General Versus Specific Grammar Forms, Essay Example

While there are always exceptions to any rule, the use of certain preposition and verb pairs results from careful memorization and practice. English language learners and grammar students have to know what instructors are talking about before they produce the talk (verb) about (preposition) pairing successfully and consistently on their own. In the last decade, English and grammar teachers stressed the use of only active voice, but the use of non-specific, passive voice meets with increasing acceptance in the modern classroom.

General Versus Specific

The word ‘the’ often designates a specific noun that is not a special noun, as in the music or the book, as Hewings points out- not just a historical fiction book or a book (p. 24). The clarity of the word choice becomes more important today, as the use of passive voice occurs once or more in sentences with increasing acceptance (pp. 94-95). While this modern grammatical expansion and leniency eases some of the pressure of students to write as though they are professionals, it also weakens the conciseness of the English language, which constantly grows and assimilates new terms from technological developments, social media, and globalized business and culture concepts. Still, the English active voice makes verb usage simpler. In Spanish, for example, the ending of many of the verbs and modifiers refers directly to the subject(s). In English, a person walks, a dog walks, and a robot walks. The use of the a or an article before the noun follows a relatively simple rule which takes the sound of the first syllable of the noun as the indicator which determines the correct usage. Hewings does provide relevant examples with common acronyms, such as MP3, which may not be as easy to classify according to the basic rule of ‘a’ or ‘an’ (pp. 92-96). Regardless, this lesson presents an opportunity to build confidence and break up the more complicated prepositions and tense mixtures with a lesson which requires less writing and less critical thinking.

Many similar nouns which are used in prepositions fall into the ‘must memorize’ category. Generally speaking, more decisive nouns typically tend to pair with the ‘of’ infinitive, i.e. the reluctance of, while the uncertain nature of other nouns pairs with the ‘to’ infinitive, i.e. an attempt to. The ‘possibility of’ pairing is just one exception that shows the force of the general rule (pp. 186-187).  As an exercise of getting more specific and combining infinitives, Unit 23.2 illustrates the give-and-take of connected verbs which possess a specific meaning and lessen the need for passive voice.

Conclusion

The only thing that stays the same is everything changes. It took me by surprise to see the inclusion of the proper use of passive voice in this text, and the nouns and verbs provided in the examples often include complicated vocabulary which may require previous instruction. The rules themselves bear little significance if not attached to specific sentence-form examples that the students can relate to and understand. These sentences also provide a unique opportunity to engage the students by including their interests as the subject under discussion, and this benefits the teachers who may feel as discouraged as the students by the constant change in the expectation of writing standards, such as the use of passive voice that was discussed above.

References

Hewings, M. (2006). Advanced Grammar in Use. 3^rd ed. Cambridge University Press. Print.