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In the first part of my analysis I talk about the concepts illustrated in the book and define the meaning of key terminology. In the second part, I will raise the issues regarding the pros and cons of this textbook, and its usefulness. Using the ideas in ‘Writing Grammar Textbooks: Theory and Practice” by Patricia Byrd (Georgia State University 1994), will show the criteria for a good grammar book. Then, I will compare “Analyzing English Grammar” to those criteria to demonstrate evidence to support my views about the usefulness of this textbook.
In the end I will provide additional nformation about the textbook, and conclude my opinions. Review Of “Analyzing English Grammar” 7th Edition 3 The The authors of “Analyzing English Grammar ” are Tomas P. Klammer, Muriel R. Schulz and Angela Della Volpe. The main purpose of this book is to help users from various backgrounds to learn the grammatical rules of English using different teaching methods. This book consists of twelve chapters and an appendix as well as preface, glossary and an index.
In the preface, authors discuss the materials included in this book, organization of the topics and the purpose of contents. The next two chapters touch to the points such as the meaning and types of grammar; moreover, they address second language acquisition problems such as transfer errors and illustrate pragmatic and textual competence required from these users. In chapter four, authors summarize form as four parts of speech – nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs that share the ability to change their form by accepting morphemes.
Functions are defined depending on the way these parts of speech behave in a sentence. Charts and tables in chapters five and six display various structure-class words and content includes discussions about their ifferences with form-class words. In chapter seven readers are required to practice a lot of tree diagrams, which then becomes more complex with the introduction of five different types of sentences. Chapter eight defines the type of verb that can stand alone in the verb phrase and function as entire predicate as intransitive; however, transitive verbs require noun phrases to follow them.
The last three chapters provides information about finite and nonfinite verb clauses by demonstrating their unique characteristics along with teaching techniques to diagram these clauses. In the end, appendix raws attention to the sounds, differences in American pronunciation and phonics. REVIEW of”ANALYZlNG ENGLISH GRAMMAR” 7th EDITION 4 First of all, this book is structured in a way that makes it easier for users to find what they are looking for. Information in the book is not spread around randomly; instead the organization of the book follows a logical path.
Contents of the book are divided into separate chapters and the related information in those chapters is collected based on their relevance to the topic. Proper structuring also keeps readers interested and concentrated in the main subject. Furthermore, a glossary’ is added to the back of the book by the authors to ease the process of finding the necessary definitions of terminology. The selection and ordering of materials is one of the most essential things to consider in writing a grammar textbook (P. Byrd 1994, 252).
The sequence of content should start with easy things that will slowly lead to more difficult things after building on each other. Authors successfully implement this idea by starting the book with simple, general idea of what the grammar is and how it can be descriptive or prescriptive. He continues with ord-level grammar, sentence transformations and finally discusses more complex grammar structures such as finite and nonfinite verb clauses in the last two chapters. Also, in chapter 1 , authors clearly define different meanings of grammar.
According to Patricia Byrd, clarity in the explanation of the phrase ‘the teaching of gramma’ is one of the main challenges for a writer of grammar texts to overcome (P. Byrd 1994, 245). On the other hand, based on the age of the users and the experience of learners of English as a second language, some parts of grammar could be simple for one group, while being hallenging for another. Adult language learners are more sophisticated in writing, extensive educated vocabulary and worse in the accuracy of pronunciation compare to children (P. Byrd 1994, 253).
Readers consider all concepts learned in the chapter and apply them together. In this book, authors use not only direct, but also indirect teaching methods of grammar such as comments and suggestions on linguistics. Phrase marker tree diagrams and Reed-Kellogg diagrams are used as visual tools to analyze sentence structures better. Patricia Byrd suggests hat, a grammar textbook should involve exercises providing real communication activities through discussing, observing, analyzing them (P. Byrd 1994, 254).
Even though this book lacks this level of communication, users are usually required to explain the reasoning behind their answers to the questions. In the end, this book meets most of the criteria of a successful grammar textbook demonstrated by Patricia Byrd. Despite a limitation such as lack of communication, this book addresses the need Of various groups of people and provides necessary tables as well as exercises to enrich the learning xperience of those. It has a hardcover and is made of quality paper.
It contains 446 pages and its content is written in the font of 12. The fair market value of the book is around twenty-five dollars. Overall, this book is very useful considering the amount of detailed information it delivers to the readers while doing it in an organized, simplified way using various teaching tools. References Patricia Byrd (1994) “Writing Grammar Textbooks: Theory and Practice” Vol. 22, NO. 2, pp. 245-255 Tomas P. Klammer, Muriel R. schulz and Angela Della Volpe (2009) “Analyzing English Grammar ” 7th edition,