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Anne Curzan Says Who

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Anne Curzan Says Who
In 2009, The Modern Language Association of America published the article " Says Who? Teaching and Questioning the Rules of Grammar" by Anne Curzan. She relates how a middle-aged man and a senior coleague questioned her teaching method. Curzan answered, " ...I believe that students... have the right to know where the prescriptive rules of written Standard English come from.' ...all speakers have the right to make informed decisions about when those rules are appropiate for their writing." (870) The author subdivides the definition of grammar in descriptive grammar and prescriptive grammar. "Descriptive grammar describes what speakers actually do..."(Curzan 871) For example, in English people can say "none of them is" or "none of them are",
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