Modern English: A Practical Reference Guide by Marcella Frank

Review by: Don L. F. Nilsen

The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 58, No. 5/6 (Sep. - Oct., 1974), pp. 300-301
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations
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300 REVIEWS
tries where the need for this type of textbc)ok is greatest.
Apart from faulty binding or page-cuttiing in two of the
1972 titles (both traceable to one of the two printers in-
volved), the books are well-produced with agreeable print,
clear layout and comfortable page margins. No teacher's
notes are provided, but tapes of the dialogrues and most of
the exercises are available.
J. R. EWER
University of Chile, Santiago
Twiggs, Robert D. Pan-African Language in
the Western Hemisphere. North Quincy,
Mass.: The Christopher Publishing House,
1973. Pp. 282. $9.75.
Those who admired the pioneer work of the black scholar
Lorenzo D. Turner, Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect, have
long been awaiting the first general book on U.S. Black Eng-
lish by a Black. Several kinds of books would be welcome: a
scholarly study, best of all, but also a popular book with the
insights and examples of a native speaker, or a useful
teaching aid for second-dialect pedagogy. The first indica-
tion that Professor Twigg's volume is none of these comes on
the title page, when what is commonly known as Black En-
glish is given not merely Twiggs' peculiar name, PALWH,
on which he insists ad nauseam throughout, but even a
pronunciation for it, [paelwh] -unspeakable and happily
still unspoken by Blacks and Whites other, perhaps, than
the author himself. Remaining on the title page, we are told
that a princely five percent (5%) of the book's royalties will
go to the not immodestly named Robert D. Twiggs Pan-
African Studies Research Foundation. In this, and through-
out the book, we find that we are faced not so much with a
scholarly descriptive study of contemporary black speech as
with a prescriptive, idiosyncratic personal statement of an
exceedingly peculiar type.
Thus, in contrast with establishing field methodology, we
find in the interview transcriptions, that Professor Twiggs so
dominates his interlocutors that on many pages his words-
in normal colloquial English-far outweigh the monosyl-
labic responses of his overawed field informants, especially
when he tries to teach them his personal philosophy and the
word PALWH.
This peculiar prescriptivism takes concrete form in the
grammatical section, in what Professor Twiggs terms "the
rule of opposites" (p. 51). Thus, if (white) English verbs
agree with their subject in number, Black English verbs
must of necessity disagree. "The verb may often disagree
with the subject in number, person and tense" (sic, p. 50). It
takes little imagination, then, to predict his verb paradigms:
"Present: To know. I knows, you knows, he, she, it know, we
knows, you knows, they knows . . ." (p. 41). Bishop Lowth
would have been very proud of Twiggs' careful insertion of
every verb into the conventional paradigms of present, past
and future tenses. Where he runs into a little problem, as,
for example, facing the distinction between "I knowed" and
"I been know," Professor Twiggs neatly steps over the diffi-
culty of proceeding: "Present: I knows (etc.,) Past: I knowed
(etc.,) Future: I gonna know (etc.,)" and then-pretending
that "I knowed" never happened, and hoping no one will
notice-carrying right on with "Past: I been know." (p. 42).
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The book is often entertaining, albeit unwittingly so.
Observe the conjugation of the verb "To throw." "Present: I
chunk (etc.) Past: I throwed (etc.) Present Perfect: I done
throwed (etc.)" (p. 38-9). Recent work in the explanation of
the verb system of Black English with reference to aspect
goes unnoticed. ProfessorTwiggs' background appears to be
in speech, not in linguistics, and his bibliography takes the
form of "Notes and References" placed only at the end of
the first chapter, p. 29; it is brief and of very mixed quality.
The promise of the title is vitiated by Twiggs' failure to
prove his point. Tracing the African sources of elements of
U.S. Black English, and their parallels elsewhere in the
Americas, can be done and has been done by Dillard, Stew-
art, Dalby, Hancock and others. Professor Twiggs does not
name one African language or cite one African form, nor
does he prove one common feature elsewhere in the Amer-
icas (for this, he promises a future volume, truly a dismaying
prospect). For real information on Black English, we still
must turn to J. L. Dillard's Black English, now happily
available in paperback (New York: Vintage Books, $2.45).
RICHARD E. WOOD
Louisiana State University
Frank, Marcella. Modern English: A Practical
Reference Guide. Englewood Cliffs, New Jer-
sey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972. Pp. xvii +
414. Cloth $8.95, Paper $4.95; with two ac-
companying workbooks. Part I: Parts of
Speech. Pp. x + 208. $4.95. Part II: Sen-
tence and Complex Structures. Pp. x + 181.
$4.25.
Today when a traditionally oriented textbook appears,
one of the first questions asked is, what has been kept and
what has been dropped from the traditional model. Tradi-
tional prinicples retained in Modern English include an
emphasis on writing rather than speech and on formal
standard English rather than other varieties. The method of
presentation is also traditional in the kinds of statements
made and in the use of Reed-Kellogg diagrams and para-
digms.
Unlike some traditionalists, Dr. Frank did not use mean-
ing to determine parts of speech, etc. Rather, she used
form, function, position, and markers, and she used them
very skillfully. Meaning is an important part of her treat-
ment of modals, prepositions, adverbs, conjunctions, etc.,
and it is used in a professional way. From structural
grammar, the author uses effectively the slot-filler concept
as well as many terms and values. However her orientation is
basically traditional.
