Finding a Place to Stand
The Grammar Debate
-KENDRA ANDREWS 2013-
Although I am by no means finished with the reading that I plan to do on my topic, I have included the articles, chapters, and texts that I focused on during my directed reading. For each piece, I have included a detailed summary with relevant quotes as well as a short reflection on the piece's implications for my research. I have also included a link to the original text as a pdf file or a hyperlink to an online source.
Review of Research
In this article, Francis tries to re-define the meaning of grammar from a traditional/prescriptivist position toward a scientific/descriptivist position. He defines grammar as “the set of formal patterns in which the words of a language are arranged in order to convey larger meanings” (299), and then Francis breaks down that definition of grammar further into “the three meanings of ‘grammar’: Grammar 1, a form of behavior; Grammar 2, a field of study, a science; and Grammar 3, a branch of etiquette” (300). However even with such a distinction among the different meanings of grammar, Francis recognizes that there remains a general and “unfortunate confusion about the meaning of the term ‘grammar’ itself” (299). This confusion could be attributed to the variability of language/grammar and also may be attributed to the variability of the cultures in which the language is spoken, as Francis states “a language constitutes a set of behavior patterns common to the members of a given community” and “each language or dialect has its own unique system of behavior patterns” (300). Aside from the variability and confusion among the meaning of grammar itself, Francis points out how we may be holding on to a very antiquated system for no reason other than habit. Frances writes, “it is now as unrealistic to teach ‘traditional’ grammar of English as it is to teach ‘traditional’ (i.e. pre-Darwinian) biology or ‘traditional (i.e. four-element) chemistry. Yet nearly all certified teachers of English on all levels are doing so. Here is a cultural lag of major proportions” (302). Francis then calls for a new revolution in grammar, which will move the field away from the traditional (“‘conservative’’) grammar and toward the linguistic (“‘liberal’”) grammarians. Or in other words, there is “a battle ahead of the new grammar” (312).
Research Implications:
The question then remains: why do we still cling to the traditional forms of grammar instead of moving on to something more scientific? What is it about language where people feel that “if I had to learn it, then kids today should learn it too?” Maybe it’s because language is personal—it’s a representation of who we are by expressing what we say, think, and feel. And if we negate that tradition that most people are brought up by, then perhaps people feel like they are being negated as well. This article will not only be useful for my project, but also foundational in many ways. Not only is Francis the cited foundational source in many of the other articles, but he also brought attention to this impending battle over fifty years ago. Furthermore, he offers a good insight into the linguistic turn of grammar in the mid-twentieth century.
For Hartwell, the “grammar issue was settled at least twenty years ago” when the Braddock study concluded that teaching grammar had a negligible or possibly harmful effect on the teaching of writing (105). However, in this article he explores how other people in the field such as Janice Neuleib and Martha Kolln have kept the debate going. Hartwell claims that attacking the question from an empirical angle has essentially told us nothing because “the two sides are unable to interpret such research” (106) and continuing in this vein will perpetuate the debate. Hartwell argues that we need to ask new questions concerning the grammar issue and he specifically asks what kind of value are we placing on the issue, how are we defining ‘grammar’ itself, how other disciplines look at grammar, and what does our theory of language predict will happen? He uses these questions as the driving force of his article as he defines five different types of grammar (Francis’s three grammars, a traditional school grammar, and stylistic grammar) and defines each type in depth. Ultimately, Hartwell concludes that “we are constrained to reinvent the wheel...but too often the wheel we reinvent is square” (127). He suggests that we move away from looking toward empirical research for a theoretical issue, and instead we should develop new theories of language and literacy and “move on to more interesting areas of inquiry” (127).
