottishAmerican

Invention of Incandescent Light

Thomas Edison

1876

American

Invention of Phonograph

Thomas Edison

1877

American

Introduction of Kodak Camera

George Eastman

1888

American

Introduction of the Autocycle

Henry Ford

1896

American

Invention of the Powered Vacuum Cleaner

John Thurman

1899

American

The above frame p r o v i d e s t h e i n f o r m a t i v e c o n t e n t f o r sentences as:

such

"Colt introduced the f i r s t practical revolver in 1835." "Macmillan invented the lever-driven bicycle in 1839." P a s s i v e s e n t e n c e s can be e l e c i t e d .

For e x a m p l e :

"The f i r s t p r a c t i c a l revolver was introduced in 1835." "The lever-driven bicycle was invented in 1839." I n s e l e c t i n g c u e s t o e l i c i t p a t t e r n - p r a c t i c e and i n e s t a b l i s h i n g p i c t u r e s e q u e n c e s t o s t i m u l a t e p r a c t i c e , we s h o u l d e x p l o i t t h e c o n c e p t of " c o n n e c t e d n e s s . " B.L. Whorf (1956) comments on t h e i m p o r t a n c e of " c o n n e c t i o n s " from a l i n g u i s t i c s t a n d p o i n t and s u g g e s t s t h a t t h e i m p o r t a n c e of

PATTERN-PRACTICE

30 9

the connection of ideas from the vantage point of the communication of ideas is little appreciated. The failure of the pattern-practice concept to yield more fruitful classroom exercises is due in no small measure to our lack of concern for the ways in which things are connected either pragmatically or psychologically. Sequences of pictures should be set up not simply to elicit "grammatical sames" but to illustrate options inherent in a situation, to represent sequences of events, to suggest items that we associate from one point of view or another, to detail step-by-step procedures for carrying out a task, etc. The question "What are you going to get your dad for Christmas?" for example could elicit such sentences as: "I'm thinking of getting him a shirt and tie." "I might get him an alarm clock." etc. The question "How about your mother?" could lead to such responses as "I'm going to get her some flowers." or "I'm thinking of buying her a gold bracelet." A chart illustrating various members of the family together with various gift options could be used to stimulate utterances which force the student to use sentences that contain both indirect and direct object structures. Picture sequences can be established along many lines. The critical matter involves building on various kinds of connections. For instance one could focus on any of the following: Things that Chart A) Things that Things that Things that Things that Things that etc.

some people like to do in their spare time. many people hate to do. are easily lost, we often have too much/too many of. we often forget to do. many people buy and never use.

(See

310

FREDERICK J . BOSCO

The c o n c e p t of c o n n e c t e d n e s s s h o u l d g u i d e n o t m e r e l y t h e s e l e c t i o n and s e q u e n c i n g of p i c t u r e s b u t a l s o t h e c h o i c e and s e q u e n c i n g of s p e e c h s i t u a t i o n s . Imagine, for e x a m p l e , t h a t we want t h e s t u d e n t t o p r a c t i c e imbedded s e n t e n c e s of t h e t y p e : Do you want ME TO DRIVE you downtown? I ' l l a s k JOHN TO MAIL t h e l e t t e r . Would you l i k e ME TO PICK UP some g r o c e r i e s ?

One c o u l d s e t up a s e r i e s of s i t u a t i o n s t h a t s e r v e t o cue " n a t u r a l r e s p o n s e s " of t h e t y p e shown: Strategy:

Offering Assistance

"Someone i s a t t h e d o o r . " "Would you l i k e me t o see who i t i s ? " "Dad has t o go t o t h e c l i n i c t h i s a f t e r n o o n . " "Would you l i k e John t o d r i v e him t h e r e ? "

P e r c e p t u a l frames can s e r v e t o b r i n g o u t c o n n e c t i o n s b e tween t h i n g s . The f o l l o w i n g frame a d d r e s s e s t h e q u e s t i o n of how t o c u t c a l o r i e s . For This

Substitute This Calories

Calories whole Milk 8 oz. |2 scrambled eggs

165 220

Skim Milk 8 oz, ! 2 boiled eggs

80 160

T h i s c h a r t can be used t o e l i c i t such s e n t e n c e s

Calories Saved 85 II 60

as:

" Y o u ' l l save 85 c a l o r i e s per g l a s s by d r i n k i n g skim milk i n s t e a d of whole m i l k . " " Y o u ' l l save 60 c a l o r i e s by e a t i n g two b o i l e d eggs for b r e a k f a s t i n s t e a d of two scrambled e g g s . "

The t h i r d and p e r h a p s t h e most i m p o r t a n t g u i d e l i n e f o r e s t a b l i s h i n g t h e c o n t e x t of l a n g u a g e u s e as a framework for p a t t e r n - p r a c t i c e i s t o e s t a b l i s h dialog options in which t h e communicative f u n c t i o n s a r e c l e a r l y l a b e l e d .

PATTERN-PRACTICE

311

Sentences have a strategic value in discourse above and beyond their grammatical make-up. The meaning of an utterance is not merely a product of its separate parts and its internal structure; the meaning of an utterance is also the result of its intended function in discourse. The functional value of an utterance is connected with the speaker's intention and attitude toward what he is saying as well as with the social and cultural matrix in which the utterance is used. Language serves many purposes. We use language to establish rapport with others, to inform, to console, to convince others of the rightness of our position, to instruct, to express anger or delight, and so on. The functional value of sentences grows from the ways in which we use language strategically to achieve communication goals. Fries was aware of the importance of maintaining a meaningful framework for pattern-practice. He insisted that we preserve the situations and contrasts with which the materials are first presented. This initial introduction consisted of teacher-pupil and pupil-pupil dialogs. My proposal is that we create "dialogs with options" (Di Pietro, 1975) in which the communicative functions are clearly labeled. In this way we explicitly show the learner how pattern-practice fits into conversational strategies. A brief example suffices to illustrate how communicative functions might be labeled.

312

FREDERICK J. BOSCO Situation:

Ann and Paul are classmates and friends. Paul extends to Ann an invitation to attend a soccer game. INVITATION Ann, would you like to go to the soccer game on Friday?

ENTHUSIASTIC ACCEPTANCE

REJECTION/EXCUSE STRAGEGY

I Great. What time is the game?

Sorry, I have to help my father at the grocery store on Friday.

INFORMING STRATEGY

REGRETS

It's at two o'clock.. I'll pick you up at one.

That's too bad. weekend.

CLOSURE

CLOSURE

Okay.

Okay. I d o n ' t t h i n k I have t o h e l p out next weekend.

A calendar

of

variation. following

events provides the basis

The d i a l o g e v e n t s on

could revolve

Maybe next

for further

a r o u n d a n y of

dialog the

campus:

Event

Location

Day

Time

Soccer Game Boxing Match B a s k e t b a l l Game Rock Concert Piano R e c i t a l C h a r l i e Chaplain Movie

Stadium Gym Gym Stadium Music School Student Center

Friday Friday Saturday Saturday Sunday Sunday

2:00 8:00 2:00 8:00 3:00 7:30

A pictorial

representation

vided in Chart various

B.

exchanges.

of t h e e v e n t s o n c a m p u s i s

The c h a r t For

can be used t o

example:

What d i d you do Friday afternoon? I went t o t h e soccer game.

stimulate

p.m. p.m. p.m. p.m. p.m. p.m. pro

PATTERN-PRACTICE

313

Are you going t o t h e soccer game on Friday? Yes, I am. / N o , I'm n o t . / I d o n ' t know for s u r e . e t c . Did you go t o the piano r e c i t a l l a s t weekend? Yes, I d i d . / N o , I d i d n ' t . / I d i d n ' t know t h e r e was a r e c i t a l , etc. Have you ever gone t o a soccer game? Yes, I have. / N o , I h a v e n ' t .

In t h i s paper I have attempted t o demonstrate t h e v i a b i l i t y of the p a t t e r n - p r a c t i c e concept as envisioned by F r i e s and h i s a s s o c i a t e s a t the English Language I n s t i t u t e of the U n i v e r s i t y of Michigan ( p a r t i c u l a r l y Robert Lado, Maxine Guin Buell and Wanda Chroback) and t o suggest ways of developing the concept along more communicative l i n e s . In the hands of innovative t e a c h e r s , p a t t e r n - p r a c t i c e r e mains an e f f e c t i v e t o o l for promoting language use and for helping the student achieve language competence.

314

FREDERICK J .

chart a

BOSCO

PATTERN-PRACTICE

chart b

315

316

FREDERICK J. BOSCO REFERENCES

Bosco, Frederick J. and Robert J. Di Pietro. (1976). Developing Communication Skills. In Anthony S. Mollica (Ed.), A Handbook for Teachers of Italian, 65-74. New York: American Association of Teachers of Italian. Bosco, Frederick J. (1980). Perceptual Frames and the Teaching of Grammar. Guidepost in TEFL. Washington, D.C. : International Communication Agency. Brooks, Nelson. (1960). Language and Language Learning. Harcourt Brace and World, Inc.

New York:

Brown, T. Grant. (1969). In Defense of Pattern Practice. Learning 19,3-4:191-203,

Language

Buell, Maxine G. (1950). Picture Exercises for Oral Drill of Structure Patterns, Language Learning 3,1-2:14-33. Di Pietro, Robert J. (1975). Speech Protocols and Verbal Strategies in the Teaching of Italian. The Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue Canadienne des Langues Vivantes 32,1:24-38. Fries, Charles C. (1955). American Linguistics and the Teaching of English. Language Learning 6,1-2:1-22. Fries, Charles C. and Agnes C. Fries. (1961). Foundations English Teaching. Tokyo: Kenkyusha Ltd. Jakobovits, Leon A. (1970). Foreign Newbury House Publishers, Inc.

Language Learning.

for

Rowley, MA:

Jakobovits, Leon A. and Barbara Gordon. (1979). The Context of Foreign Language Teaching. Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishers, Inc. Lado, Robert and Charles C. Fries. (1957). English Sentence Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Patterns.

Lado, Robert and Charles C. Fries. (1958). English Pattern Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Practices.

Lamendella, John T. (1979). The Neurofunctional Basis of Pattern Practice. TES0L Quarterly 13,1:5-19. Mackey, William F. (1967). Language Teaching IN: Indiana University Press.

Analysis.

Bloomington,

PATTERN-PRACTICE

317

Polanyi, Michael. (1958). Personal Knowledge: Towards a PostCritical Philosophy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Rivers, Wilga. (1973). From Linguistic Competence to Communicative Competence. TESOL Quarterly 7,1:25-34. Slager, William R. (1973). Creating Contexts for Language Practice. TESOL Quarterly 7,1:35-50. Stevick, Earl W. (1950). Picture-Pattern Stories for Teaching English Structure. Language Learning 3,1-2:34-37. Whorf, Benjamin L. (1956). Language Thought and Reality. John B. Carroll). New York: John Wiley and Sons. Wilkins, David A. (1976). Notional University Press.

Syllabuses.

