CLASS Nº 1

What is Grammar?

We will start defining what is grammar and why is it so important to

understand its usage for your training as future translators:

To begin with, we are studying English grammar. English language is

considered today the first language of over 300.000 million people.Native
speakers are from United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand .
Other countries as South Africa for example has native speakers and
bilingual speakers.
English is a second language for over 300 million people who speak
other language as their mother tongue.
It is perceived in most part of the world as essential for international
communication in commerce, tourism, scientific and technological
literature among others.

Learning and studying grammar will make us understand the nature of

language, realize the grounds of your linguistic prejudices and perhaps
moderate them. Of course, the aim of this subject is to help you to use
the language more effectively.

Grammar can be defined as the set of rules that allow us to

combine words in our language into larger units.

Depending on the author, there are several ways in which we can explain
the relationship between grammar and other components of language.
In this case we can say that grammar is connected with other 4 levels of
language:

● Phonetics
● Morphology
● Syntax
● Semantics

Moreover, there are other levels that can be included:

● Pragmatics
English Varieties

There are many grammars of English, numerous varieties of the English

language, which share characteristics that are common to all. Variations
according to región are well known as “dialects”. We mostly recognize
different dialects from a speaker’s pronunciation, sometimes the lexicon
(vocabulary) is also distinctive.

Moreover, within each dialect areas , there is considerable variation in

speech according to education and social standing. This means that
there is a distinction between educated and uneducated speech.

Educated speech tends to be observed in the government agencies, the

policial parties, the press , the law court and public institutions,
documentary programmes.

Educated speech is connected with Standard English. Standard English

has Prestige because people connect it with education and with higher-
income groups. It is not intrinsically better than other dialects , though
many believe it is. It has developed a range of styles to suit different kind
of uses, particulary in writing.

Standard and Non Standard English

In its written form , Standard English is regarded worldwide as an

uncontroversial choice for something like an editorial on a serious subject
in any English-language newspaper, whether in Britain, USA or New
Zeland. A few minors points of difference can be found between the
American English(AmE) and British English (BrE) forms of standard
English.

Non-standard English is the informal version of the language, which can

change depending on where it is being spoken.

It contains lots of slang (very informal versions of standard words), which

can be particular to a certain area or group of people, so may not be
used or understood by everyone.
Here you have an article from the Cambridge Dictionary website that Will
help you to summarize the difference between standard and
non-standard English.

Written and Spoken English

The English speech tends to be different from the English of writing . In

writing we usually have time to plan our message, think carefully while
writing and to revise it afterwards.
In speech, we have no time to do this.
Often in speech we use words and phrases like well , you see, or kind of
to add information. Hesitation fillers are used like er, um, etc.
We may fail to complete a sentence or lose track of our sentence and
mix up grammatical constructions.
Grammar of spoken sentences is simpler and les strictly constructed
than grammar of written sentences.

Formal and Informal English

Formal language is the type of language we use publicly for some

serious purpose, for example, official reports, business letters and
regulations.

Informal language , also called colloquial language, is the language of

private conversation, personal letters. The first type of language a native
speaker learns. It is easier to understand than formal English.

Polite and Familiar Language

Our language tends to be more polite when we are talking to a person

we do not know well, or a person senior to ourselves in terms of age or
social position.

Familiar language is used when we know someone well.

Example: Instead of the polite vocative “Mr Brown”, we use the first name
“Peter”.
Some examples of “impolite constructions” can be observed when we fail
to show proper respect or being familiar in the wrong circumstances.

Slang can also be seen as familiar language , it is usually restricted to

members of a particular social group, for example “teenage slang” ,
“army slang” , etc. Slang is not usually fully understood by people outside
a particular social group, it shows intimacy and solidarity within its
members.

Tactful and Tentative Language

Politeness is connected with tact and diplomacy. To be tactful is to avoid

causing offence or distress to someone.

For example, a request, suggestion , etc can be made more tactful by

making it more tentative.

Compare:

I suggest that we postpone the meeting until tomorrow.

May I suggest that we postpone the meeting until tomorrow? (tactful)

Could I suggest that we postpone the meeting until tomorrow? (tentative,

more tactful)

Impersonal Style

Formal written language often goes with an impersonal style, one in

which the speaker does not refer directly to his readerss, avoids the
usage of pronouns I, you and we.

Passives are common features of impersonal language, as well as

sentences beginning with the introductory it and the usage of abstract
nouns.
Prescriptive and Descriptive grammar

Prescriptive grammar is a set of rules about language based on how

people think language should be used. It prescribes what is a correct or
an incorrect use of language.

Descriptive grammar describes rules based on how language is used in

reality. It draws on the evidence of corpora: databases which collect
examples of how people actually use language when they are
communicating.