Research Implications:
I do not necessarily agree with the grammar clarifications that Hartwell poses: I don’t know if traditional “school” grammar and stylistic grammar are as significantly different as the Francis’ first three grammars to merit their own categories; however, I do think that Hartwell does provide a very expansive and descriptive explanation of the grammar debate through the eighties. I appreciate the guiding questions that he poses at the beginning of the article, and they did guide me a bit toward the idea of stasis theory because it made me wonder how this debate could still persist. Hartwell claims in 1985 that the debate should have been settled in 1963, and yet we are still talking about it today.
In this article, Patrick Bassett looks at the grammar debate from a pragmatic level because he insists that the grammar issue is essentially a “non-issue” because “the public expects the English teacher to teach some conventional principles of language and composition” (55) and therefore it should happen in the classroom. He claims that grammar has both a descriptive and a prescriptive quality, but how grammarians value those elements categorizes them into a traditional, linguistic, or transformational camp (he uses a war metaphor as his primary explanation of the debate). Bassett makes a case against the teaching of transformational or structural grammar in the school system because of its difficulty, but he does admit that the descriptive aspects of a linguistics approach may prove useful in the understanding of grammar. He warns that even though there is a very real debate, we cannot let that stop us from teaching grammar because “there is near unanimity among English teachers that the prescriptive elements of grammar should be taught” (58). In his conclusion, Bassett creates a tri-fold call to action where language teachers must take ownership of their own language abilities, should not throw out all traditional pedagogy in favor of new, cultural applications, and absolutely cannot expect “youngsters” to understand structural and transformational grammar. He then suggests that secondary schools students should receive ten weeks of traditional, prescriptive grammar during their sophomore year and be held accountable for grammatical accuracy in their compositions in the subsequent semesters.
Research Implications:
Although this article falls a bit outside of the college composition realm (Bassett is the headmaster of Stuart Hall, a boarding school in Virginia, and the article appeared in a publication for the National Association of Secondary School Principals), I still think that it has much that it could offer to the general understanding of my project. Bassett may be a bit misguided in his ultimate prescription (the required ten weeks of traditional grammar in the tenth grade), but I do like his positioning of the issue of grammar as a “non-issue.” No matter how long we argue about or in what ways we argue about it, there is still a public expectation that grammar should be taught in the classroom. What I wonder then, is how does the field go about changing the public sentiment, especially if it has persisted for over a hundred years?
In Ronald Shook’s reply to Martha Kolln, he first explains the use of the alchemy metaphor (changing a base metal into gold) for his readers and perhaps as a way to show that he is more aware of his audience than Kolln is. Shook contends that “the inevitable conclusion of the paper, the purpose of the shaping, the contention that grammar does help writing, is simply assumed and started with no evidence given. None at all” (492). Shook bases his disbelief of Kolln’s argument on “her definition of grammar, the nature of her evidence, and some rhetorical contortions that she indulges in” (492). He suggests that Kolln has purposefully overlooked multiple studies because they go against her main point; however, a solid researcher would look into all relevant studies (mention them at the least). He also suggests that her argument is flawed because it is based on no original conclusions but only refutations and that“simply demonstrating that the evidence against a position is flawed is not a demonstration that the position is true” (494). Shook concludes that there is no formal connection between teaching grammar and teaching writing based on the facts that the majority of accepted studies concluding that there’s no connection, that most arguments for traditional grammar teaching are emotional rather than logical, and that his experience teaching composition has led him to this belief. Shook also concludes by admitting that he will never convince the grammarians, that there can be no “perfect” experimental group, and that he will remain an alchemist.
Research Implications:
Although Shook’s reply to Kolln is brief, I do believe that it will be extremely useful for my project. If I am looking at these debates through the lens of stasis theory, then there seems to be an obvious breakdown at the level of definition for grammar and perhaps at the value level for the studies themselves. Furthermore, I think that this reply will be useful to look at how the players of this debate readily adopt their sides “I will remain an alchemist” even if the moniker was originally used in a derisive manner.