(Ed. by

London: Oxford

LEGACY FROM A LAST CHAPTER

Virginia French Allen

The last chapter of Teaching and Learning English as a. Foreign Language is the shortest; Chapter V (Contextual Orientation) is less than five pages long. Yet it undertakes the book's most ambitious task: to show how language relates to all the rest of life. "Our language is an essential part of every portion of our experience; it gets all its meaning from our experience...." (1945:57) That being so, Fries points out, there is nothing irrelevant about acquainting second-language students with the common life experiences of native speakers. It is a matter of practical necessity. If speakers of other languages are to acquire full understanding of English, they will need more than "valid techniques in the descriptive analysis of the sound system and of the structural system;" they must also observe "many features of the precise situations in which the varied sentences are used." Just what are some of those life situations? Almost half the chapter is devoted to answering that question. In outline format, Fries names many aspects of childhood that students should learn about: stories and songs English-speaking children hear and learn; places and times

320

VIRGINIA FRENCH ALLEN

and forms of play; expressions children use with parents, teachers, companions, adult strangers. These (among others) should be observed, even if the student is not a child. Next comes a list of needed learnings related to youth: what stories young native speakers read (portraying what kinds of conduct, in favorable or unfavorable light); what sports youth engage in; what is studied in school and how it is taught; how social relations are conducted between the sexes; how youth relate to peers and adults.... Predictably, the chapter has even more to say about the range of adult experiences that need to be observed. To understand what native speakers really mean, Fries maintains, one must pay attention to situations involving food, clothing and shelter in the daily lives of native speakers, as well as their religious practices, social distinctions, types of work, practices dependent on various seasons, language formulas appropriate to various situations, and areas of silence. Comprehensive as the listing seems, Fries did not consider it by any means complete. He aimed only to "furnish suggestions on the range of details that deserve attention" (1945:60). What sort of attention? The observation should be "minute" (1945:57). For instance, in observing social situations, it is not enough to notice the words and expressions characteristically uttered; one should also note non-verbal accompaniments: "motions and gestures" (1945: 59) . Furthermore, the situations must be observed in a certain spirit, which Fries carefully describes. Students are urged to observe, "not for the purpose of evaluation

CONTEXTUAL ORIENTATION

321

in terms of one's own practices, or finding the 'quaint' customs, but in order to understand and to feel and to experience as fully as possible" (1945:57) . Some of the most impressive parts of the chapter are the ones which deal with feeling and experiencing. Those passages emphasize the value of what is now called "the affective" in contrast to "the cognitive." For instance: Knowledge about the life, the customs, the mores of the people is not enough. Of course information, as accurate and as complete as possible, furnishes the first step, but information and knowledge are not in themselves understanding and it is understanding at which we aim.

(1945:57, emphasis added) To readers for whom Fries represented cool detachment and data-collection, there may have been surprises in that statement, and in the sentence which followed it: "The goal of language as communicative art is akin to that of all artistic effort--vivid imaginative realization." Fries clarified the meaning of "imaginative realization" in a footnote (1945:57) where he called attention to the "tremendous difference between an historical outline of the second half of the sixteenth century...and Scott's Kenilworth. The first may be much more accurate in detail and more complete in the range of items included; but no amount of memorizing of these facts would give one the 'feel' of the late sixteenth century, the vivid imaginative realization of that period, that he has after a reading of Kenilworth." Why is it that fiction and drama (more than history or scientific description) can help us develop the understanding essential to mastery of a foreign language? Because, as Fries makes clear, what is needed is attention to native speakers "as individuals, not the people as a mass" (1945:58). And it is literary artists, not social

3 22

VIRGINIA FRENCH ALLEN

scientists or writers of encyclopedia entries, who take us into the minds and mundane lives of individuals. When, in the early 1940s--through a series of sessions in the Fries' Ann Arbor livingroom--Charles C. Fries read the manuscript of Teaching and Learning to his English Language Institute staff, Chapter V affected us profoundly. Among my own reactions, as a junior staff member, there was relief as well as awe. Around that time, I was feeling qualms about my recent defection from the ranks of campus literati, where I had raised faculty hopes through poems published in The A t l a n t i c , then dashed those hopes by taking up with linguists. "Well, so much for the glum predictions!" I thought, while Chapter V was being read aloud. After all, it appeared, I had NOT sold my literary birthright for a mess of phonemes. Fries had NOT cut m e off from literature; in fact, he had shown me new reasons for valuing the literary artist's work. That partly accounts for the extraordinary impact of so brief a chapter: it drew attention to something shared by second-language teachers and teachers of literature: a mutual concern for "vivid imaginative realization." It was rare in the 1940s--as it still is now--to find mention of goals common to linguistics and literature. But this was not all that made the chapter special. In the 1930s and '40s, the arguments for learning about other ways of life were mainly humanitarian. Understanding other cultures, we often heard, would lead to the brotherhood of man. (In New York, for example, a retired missionary conducted "Reconciliation Tours" to Chinatown and other ethnic enclaves, designed to promote goodwill among men.) What Fries emphasized, though, was a different reason--a hardheaded pedagogical reason--for learning how members of other cultures lived. Whether or not such

CONTEXTUAL ORIENTATION

323

learning could bring world peace, it was indispensable (he said) to language mastery. Moreover, unlike the goodwill advocates, Fries insisted that observations of the cultural context should be systematic, "not casual and haphazard" (1945:57). For instance, it is not enough to know that a particular song is sung; we should also find out which groups sing it, and on which occasions. In other words, "we must try to grasp the patterns of the whole context." Even the fact that such patterns exist was a fresh idea to many in the 1940s. We who had studied General Semantics were keenly aware of the vast variety of connotations different individuals attach to the same word. We had learned that every person has a private set of meanings for many a word--meanings derived from that person's own experience. We were far less aware of a common core of connotations shared by members of a cultural group, a whole cluster of associations that differed significantly from the cluster held in common by members of another culture. Fries made us see that teacher and school (for example) have meanings to Americans that are quite different from the meanings those words convey to people who grew up in China or France. "The public schools...in our various communities in this country have much more in common than do our schools with those in foreign countries" (1945:58). Thus, for thoroughly understanding an American English sentence that contains teacher or school, an EFL student needs access to meanings that are not found in dictionaries. Those "social" meanings come out of native speakers' life experiences; it is therefore through somehow sharing such experiences that the meanings must be learned.

3 24

VIRGINIA FRENCH ALLEN While acknowledging it is impossible to "again become

a child and grow up in another community in which the foreign language is native, " Fries nevertheless declared students should attain "as complete a realization as possible of the common situations in which the language operates for the native speaker"

(1945:58).

What a tall order for students of English as a Foreign Language, and for their teachers, and for those who prepare the teachers!

In the effort to fill that

order, many actions have been taken since the publication

of Teaching and Learning in 1945. There will be space here to mention only a few of them--a few among those I have had a chance to observe at close range. One of the first writer-teachers to build on the foundation laid by Fries in the Contextual Orientation chapter was Walter Powell Allen. In 1946 he joined Aileen Traver Kitchin's newly-launched program at Teachers College, Columbia University, after several years of teaching college students in China. During those years he had sensed the need for some objective way to decide which literary works might offer his students the widest range of insights into American life. On becoming a doctoral candidate at Teachers College (one of the first ever to work toward the doctorate in Teaching English as a Second Language) Allen began with what Fries had said students should know about experiences of children, youth and adults. He then undertook to find out what anthropologists look for in their analyses of other cultures. The resulting synthesis, his "Checklist for American Culture," formed part of his doctoral dissertation in 1948. The checklist appeared again in W.P. Allen's Selecting Reading Materials for Foreign Students and again--most recently-in A Cultural Checklist : A Technique for Selecting Reading

CONTEXTUAL ORIENTATION Materials

for

Foreign

325

Students.

The Allen checklist has proved useful beyond its original purpose (to help teachers choose reading materials that illuminate many aspects of American life). Just a few of its uses will be cited here. At Temple University in the 197 0s a group of teachers converted many of the Cultural Checklist items into simplyworded questions that American students could ask new acquaintances from other countries. Mimeographed copies of the questions, called Conversation Starters, have turned up in several parts of the world. A different sort of adaptation of the Cultural Checklist can be seen in the six-page "Self-Evaluation Profile for Teachers" which Francis Shoemaker prepared for a mono-

graph, Educating

Personnel

for Bilingual

Settings.

The

Profile helps teachers assess how much they know about American culture--and about the cultures out of which their second-language students come. The most recent derivative from Walter Powell Allen's checklist that I know about is a set of "Questions for Conversations and Correspondence with Native Speakers" which I have included in Techniques in Vocabulary Teaching. The questions are to be asked by young students of EFL when they meet English-speaking youngsters, or when they write letters to pen pals in the United States. Samples: What subjects do you study in school? Does your school have parties and dances? What do you generally do after school each day? These have all been direct spin-offs from Walter Allen's Cultural Checklist, which in turn was foreshadowed by Fries' Contextual Orientation chapter. In addition, there have been papers dealing with possibilities for bringing cultural features to the notice of students--

326

VIRGINIA FRENCH ALLEN

among them my 1969 article, "Understanding the Cultural Context." In that same year Donald S. Knapp's article, "Using Structural Drills to Teach Cultural Understanding" was published. There he suggested (for example) a changeforcing drill on -s verb endings and the position of adverbs, adding a cultural dimension: The cafeteria usually sells for pancakes (breakfast) sandwiches (lunch) roast beef (dinner) orange juice (breakfast) Exercises of this kind were proposed for incorprating cultural information into the ongoing business of the language class. How to help EFL students experience "vivid imaginative realization" of life situations familiar to native speakers is a question that has challenged many since the publication of Fries' Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language. For me, it prompted the writing of a reader for adults, People in Livingston. That little reader, which took students into the everyday lives of fictitious individuals with commonplace problems and peccadillos, is now an anachronism. (Its characters get haircuts for "one dollar plus tip" and are expected to be home before midnight if they are only eighteen,) It has just gone out of print after thirty years and 50,000 copies; and it owes its existence to C.C. Fries. Through experience in his English Language Institute, I had learned how grateful students were for adult-life stories that even near-beginners could read. And his Chapter V gave Livingston its focus and frame. Many teachers who say "Yes, of course" to the ideas in that Contextual Orientation chapter seem unable to use those ideas in their classrooms. This was clearly evident

CONTEXTUAL ORIENTATION

3 27

in the early years of the Master's program in Teaching English as a Second Language at Teachers College.

Among

the teachers enrolled in our courses, even those who had studied linguistics and cultural anthropology seemed not to know just how their own cultural insights could help their students learn English. It soon became necessary to design a course called Language-Culture-Area Studies for Teachers.

Known as LCA,

it was a requirement for the Master's degree at Teachers College for nearly two decades. The keystone of LCA was Fries' chapter, of course. Other materials that we found useful included Robert Lado's Linguistics and

Cultures

Across

Cultures

, Eugene Nida's Customs

, and Clyde Kluckhohn's Mirror

for

Man,

In

addition to Walter Allen's Cultural Checklist we used various "area" lists that had been compiled for the Army Specialized Training Program during World War II.

They

pinpointed aspects of history and geography that EFL students should know, for an understanding of terms like colonial , pioneer, and immigrant

(and countless others

where dictionary definitions hardly begin to suggest what the words mean to native speakers). The LCA course showed teachers what second-language learners can gain from acquaintance with traditional games and songs, from proverbs, from fables, fairy tales, myths and juvenile stories that have taught native speakers what it means to "cry wolf" or to "live in a Never-Never Land," or to "open Pandora's box." Teachers also learned how to select adult works--fiction and drama--that provided views of regions and periods while creating a sense of participation in native speakers lives. Students in the LCA course

(many of whom had never

328

VIRGINIA FRENCH ALLEN

made any study of literature) read stories and plays, with such questions as these in mind: Where and when does the action happen? What if it had happened elsewhere, at some other time? To what extent is the theme universal? Which of the characters appear to be respected by the others? What do the respected ones do and say in key situations? How do they respond to what others say and do? What cultural information would be needed by EFL students before starting to read this work? What might the work suggest to them about customs and values and responses to situations in American life? Through such means, we tried to help teachers discover how ideas from the Contextual Orientation chapter could work in their classrooms. Hundreds who now staff TESOL programs were LCA students at one time or another. So were some twenty-five authors of TESOL textbooks in use around the world today. Thus the circle of influence widens--rippling out from Fries' Chapter V. As Benet once wrote (in a different context) : Who knows on what far shore the last wave breaks?

REFERENCES

Allen, Virginia French, (1951), People in Livingston: A Reader Adults Learning English. New York: T.Y. Crowell,

for

Allen, Virginia French. (1969). Understanding the Cultural Context. The Modern Language Journal 53:324-326. Allen, Virginia French. (1983). Techniques Oxford: Oxford University Press. Allen, Walter Powell. Foreign Students.

in Vocabulary

Teaching,

(1955). Selecting Reading Materials for Washington, D.C.: Washington Publications.

