Q & A with David Crystal
This Q & A with renowned linguist and prolific author David Crystal aims to find out more about the man himself, including his opinions in relation to a few thought-provoking quotes.
Who is the real David Crystal?
Q1) What led you to become fascinated in the English language?
A - First, a general interest in language and languages, which I think arose from growing up in a bilingual community, in Wales, but fostered by encountering French, Latin and Greek in secondary school. In parallel with that, a growing love of English literature, both as student and writer. Fell in love with Shakespeare. Had a couple of short stories published as a teenager. So I wanted a degree course which brought lang and lit together, and found one, at UCL, which is where the Eng lang fascination really began.
Q2) – Can you share a happy educational experience from during your University days at UCL?
A - Doing fieldwork on place names with John Dodgson. The etymology of places is really fascinating, but how do you find out how local features are named - the names of roads and fields in the countryside, for instance? Answer, go there and ask. So one day we find ourselves in a pub near Oxford, and John spots an ancient local, buys him a beer, and asks him about the names of places in his locality. Names come tumbling out. And some unexpected pronunciations. All written down, and later entered into the Place Names Survey.
Q3) – Did you have any inspirational teachers yourself?
A - Ah yes. Randolph Quirk. In fact, without him I think I would not have gone down the Eng lang road. I found my first year at UCL very philological - written texts and a somewhat dry approach to the history of English. Then RQ arrived, and suddenly the subject came alive, with phonetics, stylistics, and a lively approach to the history of the language.
Q4) - Which methods do you use when learning another language?
A - In the linguistics department at Reading, we used to arrange what we called 'language practicals' with a class. We would find people who were native speakers of a language, such as Chinese or Swahili, and ask them to be an informant for the class. Informants were told that they were allowed to understand English but not to speak it. The task before the class was to learn the language. They had ten hours. Well, once you have phonetics at your disposal, it doesn't take long to learn the basic phonology, though some aspects might take longer than others (such as tones). Nor does it take that long to master the basic grammar, if you've had a course or two on language structure - enough to be able to talk about everyday matters, at any rate. It's the vocabulary that is the mountain to be climbed, of course. But I found that, using basic linguistic techniques, you can make much more progress in ten hours than you might have expected. And it certainly stops you being scared of languages.
Q5) – If you were the Minister of Education where you are, what changes to the system would you instigate?
A - At the moment, in the UK, primary school children have to do tests in spelling, punctuation, and grammar (SPaG) that are unbelievably primitive - 'draw a circle around an adjective' sort of thing. The tests don't give the students the opportunity to show their awareness of the excitement of language, which comes from seeing how grammar and vocabulary is used in real situations. In linguistic terms, there needs to be a semantic and a pragmatic context for all questions to do with SPaG, and I would find ways of ensuring that this was introduced. Then, of course, I would make it a top priority to raise the profile of L2 learning in secondary school. The UK needs to reverse the disastrous falling away of language learning that we've seen over the past few years. It will need a solid cadre of linguists more than ever in the future.
Quotes by language and linguistics theorists
Q6) - We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading (B. F. Skinner: The Man and His Ideas, 1968)
A - Of course. Except I wouldn't want to restrict 'great' to the kind of book Skinner would have had in mind. All books for kids are potentially great in their way, especially the ones that they encounter when they're learning to read. I don't see Skinner's alternatives as an inevitable contrast.
Q7) - Teaching - like talk – should centre on the local and relevant concerns of the people in the room, not on the remote world of coursebook characters, nor the contrived world of grammatical structures (Scott Thornbury, A Dogme for EFL, 2000)
A - Of course. But again, I don't see this contrast as inevitable. Coursebook characters can be made local and relevant. Grammar does not have to be contrived - the semantic and pragmatic perspectives again. See my Making Sense of Grammar for the development of this point.
Q8) – However important and necessary it is for teachers to have a comprehensive knowledge of their subject matter, it is equally important for them to understand their students’ learning process. (Diane Larsen-Freeman, Teaching Grammar, 2003)
A - Or more important - which is my impression from the way ELT seems to be moving these days, with (e.g.) IATEFL SIGs such as Learner Autonomy. But, this isn't my personal professional world.
NB: A special thanks to Professor David Crystal for participating in the creation of this LinkedIn blog.
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Specialized in Neuro-education and curriculum designing
5 年Wonderful !
Writer of Australian EAL/ESL materials at The Book Next Door, now also creating dementia-friendly books. AMEP teacher in Western Australia for many years.
5 年Thanks for that, Daniel - I so love David's enthusiasm for language and language learning, so that was a delight to find out a little more...