Kolln begins by describing Braddock, Lloyd-Jones, and Schoer, NCTE report, “Research in Written Composition” and how it likened the field of composition research to “chemical research as it emerged from the period of alchemy” (139). Kolln believes that the scientific approach of the report brought composition research out of the “dark ages” and offered much to the field, but it has been misunderstood and has turned the clock back on grammar research (139). Kolln poses that the misunderstanding may have occurred because the researchers failed to define the term ‘formal grammar’ and that is what most people may have grabbed onto. She includes Henry Meckel’s conclusions on the same research, which point toward “research does not justify the conclusion that grammar should not be taught systematically” and that “much of the earlier research on teaching grammar must be regarded as no longer of significance outside the period in educational history which it represents” (140-141); however, Meckel’s conclusions were lost in the hubbub of the Braddock study. Kolln suggests that we teach grammar in a functional way that aims to “bring conscious awareness to those subconscious rules” (141). She gives examples of prominent “alchemists” such as Dean Memering who believed that “‘if we know anything at all about composition, we know that students can’t be “grammared” into better writers’” (142) and reevaluates the conclusions he has drawn from research. Kolln discredits Memering’s research conclusions by illustrating the shortcomings of each study Memering included (Hoyt, Rapeer, Segal and Barr, Symonds, Frogner, and Harris). Kolln claims that the fault of this push against traditional grammar or the real “harmful effect” may lie on the shoulders of these faulty studies since it changed the way that new teachers approached grammar. She lays the 1963 Braddock study as the moment of impact and provides examples of grammar teaching such as the sentence combining of Frank O’Hare or the twenty alternatives offered by Stephen Judy. Kolln concludes with the notion that “grammar is there whether we like it or not” and we should teach it to our composition students in order to “help them understand consciously the system they know subconsciously as native speakers” (150).
Research Implications:
I think that Kolln’s article is especially useful for my research and I certainly think that it will be fruitful for my application of stasis theory for the way it tries to understand the debate in terms of alchemy. The term alchemy itself is especially interesting because it has to shape the way that we see the great grammar divide and I would like to look a little further into the metaphorical implications of this analogy. Also, she seems to follow quite a methodological process while debunking each of the studies and provides a very thorough history and bibliography for me to pull from.
In this Chapter, Connors attempts to unpack some of the “different meanings and cultural baggage associated with the term ‘grammar’” in order to understand how they have affected the pedagogical development of the field of composition-rhetoric (113). Connors argues that there is a very strong association with how we value social classes and how we value types of language because “where there is class distinction, linguistic distinctions are not far behind” (115). It seems that grammar has been a social gate-keeper and a way of “othering” each other –we want to do it this way because they do it that way as was noted by Alexis de Tocqueville in the nineteenth century. Since English is a hybridized language based with Germanic and Latinate roots, perhaps that is why English was seen as a grammarless language and why English speakers fought so hard to use the proper grammar. Connors locates the connection between correctness and social position and he suggests that “the changing nature of American society itself was behind the interest in correct speech and writing” (123). Connors then demonstrates how these cultural associations of correctness and class were filtered into the college rhetoric and ultimately, the college composition course. He then outlines the history and evolution of the college composition course from the first writing requirement set at Harvard University in 1874 to the Braddock study and the linguistic turn of the mid-1960s. In his conclusion, Connors explains that we must strike a “balance between formal and rhetorical considerations” because “in a written text any question of mechanics is also a rhetorical question, and as a discipline we are still trying to understand the meaning of that conjunction” (170).
Research Implications:
If nothing else, this chapter provides one of the most thorough historical sketches of the college composition course that I have found, especially for a sketch that is primary concerned with grammar. What I think is most interesting about this text is that a lot of the issues or problems that they were experiencing in the early days of composition are the same things that we still struggle with today such as how to comment, being overworked and underpaid, writing teachers as the low man on the totem, and department politics. Also, it amazes me that this debate has persisted for 150 years and I think that it can provide essential evidence for the historicizing of the grammar debate in the project.