CONTEXTUAL ORIENTATION Allen, Walter Powell. (1973). A Cultural Checklist: Selecting Reading Materials for Foreign Students. English Language Services.

32 9 A Technique for Portland, OR:

Fries, Charles C. (1945). Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Kluckhohn, Clyde. House.

(1949). Mirror

for Man.

New York: Whittlesey

Knapp, Donald. (1969). Using Structural Drills to Teach Cultural Understanding. Journal of English as a Second Language 4,2:4348. Lado, Robert. (1957). Linguistics Across The University of Michigan Press. Nida, Eugene. (1954). Brothers.

Customs and Cultures.

Cultures.

Ann Arbor, MI:

New York: Harper and

Suttman, Francis X., Eleanor L. Sandstrom and Francis Shoemaker. (1979). Educating Personnel for Bilingual Settings. Washington, D.C.: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education .

NATIVE SPEAKER PERFORMANCE AND THE CLOZE TEST, A QUEST FOR VALIDITY

Robert Lado

When I went to the University of Michigan to study with Charles C. Fries in 1945, I had learned to apply statistical procedures to data collected as if fishing for interesting things. Predatory research and beetle mentality, I later called it: either get your "interesting data" and run, or pick something peculiar here or there without regard for the cultural or linguistic structures whence it came. Fries taught me to look inside for the structure of things, not just for curios. He taught me that languages were not just bizarre ways of pronouncing and saying things, and cultures not just exotic or alien ways of doing things. They were systems of communication and interaction and ways of life worthy of understanding. And to understand them, to grasp their significance, one must look for their organic structure. As Fries said of English grammar: ...the formal signals of structural meanings operate in a system — t h a t is,...the items of form and arrangement have signalling significance only as they are parts of patterns in a structural whole. (1952:60)

332

ROBERT LADO

A c t u a l l y , he applied t h i s view t o a l l of language as he l a t e r made c l e a r . . . . t h e h a b i t s t h a t c o n s t i t u t e t h e c o n t r o l of o n e ' s own n a t i v e language are n o t h a b i t s concerning items of language as s e p a r a t e i t e m s . . . . P r a c t i c a l language h a b i t s are always h a b i t s concern ing c o n t r a s t i v e shapes of l i n g u i s t i c i t e m s , in s t r u c t u r a l p a t t e r n s , functioning i n a system. No item has l i n g u i s t i c s i g n i f icance by i t s e l f . I t s s i g n i f i c a n c e can a r i s e only out of i t s c o n t r a s t with o t h e r items in t h e s t r u c t u r a l p a t t e r n s t h a t function as s i g n a l s in a p a r t i c u l a r language system. (1961:34)

Fries' approach had a profound influence on my thought. Linguistics

Across

Cultures

was a direct result of that

influence. Ever since my contact with Fries, I have been wary of counting items without knowing exactly what significance and role those items had within the surrounding context. This approach has perhaps underlain my current dissatisfaction with the suddenly popular cloze procedure as an overall test of language ability. The present use of the cloze procedure as a test grew out of Wilson Taylor's (1953) use of cloze to estimate the difficulty level of prose passages. This use seems simple and valid for the purpose. Take a 300 word passage, delete every nth word, leaving intact the first sentence or two, and ask native readers to restore the deleted words without access to the original. If native readers can restore many of the missing words, we infer that the prose is easy to read, and if they cannot restore the missing words, it is difficult. Behind Taylor's inference is the idea that native speakers of a language know their language and can anticipate in part what is going to be said or written (Oiler, 1973). If correct anticipation is high, the material is assumed to be easy; if low, the material is difficult. It would be easy to test that assumption by correlating the

THE CLOZE TEST

333

scores of native speakers on a valid reading comprehension test and a cloze of the same material. We would expect a high correlation, because there is a large element of reading in the cloze technique. Cloze can be viewed as reading with reduced redundancy, and a good reader with the complete text in view should also tend to be a good reader with the reduced text. Any remaining variance between the two sets of scores should be interpreted as due to non reading factors in the cloze. In reading, the object is to understand the text with the full text on hand, while in cloze, the object is to restore deleted words with a partial text and partial understanding. Even for Taylor's purpose, it would be more valid to determine the comprehension of native readers on samples of the prose passage than to ask them to restore every nth word. The cloze procedure, however, has the advantage of being easy to prepare and to score, and it avoids any subjective bias that can intrude in the comprehension questions asked in a reading test. But Taylor used the performances of groups of native readers to infer the difficulty of the passage read. He did not look at the performances of the various individuals in these groups in order to determine either the reading competence of each individual or the difficulty of the passage. Had he attempted to infer the difficulty of the passages from the performances of individuals on clozes of those passages, he would have obtained a variety of difficulty ratings for each passage, since, for any text, different readers will read that text with differing degrees of difficulty. Oiler and Conrad (1971) turned Taylor's argument completely around and used cloze to determine the individual competence of ESL students. This use of cloze raises

3 34

ROBERT LADO

the question of variability among those who supposedly know the language.

We can expect native speakers to ob-

tain higher group scores on a cloze test than groups of non-native speakers because there is an obvious language factor in any cloze test.

Native speakers can be expected

to know a language better on the average than non-native speakers of the same educational level.

But the variance

due to factors other than language competence will polute the individual scores and impair their validity.

We cannot

ignore the variability among native speakers on such tests and must press the question of validity further. Cloze tests have been validated by correlating their scores with those obtained with other language tests.

The

Oiler-Conrad cloze test (1971) is reported to have yielded a product-moment correlation of .80 with the UCLA Form

ESLPE,

2C Reading Subtest on a sample of 3 5 subjects at UCLA.

A product-moment correlation coefficient of .80 accounts for 64% of the variance between the two sets of scores and fails to account for 3 6% or one third of the variance.

One

third of the variance cannot be dismissed lightly in making individual decisions. Since native speaker performance is one of the ways to validate language tests (Lado, 1961:323), the OllerConrad original cloze test was administered to 32 graduate and undergraduate native speakers of English at Georgetown University.

The test was scored by the exact word method

rather than allowing paraphrases, since the exact word method is less subject to bias in scoring, and, according to proponents of the cloze procedure, the correlation between the two methods of scoring is sufficiently high to justify the use of either one. in Table 1.

The results are summarized

THE CLOZE TEST

335

Table 1 Scores by Native English Speakers on Cloze

% Right 72 68 66 64 62 60 58

N° Right 36 34 33 32 31 30 29

N°of Ss. 1 1 1 1 4 2 7

% Right 56 54

52 50 48

44 32

N° Right 28 27 26 25 24 22 16

N°of Ss. 5 3 2 1 2 1 1

Number of Subjects: 32 Number of Items in Test : 50 Average Percent Score: 57% Range of Percent Scores: 72%-32%

The highest score made by the native speakers was 72%, the lowest 32%, and the average 57%. These were students in good standing at an accredited institution of higher learning in the U.S. Had they obtained those same scores on any of their course examinations, all but one of them would have failed. Furthermore, had they been administered the Oral Interview Test of the U.S. Department of State (Adams and Frith, 1979), we must assume that they would have rated at the top "S-5 native or bilingual proficiency" level: "speaking proficiency equivalent to that of an educated native speaker." Since they failed an average of 43% of the items, the obvious conclusion is that this cloze test measures more than English competence, and that college educated native speakers do not come near possessing that extra something that it measures. The performance of these native speakers on the individual items was also tabulated. The results are summarized in Table 2.

33 6

ROBERT LADO Table 2 Errors by Native Speakers of English N = 32 (100%)

% Errors

N°Errors

Item N°

% Errors

N°Errors

Item N°

100 100 87 84 84 84 84 81 81 78 78 75 75 73 69 69 66 62 59 59 59 56 53 47 41

32 32 28 27 27 27 27 26 26 25 25 24 24 22 22 22 21 20 19 19 19 18 17 15 13

7 21 30 8 32 41 49 28 42 5 14 6 12 27 10 33 46 9 15 26 35 17 34 20 40

37 34 34 34 31 28 28 22 16 16

12 11 11 11 10 9 9 7 5 5 5 4 4 3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0

29 11 24 47 50 3 23 25 16 36 38 43 48 1 18 37 31 2 4 22 13 19 39 44 45

;

16

12 12 9 9 9 6 3 3 3 3 0 0 0 0

The tabulation shows that two items were missed by 100% of the native speakers.

Whatever those items test is

totally unknown to this group of competent native speakers of English.

One third of the items (32%) were missed by

two thirds of the native speakers (68%),

More than half

of the items (58%) were missed by one third of the subjects

(34%). Only twelve out of the 50 items of the test (2 4%) were

missed by fewer than 10% of these native speakers of English.

We can safely say that these twelve items do test

THE CLOZE TEST

337

something that these native speakers are competent in. What do the items test? Table 3 shows the correct answers and enough context to see what kind of knowledge was needed to anticipate them and answer correctly. Table 3 Items Missed by Less Than 10% of NS

Item 1

Context

Answer

Some believe that the chief function

even a liberal

(of)

arts college 2

even a liberal arts college is

vocational one

4

the vocational function of a college, while important,

(a) (is)

13

I believe in attention to both social amenities regulations, but

(and)

18

for four years when the student is attempting in his youthful awkward ways, to grow up

(and)

19

It

(has)

22

There are those

31

I know of one college which seeks mainly to produce in a kind academic assembly line

37

It

39

A college should represent a combination of all above aims, and

44

I have seen entirely too many statements such this one

45

On admission application papers: college education because I

been said that maintain that

(who)

to me, therefore, that a college should

"

want a

(of) (seems) (the) (as) (I)

The preposition of accounts for two of the items. The conjunction and for another two. The articles a and the for two more. The copula is, the auxiliary has, and the verb seems account for three more leaving the relative pronoun who, the personal pronoun I, and the conjunction as in

338

ROBERT LADO

the phrase such as in the remaining three. All of these are legitimate items that can be said to test English competence. But they can be tested validly in single sentence contexts, as shown by the contexts of Table 3, and they seem rather trivial to justify a whole theoretical framework of integrative tests. They are in fact a narrow sample of competence, chosen accidentally because they happen to fall on the nth word of a running text. Any selection of items made by an experienced teacher or chosen with the help of applied linguistics is likely to be more representative than one picked mechanically in a text that happens to catch our attention. Because this cloze test contains such a heavy loading of factors beyond the competence of native speakers, and because the linguistic sample represented by the valid items is too narrow to yield valid results, one can question its use for decisions that may affect the academic future of individual students. The two highest validity correlations reported in Oiler (1973) are .80 with the reading subtest of the ESLPE and .82 with the dictation subtest. Other things being equal, a good reading comprehension test has more prima facie validity to test reading comprehension than a cloze test since the latter requires more than reading skill. Furthermore, it is not difficult to construct and administer valid reading tests, and the tradition in such tests is that reliabilities of .98 (correlations of the test with itself) can be attained. Therefore, if the objective is to assess reading skill, a reading comprehension test is better than a cloze. With regard to correlation of the cloze test with the dictation subtest, if we wish to measure skill in taking dictation, a dictation test of the type of skill desired is

THE CLOZE TEST

33 9

preferable to a cloze as a surrogate for dictation. Dictation tests are quite easy to prepare, administer, and score. The need to use indirect evidence such as cloze to measure dictation skill is not clear. If we are looking for a stenographer who can take dictation at fifty words per minute, we cannot rely on a high score on a cloze test as evidence of the ability to take dictation at that speed. A person with a high cloze score might not be able to take dictation at any useful speed for stenographic purposes. The hypothesis that cloze procedure tests overall competence in a language cannot explain the fact that illiterate native speakers who communicate with complete oral competence would fail to score a single point on a cloze test. Our students (even native speakers) come to us with varying degrees of proficiency in reading. Certainly this variability in ability to read and to use written language would affect their performance on clozes, since reading is a major factor in the cloze procedure. Finally, this cloze test, and presumably others that simply delete every nth word, produced a sense of unfairness and frustration on the part of the native speakers who took it. They sensed that there was no intelligent way to fill about half the blanks with any degree of assurance. The students of our sample were asked to respond to three questions after completing the test. The questions and responses are summarized in Table 4,

340

ROBERT LADO Table 4 Responses of Native Speakers to Debriefing Questions Response

Question No Response

Yes

No

1. Would you want your acceptance to depend on this test?

% 3 N° 1

72 23

25 8

2. Do you think this test measures competence only?

% 0 N° 0

88 28

12 4

3. Do you think this is a fair test of English competence?

% 3 N° 1

91 29

6 2

Total Native Speakers of English:

32

To the question, "Would you want your acceptance to depend on this test?" 7 2% answered no, and only 3% (one out of 32) answered yes, with 18% not responding. And to the question, "Do you think this is a fair test of English competence?" 91% answered no, 3% yes, and 6% did not respond. The response is overwhelmingly negative. Other writers have found problems with cloze tests and have modified the technique in various ways. One major modification is the multiple-choice cloze test in which several choices replace each blank, and the student marks the best choice as in discrete point multiple-choice tests. This modification is no longer a cloze procedure, but a multiple-choice technique in extended context, and the validity of the test will then depend on the text selected and the choices. Another modification results from giving the cloze test to native speakers and eliminating those blanks that they cannot fill correctly. From our experience, this procedure leaves only superficial matters of obligatory or preferred usage which do not support the claim that

THE CLOZE TEST

341

cloze tests are better because they are integrative. In conclusion, cloze tests certainly do rank the students in an order based on objective criteria.

