English 2730: Functional Grammar involves the explicit, logical study of grammar (defined here as the system of tacit rules that govern language use for native speakers) combined with experiences in applying various grammatical structures to writing tasks. As such, this course requires a great deal of reading about grammar, as well as exercises in various grammatical patterns, tests over grammatical concepts, and writing/revising activities to practice grammatical structures in more "realistic" situations.

If you consider the recent mania surrounding the book Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by British author Lynne Truss (see also this link), you realize that whether people KNOW grammar or not, whether they can EXPLAIN the grammars of their language or not, many people (here called "sticklers" and here called "pedants") believe they know enough of something called "grammar" to judge others for not demonstrating expert skill at this "thing."

Yet any linguist or scholar who knows anything about the English language or linguistics (which is the study of language) knows that what Lynne Truss is calling "grammar," and what folks around the country are clamoring to talk about as they read Truss's book, is NOT really "grammar." It's "usage" or "mechanics," the concern for how printed language represents itself. The conventions of our language which determine where to put punctuation are mechanical concerns and tell us little about the deep structure of our language.

This course focuses first on the deep structure of the English language, exploring parts of sentences, phrases, and sentence patterns and naming those parts, and then on the ways in which writers can use these structures to change their styles, voices, and other rhetorical functions of their writing for different purposes and different audiences.