In her reply to Ronald Shook, Martha Kolln moves through and refutes his concerns one by one. She explains that she did not expand her study to include a wider (and perhaps contrary) range because she was relying on the six studies that Memering cited in 1978. She does admit that she should spend some time on the Elley study and points out that Shook (among others) give it credence much too easily. She explains that the non-grammar or “creative-writing” groups in the Elley study and others like it should of course do better with their writing skills because they were given more time to practice writing (as the others had to learn grammar) and yet, there is no significant difference. She also suggests that the anti-grammarians develop studies that set up grammar to fail from the get-go and that “people hear what they want to hear and read what they want to read” (498). Kolln closes her reply with a direct insult at Shook and that his alchemist ways has made him a bad teacher.
Research Implications:
I really like that Kolln replied to Shook and I almost wish that this had been a continuous dialogue to analyze; however, there is much to go on with what I already have. One major point of interest in this particular reply is her accusation that Shook doesn’t understand the definition of “grammar” versus “theory of grammar” because it enriches the analysis of the definition stasis. Even if Shook and Kolln aren’t realizing it, there dialogue has broken down at the stasis of definition and there is no real way that they will be able to move past it until they come to the same terms. I also think that it may be useful to look into the other reply that she makes in this issue of CCC, but I am wondering if it would be helpful since the original response is unavailable.
Vavra has been part of the great Grammar Debate for ten years (when he wrote the article in 1996) as editor of the NCTE newsletter and he believes that both sides are wrong. He also believes that the debate will continue “because the problem has been improperly stated, and because the debate is carried on by a few people at the extremes of our profession” (32) and this article is a call to the moderates rather than fueling the fire on either side. He provides the clichéd analogy of a horse drawing a cart in reference to grammar and writing (similar to the code or conduit theories of writing) with the action of writing operating as the horse and traditional grammar operating as the heavy load that they must pull. He claims that the anti-grammarians are a horse without a cart and the pro-grammarians put the cart before the horse; he also claims to aim for the middle, but he seems to side more with the anti-grammarians. Vavra asserts that “teaching ‘grammar’ doesn’t work because instruction is focused on individual rules, on exceptions, and on individual simplistic sentences. In practice, if no in theory, grammar often fills the cart. And the cart is disconnected from the horse” (34). He suggests that instead, we should put the horse in front and give writing privilege over grammar through methods such as chunking, texture, and memory processes. And he concludes with a call to action to teachers of English that they must receive “better instruction on how to teach grammar” and subsequently try “to teach students how to recognize grammatical constructions in their own writing” (37).
Research Implications:
I think that Vavra’s article is useful in the sense that it provides specific and practical pedagogical suggestions for thinking about grammar in the composition classroom. I also like that he was able to provide an analogy to construct his argument although it does appear a bit forced or stretched at times. In reference to my project, I think that this article could be useful for looking at how he is talking about grammar and how someone may claim to aim for “the moderates,” but ultimately falls to one side. If the aim is misplaced, then maybe it will provide support that there can be no middle ground or stasis to be found in this debate.
This piece serves as more of a definition or description of stasis theory for me. Edlund first situates the roots of stasis theory with Hermagoras, but Cicero and Quintilian were the ones who refined it for rhetorical use. In order to begin a productive argument, the "first step is to agree on the question being discussed" because without that agreement, then all assertions and argumentation will be fruitless. Then, once a question has been agreed on, then the stases come into the argument. In De Inventione, Cicero argues that "every subject which contains in itself any controversy existing either in language or in disputation, contains a question either about a fact, or about a name, or about a class, or about an action." Edlund takes these possible questions laid out by Socrates and separates them into "Questions of Fact or Conjecture: Does it exist? Did it happen?"; "Questions of Definition: How can the act or event be defined?"; "Questions of Quality: What is the character of the act?"; and "Questions of Policy: What should we do?" Edlund takes the categories of fact, definition, quality, and policy and breaks them down with even further questions. In order to develop the categorizations, Edlund provides the example of climate change. He explains that first we must agree on the main issue because "some people say that global warming is a current threat" and "others say that there is no global warming, or if there is, it is part of a natural cycle..." Then we can look at it through fact ("Is the Earth's climate changing?"); through definition ("Can these climate changes be defined as global warming or something else?"); through quality ("is it right to try to stop it?"); and through policy ("Should we try to stop climate change? What will happen if we do nothing?"). Edlund concludes by asserting that stasis theory "provides a framework for inquiry into any imaginable issue" and that all students should use it.