However,

what use is counting errors and ranking students if we do not know what those numbers and that ranking mean?

Fries

wanted progress in our understanding of languages and cultures and he used statistics to quantify data for the study of English, but he insisted on knowing the nature of what he was counting.

He would not have been satisfied

with vague references to anticipatory grammar as an explanation of what a cloze test was supposedly measuring. He would want to understand what was due to context, to knowledge of the world, to culture, to language, to intention, etc.

In particular, he would want to see how what

was being measured related to the organic structure of the whole.

REFERENCES

Adams, M.D., and Frith, James R., eds. (1979). Testing Kit (French and Spanish). U.S, Department of State, Foreign Service Institute. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Alderson, J. Charles. (1979). The Cloze Procedure and Proficiency in English as a Foreign Language. TESOL Quarterly 13,2:219-226. Cook, Walter A. (1979). Case Grammar: Development of a Matrix Model (1970-1978). Chapter 11. Stylistics: Meaning Style Complexity. 167-179. Washington, D.C: Georgetown University Press. Fries, Charles C. (1940). American Appleton-Century.

English

Grammar.

New York: D.

Fries, Charles C. (1945). Teaching and Learning English as a Language. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Foreign

342

ROBERT LADO

Fries, Charles C. (1952). The Structure court, Brace and Co. Fries, Charles C. 23:30-37.

(1961).

of English.

New York: Har-

Advances in Linguistics, College

Fries, Charles C. and Traver, A. Aileen. (1940). English Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education. Lado, Robert. (1957). Linguistics versity of Michigan Press.

Across

Cultures.

English

Word

Lists.

Ann Arbor: Uni-

Lado, Robert. (1961). Language Testing: The Construction and Use of Foreign Language Tests. London: Longmans, Green and Co. Oiler, John W., Jr., and Conrad, C.A. (1971). The Cloze Technique and ESL Proficiency. Language Learning 21:183-194. Oiler, John W. , Jr. (1973). Sciences. 28:7-12.

Pragmatic Language Testing.

Oiler, John w., Jr. (1979). Language Tests Approach. London: Longman.

at School:

A

Language Pragmatic

Porter, Don. (1976). Modified Cloze Procedure: A More Valid Reading Comprehension Test. English Language Teaching Journal 30:151155. Porter, Don. (1978). Cloze Procedure and Equivalence. Learning 28,2:333-341.

Language

Taylor, Wilson L. (1953). Cloze Procedure: A New Tool for Measuring Readability. Journalism Quarterly 30:415-438.

LISTENING COMPREHENSION IN C.C. FRIES' ORAL APPROACH

Lynn E. Henrichsen

In the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages, one area which has received an increasing amount of emphasis and attention in recent years is the development of students' skills in listening comprehension. On a survey questionnaire dealing with the relative importance of sixty different ESL/EFL teacher-training items (Henrichsen, 1979 and 198 3:23) , the item receiving the highest mean rating by TESL/TEFL educators and employers in over thirty different countries was "specific training in teaching listening comprehension." In the past few years, innovative approaches such as Total Physical Response (Asher, 1969) and the Comprehension Approach (Winitz, 1981), which concentrate on the development of "listening fluency," have gained considerable prominence. And beginning with Morley's (1972) and Plaister's (1976) books, the ESL/EFL market has seen a flood of new texts designed specifically to develop students' listening comprehension skills. This current emphasis on listening comprehension is often accompanied by claims that the development of this skill was sorely neglected in earlier methods and

344

LYNN E. HENRICHSEN

approaches to teaching and learning foreign languages. A currently popular TESL/TEFL methods textbook, for example, states that "until recently the skill of listening comprehension has been somewhat neglected since the teaching strategy of audiolingualism had been to make students listen and repeat rather than listen and understand" (CelceMurcia and Mcintosh, 1979:63). Although such may have been the case with many audiolingualists, it would certainly be both unfair and incorrect to categorize C.C. Fries along with those who neglected the teaching of listening and ignored the importance of comprehension. In examining what Fries said about the importance of listening comprehension skills and investigating how he proposed to develop them, quite a different picture emerges.

The Importance of Listening Comprehension In Fries' Oral Approach

Even a cursory examination of C.C. Fries1 writing on the subject of teaching and learning English as a foreign language quickly reveals that his "oral approach" did not ignore the development of listening comprehension. In fact, "receptive understanding" was one of its major goals. "Oral approach" is a name primarily for the end to be attained in the first stage of language learning.... That end is the building up of a set of habits for the oral production of a language and for the receptive understanding of the language when it is spoken. (Fries, 1945:8)

Fries not only designated "receptive understanding" as an end, but also provided guidelines for achieving it. Nevertheless, his awareness of the differences and

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

3 45

similarities between the "productive" and "receptive" language skills led to a conflict between this goal and other tenets of his approach. Prerequisite to a discussion of this challenging struggle (and the valuable insights it offers language teachers concerned with developing students' listening comprehension skills), however, is an understanding of how Fries viewed the process of listening.

Differing Views of the Listening Process

In some respects, Fries' ideas of what was involved in the process of listening were markedly different from many of those currently espoused by language teaching methodologists and psycholinguists. In other ways, however, they were surprisingly similar to current listening process theory. These similarities and differences can be generally categorized under two definitions of the listening process: "listening is active" and "listening is predictive." In discussing both of these views, reference will be made to Fries' writing on the process of reading also, since he saw listening and reading as parallel processes. For him, the major difference between these two receptive processes lay in the medium. The basic difference between reading and talking lies in the medium through which the physical stimuli makes contact with the nervous system. (Fries, 1963:150) The only essential difference here is the fact that in "talk" the means of connection to the human nervous system consists of patterns of sound waves stimulating nerves in the ear, but in "reading" the means of connection to the human nervous sytem consists of patterns of graphic shapes stimulating nerves in the eye. (Fries, 1962:119)

34 6

LYNN E. HENRICHSEN

In this respect, he was no different from many current reading theory specialists.

Goodman (1972:16), for exam-

ple, also draws parallels between reading and listening. His views on the active and predictive nature of these receptive processes will provide a point of comparison for those Fries held.

Listening is Active An important point made by Goodman

(and many other

psycholinguists and language teaching methodologists) is that listening is an active process, not a passive one. Fries 1 major objection to this kind of statement would not be to its content but to the implication that this idea is something new and that earlier methods regarded listening as only a passive skill.

Such was certainly not the case

in Fries' oral approach.

Although he labeled listening and

reading "receptive" he still referred to them as active-even productive--processes. Real reading is not solely a passive process of receiving meanings, and just saying words. Real reading is productive reading--an active responding to all the sets of signals represented in the graphic patterns as they build up... (Fries, 1962:130-131) In Fries' view, however, this active "building up" in reading led only to a "complete cumulative comprehension" which made it possible for the reader to "fill in the intonation sequences, the special stresses, and the grouping pauses"--in other words, phonological information not indicated in the written form of the language—"to fill out its full range of signals" (Fries, 1962:130, also 206-207). Inasmuch as this providing of phonological information implies an understanding of sentence structure and lexical items, Fries would be in accord with much of current

LISTENING COMPREHENSION reading theory. i n " of s t r e s s ,

Nevertheless, intonation,

s e n t i n t h e spoken s i g n a l ,

how much o f t h i s

and j u n c t u r e

p l y i n t h e c a s e of l i s t e n i n g ,

347 "filling

s i g n a l s would a p

where they a r e a l r e a d y

i s n o t made c l e a r

in

pre

Fries'

writing. Discussing techniques of F r i e s '

students, wrote

of phonemic a n a l y s i s ,

Pike,

one

that

To e l i m i n a t e t h e f a c t s of grammatical r e l a t i o n s h i p and s t r u c t u r e from t h e a n a l y s i s and p r e s e n t a t i o n of phonological s t r u c t u r e i s f r e q u e n t l y u n d e s i r a b l e because many of t h e phonological f a c t s a r e i n e x t r i c a b l y interwoven with grammatical f a c t s and s t r u c t u r a l r e l a t i o n s h i p s ; avoiding t h e p o r t r a y a l of t h i s r e l a t i o n s h i p means o m i t t i n g , completely or a t l e a s t t e m p o r a r i l y , an important p a r t of t h e t o t a l s t r u c t u r e of t h e language. (1947:155) Nevertheless, it is doubtful that Fries would have gone as far as Chomsky, who stated that there is good reason to believe that even the identification of the phonetic form of a sentence presupposes at least a partial syntactic analysis, so that the rules of the generative grammar may be brought into play even in identifying the signal. This view is opposed to the hypothesis that phonetic representation is determined by the signal completely, and that the perceptual analysis proceeds from formal signals to interpretation... (1966:49)

For Fries and those who worked with him, even though listening and reading were "active" in one sense, they were still viewed as linear, one-way, cumulative processes of "responding receptively to the language signals" (1957:22). The first goal of instruction was simply to develop "a considerable range of high-speed recognition responses to specific sets of patterns" (1963:150, also 1945:26 and 1967:6).

348

LYNN E . HENRICHSEN

Listening

is

Predictive

The c u r r e n t

"psycholinguistic

b o t h r e a d i n g and l i s t e n i n g active processes b e r of l a n g u a g e dictions

is that

g u e s s i n g game" v i e w of they are both

involving the selection signals

c h a m p i o n i n g t h i s v i e w , Goodman t a k e s

guage

num

i n o r d e r t o make a n d c o n f i r m

or h y p o t h e s e s a b o u t t h e upcoming m e s s a g e .

that reading tailed,

highly

of a m i n i m a l

is a precise process

sequential perception

issue with the

involving exact,

and i d e n t i f i c a t i o n

pre In idea

de

of

lan

input. Reading i s a s e l e c t i v e p r o c e s s . I t involves p a r t i a l u s e of a v a i l a b l e minimal language cues s e l e c t e d from p e r c e p t u a l input on t h e b a s i s of t h e r e a d e r ' s e x p e c t a t i o n . As t h i s p a r t i a l i n formation i s p r o c e s s e d , t e n t a t i v e d e c i s i o n s a r e made t o be con firmed, r e j e c t e d , o r r e f i n e d as reading p r o g r e s s e s . . . . The a b i l i t y t o a n t i c i p a t e t h a t which has n o t been s e e n , of c o u r s e , i s v i t a l i n r e a d i n g , j u s t as t h e a b i l i t y t o a n t i c i p a t e what has not y e t been heard i s v i t a l i n l i s t e n i n g . (Goodman, 1972:16)

The i m p o r t a n c e of p r e d i c t i o n / a n t i c i p a t i o n / e x p e c t a n c y

is

a l s o e m p h a s i z e d by S t e r n . When a person speaks you can r a p i d l y make forward guesses of what sounds w i l l come n e x t , what word or grammatical p a r t of t h e sentence i s l i k e l y t o follow, and what meaning should come n e x t . These a r e t h e more or l e s s f a m i l i a r , t h e more or l e s s r e p e t i t i v e , t h e more or l e s s redundant a s p e c t s . . . . A l l t h e s e form p a r t of the native speaker's l i n g u i s t i c expectancies. (1973:22) In discussing the listening process, Fries said little about anticipating that which has not yet been heard.

