Grammar is not only a liberating force, it is a communicative resource

Abstract

I am very glad that Richard Cullen (ELT Journal 62/3: 221–30) chose to consider the applications of the essay of Widdowson (1988) ‘Grammar, and nonsense, and learning’, which first appeared in 1988 and then in 1990. This short article is a real gem, which should be read by all those who have an opinion about communicative language teaching (CLT). And it is opinions that this short paper will deal with because my view of the consequences of Widdowson's perspective differs considerably from Cullen's. But, let me repeat and add to Cullen's quotes from the Widdowson reference, reproduced in the order they appear in the original: The greater the contribution of context in the sense of shared knowledge and experience, the less need there is for grammar to augment the association of words … grammar is not a constraining imposition but a liberating force; it frees us from the dependency on context and the limitations of a purely lexical categorization of reality. (p. 151) Grammar, then, can be seen as a resource for the adaptation of lexis … Grammar is a device for indicating the most common and recurrent aspects of meaning which it would be tedious and inefficient to incorporate into separate lexical items. (p. 151) The question is how should grammar be learned so that its intrinsic communicative character is understood and acted upon. This cannot be done by restricting attention to its formal properties, the relations and regularities which make up the internal mechanism of the device … Learners need to realize the function of the device as a way of mediating between words and contexts, as a powerful resource for the purposeful achievement of meaning. (p. 154)