Research Implications:
This piece was extremely useful for me because it laid out the four different stases in very simple terms. I really liked that he used the global warming example in his explanation, and I wonder if I should include a simplified example in my project before I go into depth with the grammar issue.
In this article, Frederica Davis approaches the piece as more of a narrative about her struggle over whether or not to teach traditional grammar in the classroom. Her struggle seems to lie more in her sense that learning grammar had worked for her as a student and she wanted to pass on that success to her students, but she feels that she shouldn’t do it according to theoretical viewpoints she gathered from her experience in the National Writing Project. In this piece, Davis weaves in examples from her own education as a student as well as vignettes from her time spent teaching and her experience as part of the Writing Project. The thrust of the piece is driven by four main questions that she answers throughout: why does she continue to believe in the connection between traditional grammar learning and literacy, why is there such strong objection toward traditional grammar, what could be taught instead of traditional grammar, and is there any serious scholarship that promotes the teaching of traditional grammar? Davis names Sidney Greenbaum, J.R. Holt, Martha Kolln, and Noam Chomsky as four scholars who would promote teaching traditional grammar; however, her use of Chomsky is ineffectual because she has misunderstood his theories. Davis ultimately concludes that traditional grammar should be taught at the middle school level and she provides ten reasons to support that conclusion as well as suggestions for school administrators and college professors in maintaining her vision.
Research Implications:
Although Davis may have leapt to the wrong conclusion concerning Chomsky and she may have misunderstood how Kolln sees grammar, I do think that she raises important questions that many composition teachers deal with. I think that it is especially interesting that she approaches the grammar issue from a stance of ethos in the sense that she fears her credibility as a teacher may be on the line with her decision to teach or not to teach traditional grammar. This article could prove useful for my project as a different approach for understanding the grammar issue—an approach that uses both narrative and focuses on ethos with pedagogical concerns.
In their article, Fahnestock and Secor use Richard Enos’s suggestion that in order to resolve contemporary communication problems, we must “introduce, refine, and possibly modify the heuristic and stylistic processes of classical rhetorical theory” (217). Fahnestock and Secor locate several areas in current communication (1984 at the time) where ancient rhetorical theory could prove to be a useful bridge such as between philosophical and technical rhetoric, between complicated philosophical theory and its practical application, and among “the divided domains of the philosophical rhetoric, technical rhetoric, and practical, even pedagogical application” (217). They make the case for stasis theory to act as this bridge and as a revitalizing force because the stases allow us to highlight the essential structure or foundations of an argument. Fahnestock and Secor outline stasis theory and its use as well as its recursive, yet hierarchical nature. They define the four stases (fact, definition, quality, and policy) and explain how “the stases are a powerful guide for helping us to explore what happens to arguments in full rhetorical situtations” (223). Fahnestock and Secor also describe the ancient notion of asystasis, which is when an issue “cannot be brought to trial because of imperfect argument on both sides” (224). They conclude the article by describing how stasis theory could be applied to the academic field in general and specifically in literary criticism, although they admit that a fuller model of invention would be needed for the theory to be successful.
