Highlights
Textbook Features
- An approach that draws on both prescriptive and descriptive approaches to grammar.
- Key concepts and terms presented in brief, digestible bites, reinforced through realistic example sentences drawn from everyday writing and speech and plentiful end-of-chapter exercises, with answers provided in a separate answer pamphlet.
- An assumption of only a rudimentary knowledge of grammar and an organization that moves from simple to complex topics.
- "Did You Know" boxes that provide interested students with more detail on various points.
- "Reminder" boxes that review key material or refer students to previous discussions.
Emphasis on Social Dimensions of Language
Most grammar textbooks approach the study of grammar as it applies to isolated sentences, conveniently ignoring the messiness of real-world language. Americans don’t speak or write English in exactly the same way; over many years, speakers and writers have adapted (and continued to adapt) the English language to a variety of settings and situations. While much of the book is devoted to instructing students in how to describe, or parse, individual example sentences—and in how to spot sentence errors—Paul Hopper devotes 2 full chapters to discussions of how grammar functions in the "real world" of spoken and written language.
New Method of Sentence Diagramming
Many books avoid diagramming all together while others make it too complicated to be useful. Professor Hopper’s newly-developed form-function diagrams are nicely explanatory, allowing students to analyze sentences at two levels.
Answers To Exercises in A Short Course In Grammar
An Answer pamphlet containing answers to each of the exercises in the book is available free to instructors using the text. Contact your local Norton representative for more information.
Copyright © 2005, W. W. Norton & Company. All rights reserved.
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