The text is basically concerned with performance and
therefore with surface structure. Because of this focus the
author's methods of presentation are adequate. The book is
prescriptive, but sensibly so. Students are taught that in
standard formal English, prepositions are not to come at the
ends of clauses, that the distinction between shall and will,
who and whom and can and may should be maintained,
that the adverb slowly has an -ly ending, and that that is not
deleted from such a sentence as "I'm sure that he'll come."
But for all of these structures the informal usages are men-
tioned as well. I don't agree with the author that the book
adequately treats both formal and informal usage, or that
 REVIEWS
the different levels and varieties of usage have been ac-
counted for, but on the other hand, the text does a superb
job of teaching the highest prestige form of English-
standard formal written.
Normally it is the traditional approach that is most fre-
quently employed in teaching standard English to native
speakers and the structural approach in teaching English to
non-native speakers. The present book is a delightful blend
of traditional and structural, and is written primarily for
advanced EFL students. But as Dr. Frank indicates, native
speakers could also learn a great deal from the book. They
would learn on the conscious level some things they already
know at the sub-conscious level, like inflectional morphol-
ogy, the function of the and a, the nature of two-word verbs,
etc., and they might also learn some of the aspects of En-
glish grammar that are normally learned very late in life,
like the use of subjective and conditional mood, perfect as-
pect, dependent clause formation, etc.
Both as a comprehensive reference grammar, and as a
guide for teaching formal and informal standard English
usage, Modern English with its two workbooks is very well
written. I would expect it to be very effective.
DON L. F. NILSEN
Arizona State University
Croft, Kenneth. Readings on English As a Sec-
ond Language: For Teachers and Teacher-
Trainees. Cambridge: Winthrop Publishers,
Inc., 1972. Pp. v + 436. $6.95, paper.
In his selection of the thirty-four articles to be reprinted
in this collection, Professor Croft has come down con-
sciously, admittedly, and firmly on the side of structural and
behaviorist models for language teaching and learning. In
defense of this position, he writes (p. xxvi):
At this point in time structural grammar has much
more practical value for classroom teachers than trans-
formational generative (TG) grammar .. . [and] . . . it is
important to note also that the currently accepted class-
room procedures and textbooks are largely based on
structural and behaviorist models.
This work was "... designed for use in a pedagogical
methods course, . .. [and] . . . presupposes prior or con-
comitant training in descriptive linguistics-structural lin-
guistics in particular" (p. xxv-xxvi). The body of this volume
consists of nine sections preceded by a fifteen-page
introduction. This introduction covers much ground, in-
cluding comments on the development of various profes-
sional organizations, professional publications, and teacher
training along with a lengthy list of suggested readings.
Each of the following nine sections of the book-"Trends
and Practices." "Speaking and Understanding," "Gram-
mar," "Reading," "Writing," "Vocabulary," "Testing,"
"Teaching Aids," and "Other Selected Topics"-begins
with its own three or four page introduction including a
reading list. In these introductions, the editor provides use-
ful background information and comments on the main
ideas in the articles which comprise the balance of the
section.
Over two-thirds of the articles, at least twenty-four out of
the thirty-four, were originally published in the 1960's. Only
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301
one appeared first in the 1940's, two in the 1950's, and six in
the 1970's.
The great majority of people who will eventually consider
this book for use in a methods course will be quite familiar
with most of these articles. Probably most will note, as I did,
the absence of at least one favorite article or author and be
somewhat surprised at the omission. However, this kind of
well-organized collection of trustworthy and familiar arti-
cles is still in short supply and sought after by many of us in
the field. Such collections are also very useful to teacher-
trainees, who will not be familiar with the articles.
In speaking of teacher-trainees in their eventual roles as
language teachers, Croft says, "One purpose of this book is
to enlarge the teacher's perspective-to give the teacher a
broader view of the field he works in. ... The second pur-
pose of this book is to provide readings and bibliography for
the teacher's professional growth" (p. ix-x). In my
judgment, the book is well-designed for the achievement of
these purposes. Both in the articles which he has selected
and in his various introductions, the editor has assembled
and presented a sizeable and significant body of useful in-
formation for the language teacher-trainee. The book de-
serves a respected place among works of its kind.
C. ALLEN TUCKER
Florida Institute of Technology
Twain, Mark. Short Stories: The Million Pound
Bank Note and Others (TC 3007). Read by
David Wayne. New York: Caedmon Records,
Inc., 1973. Three discs. $20.94.
Miller, Arthur. The Crucible (TRS 356). Played
by the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center.
New York: Caedmon Records, Inc., 1972.
Four discs. $28.92. Four cassettes $31.80.
Second-language teachers looking for good materials to
use in the language laboratory (or the classroom) may well
consider commercial recordings, which include significant
works produced with professional-level artistic and technical
talent to offer a product of exceptional quality. It may seem
rather strange that this source of materials is not more fre-
quently tapped for the pedagogical purposes of language
teaching.
There are limitations inherent in the broad selection of
literary works offered. Some selections appeal to special
audiences and might be too partisan or parochial for the
more general purposes of a language class. Some may be
considered a bit recondite or too realistic (even seamy) for a
class that is not so much interested in the message as in the
mastery of a communications tool. Some may be linguis-
tically skewed by poetic or oratorical style or by a dialect of
limited utility.
Even the- selections that pass the screening implied above
may not be ideal for the language class. This is true of the
two releases that head the present review, though they may
be useful IF the course is at least partly interested in litera-
ture as well as language. The Crucible is a moving play,
excellently interpreted by a capable cast. It would certainly
pass the tests of significance and generality, but probably
founders on language, with such examples of obsolescent