Research Implications:
This article will provide the foundational lens for my analysis on the grammar issue in college composition. I will use the different levels of stasis that Fahnestock and Secor describe, but more importantly I will be attempting to resolve this contemporary issue through ancient heuristics. I think that their list of purposes in academic arguments (based on Joseph Williams and appearing on page 224) will be especially useful in my analysis as it looks at the different approaches in academic arguments. These different approaches create the context or exigence for the argument and could potentially alter the way that the piece is read and understood. Because as Einstein said, “it is theory that decides what we can observe” (220).
In this article, Fahnestock and Secor question why we extol classical rhetoric, but rarely find it useful enough for contemporary application. They explain that they have found the classical tradition of stases “not only useful as an invention tactic, but also as a principle of arrangement and a probe for the analysis of audience and context…the stases are a particularly valuable construct in the study of the rhetoric of the disciplines” (428). Fahnestock and Secor find the stases particularly useful because the stases “tell the writer ‘where to think, not ‘what to think,’” (429) which seems to be in accord with contemporary theory. In this article, they apply the stases to the particular cases of scientific argument and literary criticism and find that certain academic disciplines tend to stay in one stasis. Scientific arguments tend to stay in the first two stases (existence and definition) whereas literary criticism articles tend to stay in the third stasis (value) because they are not trying to say something new in the sense that it’s not harkening back to previous knowledge (instead they are epideictic), but something different than what has already been said about the literary canon. In their conclusion, Fahnestock and Secor reinforce the idea that examining the stasis of an argument and its justification in a particular context is an integral part of understanding an argument rhetorically.
Research Implications:
Although this article relies primarily on the analysis of two particular genres (the scientific argument and literary criticism), I think that the methods that they employ could be useful for my analysis of the grammar issue. It is helpful for me to keep reminding myself that the use of stasis theory keeps this project looking through a rhetorical lens rather than a simple, historical sketch of the grammar issue that has been done over and over again. I also think that their explanation of how the four stases function in rhetorical analysis will prove useful for me in my analysis of the articles in question.
In this excerpt from Cicero’s book on the craft of oratory and rhetoric, he classifies the different ways that an issue can be stymied by controversy. He claims that an argument is stymied at the stage of definition “when the name by which an act should be called is in controversy.” However, if an issue has agreement on the act, but “the right or wrong of the act is in question,” then that issue is juridical and could either be absolute or assumptive. An absolute issue occurs when there is an essentialized understanding of the act being right or wrong without “drawing on any extraneous matter” and the issue is assumptive when it must draw on extraneous matter. In other words, an assumptive issue depends on and perhaps manipulates the context to make the argument. An assumptive issue could be classified further into four sub-types: acknowledgement of the charge, rejection of the responsibility, shifting of the question of guilt, and comparison with the alternative course. All of these sub-types except for the acknowledgement of the charge rely primarily on using outside circumstances to deny responsibility for the charge at hand.
Research Implications:
In the same vein as “De Inventione,” I don’t think that I will be gaining much practical use from this short excerpt; however, it is important to have a well-developed understanding of the classical texts that produced stasis theory. I think that Cicero’s assertion that “a cause rests on Definition when the name by which an act should be called is in controversy” could be especially useful when writing my paper as it directly relates to how the grammarians are talking about grammar. Also, I think that the Assumptive sub-types remind me of the back and forth that is seen in the grammar debate since each side points to the other for the root of the problem. I especially see how “comparison with the alternative course” could go along with the alchemist articles (Kolln and Shook) because they essentially claim that what we did wasn’t perfect, but it was better than the other guy.