Pre-

diction did not really enter into his explanation of the receptive skills.

He did, however, mention selection, al-

though for him it was not quite the same thing that Goodman describes.

When discussing the more advanced stage,

which he called "productive" reading, Fries argued that "the successful adult reader does not in his maturity use

LISTENING COMPREHENSION the details efficiency

of t h e s p e l l i n g "

it

"Ignoring"

are selected.

listening,

certain details By e x t r a p o l a t i o n

s p e e d and

such d e t a i l s

(Fries,

implies that

other

from r e a d i n g

for advanced l e a r n e r s

e v e r y phoneme c o r r e c t l y

of a l a n g u a g e t o

in order to l i s t e n

of t h e i m p o r t a n c e h e a t t a c h e d

s t a g e of l a n g u a g e In e x p l a i n i n g

hear

efficiently--in

to the correct,

s p e e d p e r c e p t i o n of p h o n e m i c c o n t r a s t s d u r i n g t h e

stresses

to

one might t h e n assume t h a t F r i e s d i d n o t b e l i e v e

necessary

spite

and t h a t r e a d i n g

c a n be improved by i g n o r i n g

1962:205). signals

34 9

high first

learning. the reading process,

t h e i m p o r t a n c e of " b e h i n d

what t h e r e a d e r b r i n g s

Goodman

the eye"

also

information--

t o t h e p r i n t e d p a g e i n t h e way o f

g r a m m a t i c a l and e x p e r i e n t i a l

knowledge.

Readers u t i l i z e not one, b u t t h r e e kinds of information simul t a n e o u s l y . C e r t a i n l y without g r a p h i c input t h e r e would be no r e a d i n g . But, t h e r e a d e r uses s y n t a c t i c and semantic informa t i o n as w e l l . He p r e d i c t s and a n t i c i p a t e s on t h e b a s i s of t h i s information, sampling from t h e p r i n t j u s t enough t o confirm h i s guess of w h a t ' s coming, t o cue more semantic and s y n t a c t i c i n formation. (Goodman, 1972:20-21) In this respect, Fries1 emphasis on the need for "sociocultural meaning" (Fries, 1962:112) and "background experience" in the target language (Fries, 1945:58) is very much in line with current thinking--although he probably emphasized them for reasons other than to allow for predictive listening.

The Development of Listening Comprehension Skills in Fries' Oral Approach

As stated at the outset, C.C. Fries not only made "receptive understanding" one of the major goals of his

350

LYNN E. HENRICHSEN

oral approach, he also provided guidelines for attaining it. In developing these guidelines, however, he encountered a challenging conflict between this goal and other basic tenets of his approach. Although this conflict was never completely and conclusively resolved, out of the struggle with it came a greater understanding of (1) the complementary yet distinctive nature of the productive and receptive language skills and (2) the difficulties associated with teaching/learning them in a natural, communicative setting. This increased understanding is perhaps Fries' greatest contribution in the area of developing listening comprehension skills in a second language.

A Challenging Conflict

The conflict Fries encountered involves a triad of basic points in his oral approach: (1) his basic philosophy of what it means to master a language. (2) his understanding of the differences between producing language at his basic mastery level and recognizing it "as it is spoken by native speakers," and (3) his insistence on the use of natural language in language teaching.

Language Mastery "Mastering a language," for Fries, did not necessarily mean achieving native speaker competence in all aspects of language use. In discussing the concept of mastery as it relates to vocabulary and refuting the common misconception that language learning involves merely learning new words, Fries first pointed out that even native speakers

LISTENING COMPREHENSION never completely master vocabulary. editors

of our d i c t i o n a r i e s ,

our language" "'mastery1 knowing

(1945:1).

"No o n e , n o t e v e n t h e

c a n know a l l t h e

Therefore,

'words'

he concluded

of t h e l a n g u a g e "

Fries then elaborated involves primarily

on " m a s t e r y "

two o t h e r

areas--the

of

that

o f a l a n g u a g e m u s t mean s o m e t h i n g o t h e r

' a l l the words'

structural

351

than

(1945:2). e x p l a i n i n g how i t sound s y s t e m and

devices.

In l e a r n i n g a new language, t h e n , t h e chief problem i s not a t f i r s t t h a t of l e a r n i n g v o c a b u l a r l y i t e m s . I t i s , f i r s t , t h e mastery of t h e sound s y s t e m - - t o understand t h e stream of speech, t o hear t h e d i s t i n c t i v e sound f e a t u r e s and t o approximate t h e i r p r o d u c t i o n . I t i s , second, t h e mastery of t h e f e a t u r e s of a r rangement t h a t c o n s t i t u t e t h e s t r u c t u r e of t h e l a n g u a g e . . . . A person has "learned" a f o r e i g n language when he has t h u s f i r s t , within a limited vocabulary mastered t h e sound system ( t h a t i s , when he can understand t h e stream of speech and achieve an u n d e r s t a n d a b l e production of i t ) and h a s , second, made t h e s t r u c t u r a l devices ( t h a t i s , t h e b a s i c arrangements of u t t e r a n c e s ) m a t t e r s of automatic h a b i t . ( F r i e s , 1945:3) Fries further developed his definition of language mastery to include a progression of several different stages or levels.

These differed considerably according to what the

learner was able to recognize and produce.

In the first

stage, "instant recognition" of certain items was expected, but their range was limited.

Only in the later stages,

which Fries' critics often ignore, was "mastery for recognition" to be "extended more completely" (Fries, 1945:5051) .

Production and Recognition It is important to note that in his basic definition Fries described mastery of the sound system in terms of recognition--understanding the stream of speech--while he

352

LYNN E . HENRICHSEN

defined

m a s t e r y of

a "limited"

("the basic

arrangements")

fundamental

disparity

vocabulary

acknowledged,

tion--especially of

to the

even r e s u l t e d basic

of

"mastery"

They u t i l i z e

real-life

situations

learner

ces exist

t h e same m e d i u m ,

they occur t o g e t h e r

(user)

c o n t r o l of

and s y n t a c t i c

to

they Fries'

(especially

are

and i n n e a r l y as

important

and r e c e p t i v e

in

the lex

differen processes.

this receptive-productive

in vocabulary),

all

complementary

Nevertheless,

utterance velocity,

complexity,

between t h e p r o d u c t i v e

F r i e s not only recognized tinction

of

I n some a r e a s

s p e a k i n g and l i s t e n i n g

of t h e c o m m u n i c a t i o n p r o c e s s .

ical range,

the basic goal

needs which ran counter

course,

similar.

a r e a of

produc

processes

philosophy.

I n many w a y s , of

parts

and

"oral"

a new l a n g u a g e .

in learner

This methodo

differences,

between r e c o g n i t i o n

as they r e l a t e d

"mastery"

in his

The

s p e a k i n g and l i s t e n i n g - - c o m p l i c a t e d

achieving

structures

i n t e r m s of p r o d u c t i o n .

created difficulties

logical plan for reaching these goals. which F r i e s

and

dis

he expounded upon

it.

Two complementary a s p e c t s of communication are recognized in t h e two p h r a s e s " o r a l production" and " r e c e p t i v e u n d e r s t a n d i n g . " It seems important t o recognize t h e f a c t t h a t o n e ' s mastery of any language--even of o n e ' s own n a t i v e l a n g u a g e - - i s always on two major l e v e l s , production and recognition. These two l e v e l s are p r a c t i c a l l y never e q u a l . The range of "words" t h a t we can recognize and understand exceeds t h a t of t h e "words" we a c t u a l l y use in speech or even i n w r i t i n g . ( F r i e s , 1945:8)

He a l s o e l a b o r a t e d on r e c e p t i v e - p r o d u c t i v e i n t h e a r e a of s y n t a x o r " s e n t e n c e p a t t e r n s . "

differences

. . . t h e needs of a speaker on t h e p r o d u c t i v e l e v e l d i f f e r from h i s needs on a r e c e p t i v e or r e c o g n i t i o n l e v e l . On a p r o d u c t i v e l e v e l he needs but one p a t t e r n f o r any s i t u a t i o n . . . . For t h e beginner in English t h i s one p a t t e r n i s s u f f i c i e n t on t h e p r o d u c t i v e l e v e l . There i s no need a t t h e beginning t o confuse him with having him attempt t o l e a r n t o use a v a r i e t y of a l t e r n a t i v e

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

3 53

patterns.... On the productive level the mastery of alternative patterns provides an unnecessary burden that only delays progress toward the practical use of the language. In the choice of patterns to be mastered at this level, range of usefulness and regularity of form constitute the two most important criteria. . . . On the recognition level, however, the problem of selection is different. For production, the one pattern adopted need not be the most frequent. It is sufficient if it is of common occurrence. Range of usefulness, regularity, and even similarity to the structural devices of the native language of the learner, can appropriately constitute the criteria of selection. But for recognition , for understanding the language as used by English speakers, frequency of occurrence is a fundamental criterion of selection. (Fries, 1945:32-33)

Fries here neglected to make the further point that even the most frequently used sentence patterns or lexical items will not alone be sufficient to achieve the stated goal of "communication with native speakers."

For students

to reach this point, a much wider lexical and syntactic range is needed or else they will continually be hearing unfamiliar structures and lexical items.

However, to in-

troduce into the curriculum a variety of less frequent structural patterns while increasing the amount and range of vocabulary used in the lessons runs counter to Fries' basic philosophy of what it means to master a language--on the first level at least.

Yet, without this broader syn-

tactic and lexical range it is doubtful whether even basic "mastery" in listening comprehension can be said to have been achieved. Another important difference between listening and all the other language skills--speaking, reading, and writing--is the amount of processing time available.

When

dealing with the written language, it is possible for beginning language students to slow down to the level of their abilities.

Even in speaking, learners with limited

354

LYNN E. HENRICHSEN

fluency can first take time to think and construct an utterance (at their level of proficiency), then pronounce it at a comfortable although reduced speed, and still be understood. Also, when they speak or write, learners do not normally use structures and vocabulary with which they are not familiar. Real-life listening, however, is quite a different matter.

Use of Natural Language Fries recognized that the productive and receptive levels of language use were different, but he also recognized their inseparability in normal oral communication. In reference to speaking and listening, he stated, "In the actual practice of language, the two interact and condition one another" (Fries, 1945:8). This was an important concept since in his oral approach the objective of instruction was to be able to participate in natural communication with native speakers. In reference to the sound system of English, for example, Fries stated, The goal toward which we aim is always the mastery of the sound system of the language--the recognition of the distinctive sounds as they occur in the actual speech of native speakers of English. (1945:14)

Interaction between native speakers of a language and those who are just learning it, however, creates special problems for the learners--especially on the listening end. Since the learners-listener has no real control over the velocity of the utterance or the syntax and vocabulary used in it, his limited "mastery" still does not allow for communication. Fries recognized this problem and insisted that it be overcome.

