Re: Re[2]: phonics politics

James Robert Martin (jmartin who-is-at extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU)
Mon, 13 May 1996 10:44:14 +1000 (EST)

Jay - is it possible to get hold of the David Bloome response to the gang
of 40?

One problem dealing with the press we've encountered here was over the
introduction of functional grammar instead of traditional grammar in New
South Wales, which the pressed seized on as out with the old, in with the
new - which got reworked as out with the tried and true and in with the
new faddish academic wanking stuff - politicians and talk show hosts
intervened to get the functional grammar removed and probably to be
replaced with traditional grammar. In other words, the press was looking
for opposition, an issue, contention - when what happened educationally
was the teachers got rid of traditional grammar a generation ago as
useless and a grammar of prejudice and functional grammar moved in to
support a literacy pedagogy based on a functional model of language,
focussing on genre. The irony of this was that at the time we had a big
project going on media discourse, including analysing news stories, and
didn't bother to guard against what happened. How's that for not
applying linguistics!

Jim Martin