In this article, Hill is attempting to define correctness (appropriateness to a particular dialect) and style (a concern for appropriate and effectives choices between utterances within a given dialect). Hill believes that we should look at language from a linguist’s perspective rather than a rhetorician’s (although he never defines or describes what the rhetorician’s perspective is). Hill comes to this conclusion of description having higher value over correctness or purpose because “any form is correct if it is current in the dialect…a form is incorrect only if it has no such currency” (102). Therefore, style has less to do with appropriate dialect, but appropriate choice within that dialect or context because “A is better than B in the particular context in which it occurs…A is better than B if it is clearer, more in accord with artistic conventions, or fits better with the structure of the utterance in which it falls” (103). He provides multiple examples of how certain utterances vary not only in specific contexts, but also whether they are written or spoken. He names these kinds of context-dependent utterances “indifferent variants” because there can be no essential preference for one or the other. He concludes that it is important to learn about the difference between the forms rather than readily accept preference between them and “rely on a merely convenient myth” (107).
Research Implications:
Hill seems to be coming out of a more descriptivist tradition that is more concerned with how we do use language rather than how we should, which makes sense considering he is a linguist. What could be of interest for my project is how a linguist may be able to bridge the divide between grammatical structures and stylistic conventions; however, he seems to see only in strict separation between linguistics and rhetoric. With his strict separation between rhetoric (style) and linguistics (grammar), it may add another level as to how different people within the field are looking at grammar in connection with rhetoric.
In this section of his handbook for orators, Cicero focuses on how disputes in argument come to be and how to handle the disputes when they occur. He explains that the disputes can stem from four different areas and contain a “question either about a fact, or about a name, or about a class, or about an action.” He then defines how each of these areas differs and yet, how they also still depend on the other. For example, if a dispute comes down to a question of name, then that means that the parties must have already agreed to fact. He gives the example of someone stealing a “sacred vessel from a private place;” the question for debate is not whether something was stolen, but “whether he is to be considered a sacrilegious person or a simple thief.” If there is no resolution on what to name the person who took the vessel, then there can be no debate on the class of the crime nor on the appropriate action or punishment. Therefore, it is necessary that the matter be defined by words and that each side briefly describe their definition so that the other party may apply the new name (if it is described or argued well enough by the opposite side).
Research Implications:
Although this excerpt will primarily serve as a theoretical groundwork for my project rather than providing practical application, I do think that it raises some interesting concerns. I like how Cicero describes the importance of understanding the “force of a name” because it shows that how we understand the definition depends on some kind of larger power structure. If we look at it as far as the multiple meanings or understandings of grammar, then we could be looking at how hegemonic forces of the time or the general zeitgeist may be playing into the “force” of the name/definition at that particular time. It may be interesting to look at how the particular cultural forces alter the words that these different grammarians are using.
In this section on his book outlining oratory, Quintilian describes how the cause of controversy in argument is created by the status or position that the orator is taking. He claims that it is important to define what is meant by the term “position,” how a position is drawn, and what are the different kinds of positions. Quintilian explains that different theorists have approached the idea of position in different ways and he claims that “what I call the position, some term the "settlement"; others the "question"; others "that which appears from the question"; and Theodorus styles it the "general head",κεφάλαιον γενικώτατον (kephalaion genikotaton), to which everything else is referred.” The Greeks have termed the position as stasis and “the name is said to be derived either from the fact that in it lies the commencement of controversy in the cause, or that the cause rests on it.” Qunitilian then ponders who determines the position or where it begins, and he uses the metaphor of two wrestlers to explain his point. Which wrestler makes the first opposing move and where does the contention take place? Quintilian laments that it is difficult to explore the idea of position in too much depth with regards to writing because there seems to be “extraordinary eagerness to advance different opinions, insomuch that it is neither agreed what number of positions there are, nor what are their names, nor which of them are general and which special.”
Research Implications:
Aside from the etymological information provided in this section, I am not quite sure that much will prove useful in my final project. I think that each of these terms he described carries with it so many different associations and connotations, and I wonder how the term itself could be changing how we understand the text. I also like the wrestler metaphor that he uses and I think that it could be a useful analogy for me because there is such a reactionary nature to this grammar debate. However, it also makes me wonder that if the position always exists at a point of contention, then can the argument ever move forward in a productive way?
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