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

355

It is not enough for the foreigner to be understood when he asks a question. He must be able to understand the flood of language that comes in answer to his question. (1945:33)

In the actual teaching of beginning students, however, Fries found it necessary to treat these two "interwoven" aspects of language separately (Fries, 1945:8). In fact, in spite of his own statements regarding the higher level of proficiency required for effective listening, he put production ahead of recognition. The development of true listening comprehension was assigned to more advanced stages in the language learning process with the hope that as a student grew in his (or her) ability to produce the language he would also increase "the range and depth of his understanding" (Fries, 1945:8). For similar reasons, Fries also postponed the goal of communication with native speakers using natural language. In this compromise, the discrimination of phonemes and practice with "adequately natural" (Fries, 1945:50) sentences became sufficient for learners working towards the first stage of mastery. "Full control," including the aural reception of "larger units of discourse" (Fries, 1957:24-25), was a goal reserved for the final stages of language learning. Only then would students encounter instruction similar to that offered in many of the modern day listening comprehension textbooks.

Conclusion

Fries' goal of mastery in listening comprehension was simply stated. Nevertheless, due to the challenges and conflicts explained above, attaining it was not so simple,

356

LYNN E. HENRICHSEN

and the reconciliation of these conflicts was not entirely satisfactory. The velocity, structure, and vocabulary of language which students heard in the classroom could be artificially controlled. This stage-one practice (which was later adopted in many "audio-lingual" classes) avoided the problem of students' straining to comprehend unfamiliar structures and vocabulary, but it also ran counter to Fries' goal of "natural" language use. On the other hand, "natural" language inevitably contained structures and vocabulary outside the limited range of Fries1 definition of basic "mastery" which was also fundamental to his oral approach. Redefining "mastery" as "full control" and thus postponing it until the learners' range of vocabulary and grammar reached the point where unfamiliar items were seldom encountered when listening to native speakers, brought with it the danger that the goal of instruction might never be reached in the limited time allowed in Fries' approach. Although the problem became increasingly apparent, its solution was not immediately forthcoming. The difficulties inherent in these conflicts were not easily overcome. In fact, many of them still confront modern day language teaching methodologists and materials developers as they face the challenge of developing students' skills in listening comprehension. Fries, himself, apparently was never completely satisfied with the compromise which was effected between these basic but rival factors in his oral approach theory when it was put into widespread practice. He probably would have welcomed the current resurgence of emphasis on the development of listening skills and the renewed attempts to overcome the challenges he encountered. As he stated in reference to reading (Fries, 1967:11), "these problems

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

357

deserve much more consideration than we have yet given them."

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Fries, Charles C. (1957). Introduction and the Aims of Language Teaching and Learning. The Teaching of Modern Languages, Report on the UNESCO Regional Seminar Held in Sydney, Australia, January-February, 1957, 7-27. Sydney: Australian National Advisory Committee for UNESCO, Fries, Charles C. (1962). Linguistics Rinehart and Winston.

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Henrichsen, Lynn E. (1979). Teacher Preparation in TESOL: A Brief Report on Responses to an International Questionnaire. TESL Reporter 12,2:1-2, 10-11, 19. Henrichsen, Lynn E. (1983). Teacher Preparation Needs in TESOL: The Results of an International Survey. RELC Journal 14,1:18-25. Morley, Joan. (1972). Improving Aural Comprehension, The University of Michigan Press.

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to

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3, Febru-

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PMLA 40:963-1024.

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(1949).

1927 The Expression of the Future. Language 3:87-95. Reprinted in: Language Learning

7:125-133 (1956-1957).

The Meaning of Words. English

Journal

16:602-606.

Our Possessive Forms, English

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The Rules of Common School Grammars. PMLA 42:221-237.

360

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New York: Thomas Nelson

Chapters 1-8 reprinted in: The Teaching

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Chapter 4 reprinted in: Wallace L. Anderson and Norman C. Stageberg (Eds.), Introductory Readings on Languaget 325-339. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. (1966). The Training of Teachers: The Problem of a Professionalized Subject Matter. Educational Administration and Supervision 13, March: 178-191. 1928 Our Language, Book I: Historical Development of Our Language. (With Lila Reynolds Cannon.) Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards Brothers. 1929 Educational Pressures and Our Problems. English

Journal

18:1-14.

One Stylistic Feature of the 1611 English Bible. In C.D. Thorpe and C.E. Whitmore (Eds.), Fred Newton Scott Anniversary Papers, 175-187. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1932 For Economy and Good English. University Education Bulletin 3,8:118-120. The Period Dictionaries. 47:890-897.

of Michigan

School

of

(With Sir William Craigie.) PMLA

A Special Help to Orthographie by Richard Hodges (1642), reproduced with introductory note. Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards Brothers. 1934 Problems of Usage Involving Number Concord. English 16:154.

Journal

Report of the National Council's Study of Usage, The Journal 23:145-146. Standard English and the Schools. The University School of Education Bulletin 5:121-124.

of

English Michigan

1936 First Steps in a Workable Program of Teaching the English Language. University of Michigan School of Education Bulletin 7,4:58-62. Reprinted in: The Bucknell (1937), Excerpts r e p r i n t e d i n :

Journal

English

of Education

Journal

11,2:1-5

25:150 (1936).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

361

1938

Some Notes on t h e I n f l e c t e d G e n i t i v e in Present-Day E n g l i s h . Language 14:121-133,

1939

Inflections and Syntax of Present-Day Edwards B r o t h e r s . Pp. v i , 9 3 .

English.

1940

American 313.

Appleton Century.

English

Grammar.

New York:

Ann Arbor, MI: Pp. x i ,

Also issued as Monograph 10, National Council of Teachers of English. Chapter 1 reprinted in: Wallace L. Anderson and Norman C. Stageberg (Eds.), Introductory Readings on Language, 358-372. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. (1966). Chapter 1 sections 1 and 2 reprinted in: Elizabeth M. Kerr and Ralph M. Aderman (Eds.), Aspects of American English, 40-48. New York: Harcourt Brace and World. (1963). James M. McCrimmon (Ed.), From Source to Statement, Boston: Houghton Mifflin. (1968).

402-408.

Chapter 1 section 1 reprinted in: James R. Gaskin and Jack Suberman (Eds.), A Language Reader for Writers, 184-189. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. (1966), Chapter 1 section 3 reprinted in: Virginia Clark, Paul A. Eschholz, and Alfred F. Rosa (Eds.), Language: Introductory Readings, 349-351. New York: St. Martins. (1972). Chapter 4 reprinted in: Leonard F. Dean and Kenneth G. Wilson (Eds.), Essays on Language and Usage, 204-209. New York: Oxford University Press. (1963). Leonard Dean, Walker Gibson, and Kenneth G. Wilson (Eds.), The Play of Language, 71-75. New York: Oxford University Press. (1971). Educating for Frustration. School

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52,1353:537-539.

English Word L i s t s , A Study of Their Adaptability for Instruction. (With Aileen Traver.) Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education. Pp. x, 109.

362

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1941 Dictionaries and Dictionaries. School

New York: Prentice

Briefs

4,4:2.

The Grammar of American English in a Language Program. Journal 30:196-203.

English

Present-Day American English, (With Laura Heminger.) (Reproduced from typewritten copy, drawn freely from American English Grammar.) Pp. iii, 187. 1942 An Intensive Course in English for Latin-American Students. (With the assistance of the research staff of the English Language Institute.) Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards Brothers. 6 volumes. (1942-1950). 1943 Liberal Education lie-Examined. (with Theodore M. Greene, H. Wriston, and William Dighton,) New York: Harper & Brothers. Pp. xiv, 134. 1945 Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language. MI: University of Michigan Press. Pp. vi, 153.

Ann Arbor,

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3 63

Translated into Japanese by Akira Ota. Tokyo: Taishukan. (1957). Translated into Korean by Jun Hyung Kook. Seoul, Korea: Korean Western Text Books Translation Co. Ltd. (1959). Chapter 5: Contextual Orientation, translated into German by Elisabeth Fuhr. In Horst Weber (Ed.), Landeskunde im Fremdsprachenunterricht, 51-56. München: Kösel-Verlag. (1976). 1946 An Intensive Course in English for Chinese Students. (with Yao Shen). Ann Arbor, MI: English Language Institute. 4 volumes. (1946-1947). 1947

Implications of Modern Linguistic Science. College 314-320.

English

8:

Reprinted with Japanese translation and annotations in: Linguistic Science and the Teaching of English by Henry L. Smith, and Implications of Modern Linguistic Science by Charles C. Fries, Yasuo Isami (Tr.), 57-72 and 105-116. Tokyo: Taishukan. (1958). Syllabus for English Through Practice, (with Aileen Traver and Virginia French.) New York: Columbia University Press. Pp. 356. Usage Levels and Dialect Distribution. In Clarence Barnhardt (Ed.), American College Dictionary, xxix-xxx. New York: Random House. Reprinted in: Leonard F. Dean and Kenneth G. Wilson (Eds.). Essays on Language and Usage, 273-278. New York: Oxford University Press. (1963). 1948 As We See It. Language Learning,

1,1:12-16.

Have as a Function Word. Language Learning Readers' Exchange, Language Learning

1,3:4-8.

1,4:30-31.

See also:

(1948).

Reprinted in: Harold B. Allen (Ed.), Teaching English as a Second Language , 170-174. New York: McGraw Hill. (1965). Reprinted with Japanese translation in: The Periphrastic Future with Shall and Will in Modern English, and Have as a Function Word, Hiroya Wakatabe (Tr.), 97-106 and 173-178. Tokyo: Taishukan. (1958).

C.C.

364 Using the Dictionary. 1949

FRIES

Inside

the

Language

The Chicago Investigation.

Reprinted in: Selected

ACD 1,1:1,

Articles

Learning,

2,3:89-99.

from Language Learning,

65-75.

(1953). Coexistent Phonemic Systems. 25:29-50.

(With Kenneth L. Pike).

Language

Reprinted in: the Bobbs-Merrill reprint series in language and linguistics. Language #26. The Teaching of English. Pp. viii, 257.

Ann Arbor, MI:

Wahr Publishing Co.

This book is a reprint of chapters 1-8 of The Teaching

of

English Language (1927) and chapters 2-5 of The Teaching Literature (1926). 1951

the

of

The Early Modern English Dictionary; The Middle English Dictionary. In Wilfred B. Shaw (Ed.), The University of Michigan: An Encyclopedic Survey, Vol. II, 570-573. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

1952 Fries

American

English

Series

for

the Study

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Foreign Language, (With the staff of the English the Department of Education of Puerto Rico, under tion of Pauline M. Rojas.) Boston: D.C. Heath & books, 6 volumes, pp. 221; Teachers' guide books, pp. 985. (1952-1956).

as a

Section of the direcCo. Pupils' 5 volumes,

Professor Fries says he was misquoted on language. The Ann Arbor News. Tuesday, January 1:10. (See also, There Ain't Nothing Wrong with 'Ain't'. Ann Arbor News, December 29, 1951.) Excerpts reprinted in: The Structure of English. Pp. vii, 304. Reprinted:

London:

College

English

New York:

13:405-406.

(1952).

Harcourt Brace & Co.

Longmans Green and Co.

1957.

Chapter 4 and chapter 5 (to page 72) reprinted in: Wallace L. Anderson and Norman C. Stageberg (Eds.), Introductory Readings on Language, 451-465. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston. (1966).

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3 65

Chapter 5 reprinted in: Diane D. Bornstein (Ed.), Readings the Theory of Grammar, 162-176. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop. 1953

Classics and Linguistics. The Classical

in

Weekly 46,7:100.

