They look at the inner workings of language. Why language works like it does, in other words. Think of learning about linguistics in the same way you’d learn how an internal combustion engine works. Linguistics is what’s under the hood… you don’t need to know it to drive a car, but it helps understand what’s going on if you ever break down!
So… TEFL teachers should find these useful in providing more of a background to their teaching and students, too, will find them helpful in understanding language at a slightly deeper level.
Simply put, Syntax is the collection of rules which go together to form sentences and phrases in a language. For example, the rules of syntax say that an English sentence can be formed thus: {subject} + {verb} + {object} Michael + rowed + the boat The rules of syntax say […]
Punctuation is the use of different marks to show how a sentence is constructed and should be read and understood. It is, if you like, the written equivalent of pauses and emphasis. In English the following punctuation marks are used: apostrophes brackets or parentheses colon commas dashes or hyphens ellipsis […]
Inflection refers to the way we change the form of a word to show different parts of grammar such as voice, person, number, gender, mood, tense or case. A simple example is when we change I to me depending on where it is used in a sentence. The person remains […]
When we talk about Language Functions, we are talking about the reason we use a language. This can be contrasted with grammar which is how the language works. Functions are why we use language: to greet people, to order a meal, to ask the time and so on. Grammar, on […]
How many Tenses are there in English? It sounds like a simple question, but, unfortunately, it isn’t. This is because different people – including both students and TEFL teachers – have different definitions of what a tense actually is and there is no single, accepted one. However, in English there […]