Patterns of English Sentences. (With Robert Lado and the research staff of the English Language Institute.) Ann Arbor, MI: English Language Institute. Pp. 150. Selected Articles from Language Learning. Series I. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Research Club. Pp. x, 211. 1954 Cumulative P a t t e r n Practice. (With Robert Lado and the research staff of the English Language Institute.) Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Pp. 171. English Pronunciation. (With Robert Lado and the research staff of the English Language Institute.) Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Pp. 196. Lessons in Vocabulary. (With Robert Lado and the research staff of the English Language Institute.) Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Pp. 54. Meaning and Linguistic Analysis. Language 30:57-68. Reprinted with Japanese translation in: Meaning and Linguistic Analysis, by Charles C. Fries; Meanings Habits and Rules, by W. Freeman Twaddell; and Outline Guide for the Study of Foreign Languages, by Leonard Bloomfield, Kotaro Ishibashi (Tr.), 9-23 and 65-81. Tokyo: Taishukan. (1958). Reprinted in: The Bobbs-Merrill r e p r i n t s e r i e s in language and l i n g u i s t i c s Language #27. Harold B. Allen (Ed.), Readings in Applied English Linguistics, 98-110. New York: Appleton Century Crofts. (1966). Adrienne and Keith Lehrer (Eds.), Theory of Meaning, 159175. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. (1970). 1955

American Linguistics and the Teaching of English. Revue Langues Vivantes

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The English Teachers Magazine 5:282-285, 322-325, 372-375, and 402-405 (November, 1956-February, 1957). Reprinted with Japanese t r a n s l a t i o n i n : American Linguistics and the Teaching of English, and on the Development of the Structural Use of Word-Order in Modern English, Minoru Yasui ( T r . ) , 13-33 and 61-79. Tokyo: Taishukan. (1957). 1956

Comments on ' t h e P o s i t i o n of Language in Philosophy, Logic, and S o c i a l Anthropology' by Otto Funke. In F. Norman and P . F . Ganz ( E d s . ) , Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Linguists, London, 1-6 September 1952, 293-295. London: T i t u s Wilson and Son. Reprinting Important A r t i c l e s .

Language Learning

The Teaching of English as a Second Language. Quarterly 6,3-4:5-13.

6,3-4:i-iii.

MST

English

Reprinted i n : "English": A New Language Bulletin for Teachers of New Australians in Continuation Classes 5 , 4 : ( 1 9 5 7 ) . SHIKSHA 10,4:53-58 (1959). The Use of Meaning in Linguistic Analysis. In F. Norman and P.F. Ganz (Eds.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Linguists, London, 1-6 September 1952, 178. London:

1957

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Introduction, and the Aims of Language Teaching and Learning. The Teaching of Modern Languages, Report on the UNESCO Regional Seminar Held in Sydney, Australia, January-February 1957, 727. Sydney: Australian National Advisory Committee for UNESCO. On the Nature of Human Language, (Third Takashi Saito Lecture). In Essays and Studies 8,1:1-15. Tokyo: Joshi Daigaku. Reprinted in: The English

Teachers'

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1958 On the Oral Approach. In Fumio Nakajima (Ed.), Lectures by C.C. Fries and W.F. Twaddell, 13-23. Tokyo: English Language Exploratory Committee. Reprinted in: Tamotsu Yambe (Ed.), Applied Linguistics and the Teaching of English, 202-213. Tokyo: English Language Education Council. (1970). On Varieties of English. In Fumio Nakaj ima (Ed.), Lectures by C.C. Fries and W.F. Twaddell, 1-12. Tokyo: English Language Exploratory Committee. Reprinted in: Tamotsu Yambe (Ed.) , Applied Linguistics and the Teaching of English, 22-35. Tokyo: English Language Education Council. (1970). Preparation of Teaching Materials, Practical Grammars, and Dictionaries, Especially for Foreign Languages. In Eva Sivertsen (Ed.), Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Linguists, 738-746. Oslo: Oslo University Press. Reprinted in: Language Learning

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1960 Concord of Number in English. In Articles on English Language and Literature (in Honor of Genji Takahashi, Fresident of Meiji Gakuin University), 327-348. Tokyo: Shinozuki Shorin. A New Approach to Language Learning. ELEC Publications March:1-4.

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1963

Tokyo:

English

A Basic Reading Series Developed Upon Linguistic Principles. (With Agnes C. Fries, Rosemary G. Wilson, and Mildred K. Rudolph.) Ann Arbor, MI: Fries Publications, Pupils' books, 8 readers pp. 649; practice books 6 vols., pp. 2 96; teacher's guide, pp. vii, 107. (1963-1965). Republished by Charles Merrill Books, 1966. Linguistics and Reading. Pp. xviii, 265.

New York:

Holt Rinehart and Winston.

Chapter 2 also published separately as Linguistics : The Study of Language. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston. (1964). Chapter 2 translated into Japanese by Tatsuro Okitsu. Kenkyusha. (1968).

Tokyo:

Linguistics and Reading: A Place for the Special Contribution of the Linguist. Georgetown Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics 16:143-156. 1964

English Spelling Patterns Since 1500: The Basis of a Different Approach to Reading. In Brother Leonard Courtney FSC (Ed.), Highlights of the 1965 Pre-Convention Institutes, Detroit, May 1965, 26-38. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Linguistics and the Teaching of Reading. 17:594-598.

The Reading

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Linguistic Approaches to First Grade Reading Programs. In James F. Kerfoot (Ed.), First Grade Reading Programs, 45-55. Perspectives in Reading Number 5. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Linguistics in Beginning Reading. In Helen Mackintosh (Ed.), Current Approaches to Teaching Reading, 5. NEA Elementary Instructional Service. Washington, D.C.: National Education Association. On the Intonation of Yes-No Questions. In David Abercrombie, D.B. Fry, P.A.D. MacCarthy, N.C. Scott, and J.L.M. Trim (Eds.), In Honour of Daniel Jones: Papers Contributed on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, 12 September 1961, 242-254. London: Longmans.. To Teach Reading: The Transfer Stage. A Manual and Guide for a Basic Reading Series Developed Upon Linguistic Principles. Revised experimental edition. Ann Arbor, MI: Fries Publications. Pp. vii, 107. 1967 Learning to Read English as Part of the Oral Approach. In Fumio Nakajima (Ed.), ELEC Publications Volume 8: A Special Number Commemorating the Tenth Anniversary of the Founding of ELEC, 6-11. Tokyo: Kenkyusha Ltd for the English Language Education Council. Reprinted in: Tamotsu Yambe (Ed.), Applied Linguistics and the Teaching English, 218-224. Tokyo: English Language Education Council. (1970).

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(About 1960).

The Changing Grammar of Modern English. Lecture delivered at the University of Michigan Research Club, May 18, 1938. A Commonsense Point of View of English Grammar. Pp. 8.

(About 1916).

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(About 1950).

English Teaching in Germany (with some notes concerning Austria). Pp. 19. 1955. Expressions of Time in English. Pp. 8.

(About 1955).

Grammar from the Point of View of Structural Linguistics. Pp. 2. (About 1962). The Grammatical System of English: Part II. Pp. 3. 1945. The Image of the Linguist and His Grammar. Pp. 13.

(About 1964).

Language and Meaning. Pp. 2. (About 1962). Excerpts printed with the title Lexical and Structural Meaning in Nancy Ainswörth Johnson (Ed.), Current Topics in Language: Introductory Readings 301-303. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop. (1976). Introductory lecture for the English Language Institute. Version 1. Pp. 8. Introductory lecture for the English Language Institute. Verson 2. Pp. 11.

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Pp. 5.

April 19, 1945.

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May 10, 1956.

Linguistics and Reading Problems at the Junior High Level. Pp. 13. Paper delivered at the International Reading Association, Detroit, MI, May 6, 1965. Linguistics and the Teaching of Reading. Linguistics as a Science.

Pp. 10.

November 10, 1956.

Pp. 18. December 14, 1960.

The Nature of the Reading Process. P. 1. Abstract of a paper delivered at the Linguistic Society of America, December 28,1962. New Light on English Grammar. Pp. 6. Paper delivered at the National Council of Teachers of English, November 23, 1947. New Light on How We Read.

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July 1, 1963.

A Note on the Function of Pattern Practice. Objectives in the Teaching of English.

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(About 1960).

Pp. 23.

OUT Literature (with Lila Reynolds Cannon and A.C. Fries). for teaching literature in high school. (About 1928). Outline of Development of the Novel.

Materials

Pp. 70.

A Place for Literature in the Minister's Equipment.

Pp. 11.

Recent Developments in English and the Teaching of English. The Relation of Greek Epic to English Literature.

Pp. 17.

Pp. 5.

The Relation of the Romantic and the Victorian Eras.

Pp. 3.

The Required Course in English Composition.

(About 1940).

The Significance of Jesus.

Pp. 13.

Pp. 2.

372

C.C. FRIES

Some Conclusions Concerning the Nature and Functioning of Human Language. P. 1. (About 1962). Structure in Present-Day English Spelling. Pp. 14. November 16, 1965. Summary Statements Descriptive of One Approach to Grammar. Pp. 2. (1965). Published as the appendix of Peter H. Fries. C.C. Fries, Signals Grammar, and the Goals of Linguistics. In John Morreall (Ed.), Ninth LACUS Forum 1982, 146-158. Columbia, SC: Hornbeam. (1983). To the Committee on Education Trends. Working paper written for the Committee on Educational Trends Adverse to the Teaching of Modern Foreign Languages and Literature, Modern Language Association. Pp. 22. (About 1938). Toward an Understanding of Language. Pp. 9. Lawrence, Kansas. October 19, 1956.

Lecture Delivered at

Treat Meaning vs. Use Meaning. Pp. 3. The Use of "Meaning" in Linguistic Analysis. Pp. 17. (Probably delivered at the Seventh International Congress of Linguists, September 1952.) What is Good English? Pp. 26. October 26, 1915.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

HAROLD B. ALLEN entered the University of Michigan graduate school five days after graduating from Kalamazoo College in 1924, taking two classes from Charles C. Fries. Nine years as Professor of Rhetoric at Shurtleff College preceded his work for the doctorate under Fries' direction. He taught briefly at San Diego State College and in 1944 accepted a position at the University of Minnesota, from which he retired as Professor Emeritus of English and linguistics in 1971. Chief among his many publications is the three volume Linguistic Atlas of the Upper Midwest. He has served as President of the American Dialect Society, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), and the National Council of Teachers of English, and he has had assignments in Egypt, Syria, Iran, Hungary, and British Columbia.

VIRGINIA FRENCH ALLEN, although never enrolled in a course taught by Fries, learned from him daily while working at the English Language Institute from 1942 to 1945. The Institute was still in its pioneer phase; the first edition of the Intensive Course in English for Latin American Students was just beginning to take shape. It was Dr. Allen's responsibility to produce reading passages that

37 4

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

would contextualize and reinforce the grammar lessons Fries had designed, while introducing vocabulary which would subsequently be worked into Kenneth Pike's pronunciation lessons.

This kind of coordination required in-

tensive learning-on-the-job for someone whose only introduction to linguistics had been through a single undergraduate course. The experience at the Institute included a prodigious amount of background reading, listening in on colleagues' discussions, attending weekly staff meetings in which Fries critiqued everyone's material, and teaching the Intensive Course lessons to Latin American students.

This

orientation to ESL was followed by doctoral study at Columbia University and at Columbia Teachers College with Aileen Traver Kitchin

(a leading Fries associate).

Dr. Allen taught at Columbia Teachers College until 1968, when she became Coordinator of the TESOL Program at Temple University.

Her publications include Techniques

Teaching

(1983) and Inside

Vocabulary

Can Use Insights the

Language

from

Classroom

Linguistics

English:

and the

in

How You

New Grammars

in

(1983) .

RICHARD W. BAILEY is Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan.

A faculty mem-

ber at Michigan since 1965, he worked with Charles C. Fries toward the revival of the Early

Modern

English

Dic-

tionary,

two book-length publications emerged from that

effort:

Michigan

Early Record

Modern of

Early

English:

English

Modern Additions

Vocabulary,

English

Materials

and Antedatings 1475-1700

(1978).

(1975) and to

the

In the

spring of 1967, he invited Fries to lecture to the class for prospective secondary English teachers--a course which

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

37 5

Fries had developed some forty years earlier--and enjoyed his senior colleague's explanation to the students of his methods of collecting data for The Structure of English. Bailey's recent work has ranged widely? volumes which he edited and to which he contributed include: Computing in the Humanities (1982), English as a World Language (1982), and Literacy for Life: The Demand for Reading and Writing (1983).

MACKIE JOSEPH-VENET BLANTON is Associate Professor of English and Linguistics at the University of New Orleans. He earned his B.A. at Xavier University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in linguistics at Illinois Institute of Technology. Dr. Blanton joined the faculty of Illinois Institute of Technology where he taught English linguistics and English as a second language. He has also lectured on dialects, literacy, the bilingual learner, and technical writing as well as curriculum renovation, sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. His publications include discourse analysis of technical English and literary criticism. He currently edits The Bookstore Reader, an annual Louisiana literary anthology, and has been an editorial assistant of the Louisiana Folklore Miscellany. Dr. Blanton's current research interests include language communities in southern Louisiana, business English, and gestalt psychotherapy.

FREDERICK J. BOSCO is a member of the languages and linguistics faculty of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. His choice of linguistics and language teaching as a career was strongly influenced by Charles C. Fries. Bosco studied Modern English Grammar under Fries at the

37 6

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

University of Michigan and w a s a teaching assistant at the English Language Institute. In 1958, he was awarded a Fulbright grant to study and lecture in Italy. He has served on the evaluating board of the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California and as an evaluator of the Navajo area school for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. His publications include Incontro con l ' i t a l i a n o , Punti di pavtenza, Profili, and numerous articles on language learning and language teaching. Currently he teaches in the applied linguistics program at Georgetown University. Professor Bosco was recently a guest lecturer at the Tenth Annual Seminar for Japanese Teachers of English at Sophia University in Japan.

JANET DUTHIE COLLINS is Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Her research interest is the theory of linguistic change with particular emphasis on Old English. She received one of the two competitive R e search Scholar Awards at SIUE for 1983-1984, for her proposal "Composition Dates and Chronological Order of Old English Poems," an analysis using multiple competing feature sets to establish the linguistic profile of each poem and then by means of multiple regression statistical techniques to determine the date of each poem and, thereby, the chronological order.

WILLIAM W. CRAWFORD, JR. is a faculty member at Georgetown University in the Division of English as a Foreign Language, and was invited to Hiroshima University as a visiting scholar from 1984-1986. As an undergraduate he

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

377

studied at the University of the Pacific in California, graduating from Elbert Covell College with degrees in Inter-American Relationships and Teaching English as a Second Language. Professor Crawford completed his graduate studies in applied linguistics at the University of Michigan, concentrating in the areas of phonetics and phonology. Following in the tradition of Charles C. Fries, Professor Crawford was an instructor at the English Language Institute for many years, where he worked closely with Joan Morley in developing pronunciation materials. Professor Crawford served as senior pronunciation consultant for the Longman Dictionary of American English.

MARCEL DANESI received his Ph.D. in applied linguistics and Italian at the University of Toronto in 1974. He taught general linguistics at Rutgers University in 19721973, and has taught Italian and applied linguistics at the University of Toronto since 1974. He has published numerous articles on topics related to general and applied linguistics, as well as a few books. He was book review editor for Italian for the Modern Language Journal from 1977-1979, and is currently book review editor for general applied and Italian linguistics for the Canadian Modern Language Review. He was also the editor of the Ontario Modern Language Teachers1 Association Newsletter.

PETER H. FRIES, son of Charles C. Fries, is Professor of English and Linguistics at Central Michigan University. He received a B.A. degree in German from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University

37 8

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

of Pennsylvania.

He taught at the University of Wisconsin

from 1965 to 1971, and then moved to Central Michigan, where he teaches a range of courses in English linguistics and applied linguistics.

He has taught English to speakers

of other languages in Poland, in Yugoslavia, and at the University of Wisconsin.

Sequences

in the

English

His publications include

Noun Phrase

Tagmeme

and numerous articles.

SIDNEY GREENBAUM earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in English grammar at the University of London.

He started

his teaching career in primary and secondary schools, taught for over ten years as Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and is now Quain Professor of English Language and Literature at University College, London.

Dr. Greenbaum has published many books

and articles on such topics as English adverbs, verbintensifier collocations, linguistic experimentation, and acceptability in language.

He is perhaps best known as

coauthor with Quirk, Leech, and Svartvik of A Grammar

Contemporary

of

English.

CAROLYN GREEN HARTNETT earned her B.A. in 1952 at Eastern Michigan University and her M.A. in 1953 at the University of Michigan, where she studied with Charles C. Fries.

She

received her Ph.D. at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 198 0.

Her degrees were in English, but included work

in linguistics, psychology and sociology.

In 1967 she was

one of the founding faculty at College of the Mainland in Texas City, Texas, and has taught there since. textbooks in basic composition are Ideas

and Tying

Thinking

to Writing

(1984).

in

Her two

Motion

She has made

(1973)

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

37 9

presentations at the national meetings of the National Council of Teachers of English, Conference on College Composition and Communication, Linguistic Society of America,

and National Association for Developmental

Education.

LYNN HENRICHSEN coordinates the TESL program at Brigham Young University--Hawaii Campus and serves as editor of the TESL Reporter.

He has authored a pair of ESL writing

textbooks (Sentence

Construction

and Sentence

Combination)

and numerous articles in professional journals.

His in-

ternational experience includes teaching in Samoa, Spain, and Mexico.

He holds an M.A. degree in linguistics/TESL

from Brigham Young University, and was a participant in the "C.C. Fries in Perspective" seminar held at Teachers College Columbia University during the 1981 TESOL Summer Institute.

ARCHIBALD A. HILL is Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin.

He started his teaching career in

the English Department of the University of Michigan while completing his Ph.D. from Yale.

While at Michigan, Hill

worked with Samuel Moore and Charles Fries.

Hill left

Michigan to teach at Virginia, Georgetown and, eventually, the University of Texas at Austin.

He remained at Austin

from 1955 until his retirement in 1972.

He is well-known

and appreciated for serving as Secretary-Treasurer of the Linguistic Society of America for almost twenty years. then was elected President of that society.

Dr. Hill has

written or edited over 150 publications on English, linguistics and literary analysis.

He

Among his better known

380

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

works are; "An analysis of the Windhover: an experiment in structural method," Introduction to Linguistic Structures: From Sound to Sentence in English, and "Grammaticality."

ROBERT C. JONES received his academic training at the University of Texas, Austin, Texas. He was first introduced to the work of Charles C. Fries through Dr. Rudolph Willard, who taught the History of the English Language course at Texas. Dr. Willard's enthusiastic approach to the structure of the English language encouraged his students to read further into Dr. Fries' contributions to language study. Jones was awarded his Ph.D. in English from the University of Texas in 1958. He has taught English grammar, linguistics, and advanced rhetoric at Central Missouri State University, Warrensburg, Missouri, since the summer of 1961.

ROBERT LADO received his B.S. at Rollins, his M.A. at the University of Texas and his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. He served as Professor of English and Director of the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan before he moved to Georgetown University in 1960, where he served as Academic Director of the Institute of Languages and Linguistics and eventually as Dean of Languages and Linguistics from 1963 to 1973. He has written many books and articles (including Linguistics Across Cultures, Language Teaching, and Language Testing) and he has lectured throughout Latin America and in Japan. Professor Lado's work centers around teaching English to speakers of other languages, testing,

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

381

and preschool literacy. Dr. Lado retired from Georgetown University in 1980 and is currently involved with the Lado International Institute of Washington, D.C.

RAVEN I.McDAVID, J R . (1911-1984) received his B.A, from Furman and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Duke. He attended eight Summer Institutes of the Linguistic Society of America at Michigan between 1937 and 1958 (perhaps holding a record for the best attendance). He was President of the American Dialect Society, and won the David Russell Research Award from the National Council of Teachers of English. His writing centered on American English and lexicography. Dr. McDavid knew Charles C. Fries from 1937 through the International Congress of Linguists in Bucarest in 1967. He enjoyed an active retirement from the University of Chicago, and he recently was made Docteur de l'Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle. He passed away in October 1984. His work continues under Virginia McDavid, and Drs. William Kretchmar, Theodore Lerud and Martha Ratliff. (We would like to thank Patrick Merman of the University of Chicago for reading the proofs of the article written by the McDavids )

VIRGINIA GLENNMcDAVID received her B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at Minnesota, and is presently teaching at Chicago State. Her publications center around basic writing and composition. She has served as Editor for the Linguistic Atlas of the North Central States. Dr. McDavid first met Charles C. Fries in 1947, and attended the summer meetings of the Linguistic Society of America during the 50s.

38 2

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

JAMES W. NEY is currently Professor of English at Arizona State University in Tempe.

He was awarded a Ed.D. by the

University of Michigan in 1963.

Since then he has held

teaching appointments at a number of universities, including The University of Maryland, the University of the Ryukyus, and Michigan State University.

He moved to

Arizona State University in 1969. Dr. Ney is the author or coauthor of 36 books and over 90 professional articles, including Linguistics,

guage Teaching Structures for ies

in

and Composition in the Grades, and the Syntax of the Complements and

English,

and a number of text books.

Lan-

Semantic Auxiliar-

He is perhaps

best known for his work in sentence combining, a method of teaching writing.

WILLIAM D. PAGE (1934-84)

was

Professor of Education at

the University of Connecticut in Storrs.

He began his

professional career teaching reading in elementary and secondary schools.

From 1971 to 1977 he was Director of

the Experienced Teacher Program in Reading at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Page received a Bachelor of Fine

Arts degree in industrial design, a Master of Arts degree in philosophy of education and a doctorate in language arts and reading curriculum development from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.

His publications in-

clude Help for the Reading Teacher: New Directions in Research (editor), and Teaching Reading Comprehension (coauthored with Gay Su Pinnell), and numerous articles. Dr. Page served as Publications Chairman and Research Fellow for the National Conference on Research in English, and as Chairman of the Subcommittee for the Outstanding Research Award for the International Reading Association.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

383

Professor Page's research interests included linguistics and psycholinguistics, the theoretical bases of reading and writing instruction, and the psychology and philosophy of reading comprehension. ( Professor Mark Sadowski of Texas A and M University graciously helped the editors in the final stages of the preparation of Dr. Page's manuscript after his untimely death in March 1984.)

KENNETH L. PIKE is Professor Emeritus from the University of Michigan. He is enjoying an active retirement teaching at the University of Texas at Arlington. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1942 and joined the faculty there on his graduation. (One of his first duties at Michigan was to prepare the materials for teaching pronunciation at the English Language Institute under Charles C. Fries.) He remained at Michigan until he retired in 1977, though regularly spending time with the Summer Institute of Linguistics as a linguistics consultant around the world, and serving as President of that organization for many years. During his last few years at Michigan, he was Chairman of the Department of Linguistics and also Director of the English Language Institute. Dr. Pike was President of the Linguistic Society of America, and of the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States. In 1966 he was given a Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award, and held the Charles C. Fries Professorship in Linguistics from 1974 until he retired. In 1978 he was awarded the Docteur Honoris Causa by the Rene Descartes University in France. His publications center on linguistic theory (his best known work is Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human

384 Behavior),

ABOUT THE AUTHORS but he also writes and publishes poetry.

JAMES C. STALKER is Director of the English Language Center at Michigan State University. He received his B.A. at North Carolina, his M.A. at Louisville and his Ph.D. in applied English linguistics, literature and theoretical linguistics at the University of Wisconsin--Madison (where he studied briefly with Peter H. Fries). He has taught traditional English and linguistics courses as well as correspondence courses in English linguistics, adult basic education, and he has administered in-service courses for teachers throughout Wisconsin. His publications include topics such as teaching reading, the composing process, dialects and usage, and poetics. He is currently Director of the Commission on the English Language of the National Council of Teachers of English.