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Unit 17: the Context of language research

1. Different research questions – different methodologies

* The choice of research method depends on: what the researcher wants to find out and which tradition of linguistic research does he belong to.

* An example of research process with a general hypothesis'Texts written about science seem more difficult than texts written about history'

- Hypothesis: a statement that researchers can try to find evidence in support of through an examination of relevant data in relation to a particular theory.

1.1 Incremental research

In this research strategy, a researcher starts by finding out what other researchers have discovered, and then refine the questions further by looking at a certain number of research articles in particular journals (sampling the data). For wider generalization the researcher needs to relate his findings to other studies by looking at other samples of data. Example: the work of Peter Master

1.2 Corpus linguistics

In this research strategy, researchers may focus on providing basic description, counts or classifications of phenomena that are not yet available. Then interpret the findings and set out to suggest the reasons why language users choose a particular structure in a particular context. Example 'the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English' Biber (1999) 1.3 Functional Grammar

This research strategy focuses on the development of theory and models to describe and account for how language works (tenor/field/mode). Labels such as process, participant and circumstance can be used to describe how language is functioning to make a particular meaning. (The work of Michael Halliday)

1.4 Transformational-generative grammar

- Transformational-generative grammar (TGG): an approach to syntactic theory developed by Noam Chomsky, which focuses on specifying rules for generating the sentences of a language. According to David Graddol, an approach which describes, analyses and explains the complex forms of language and emphasises its autonomous nature – being independent of context.

Suggested question: what are the research methods?

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2. Researching language variation for different audience

* Two specific ways in which a similar grammatical phenomenon has been researched:

1- Master's corpus study: the research compares the presence of active verbs with inanimate subjects in scientific research articles.

2- Francis and Kramer-Dahl's systemic functional analysis: a comparison of two scientific texts, but instead of a corpus-based comparison, there are two matched texts, on similar themes but written for different audience.

- Multiple theme: a multiple theme involves interpersonal and/or textual elements, as well as experiential. Example: But luckily the horse wasn’t injured.

- Stylistic: the study of the characteristic language choices made by particular writers or groups of writers or, more rarely, particular speakers.

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Unit 18: Designing a research project

1. Approaches to research design

* A clearly document research design includes:

1- Encourages objectivity on the part of the researcher, by making any underlying assumptions explicit rather than hidden.2- Ensures replicability, allowing another researcher to verify or build on the work in a follow-up study.

Q What are the methods of data collection?

1- Questionnaires 2- Experiments 3- Naturalistic observation

Q what are the advantages & disadvantages of questionnaires & experiments?

A- They allow the researcher to focus on a predetermined range of questions in a systematic way.B- The researcher can maintain a tight control over the research process and give it the appearance of greater scientific rigour.

* A main disadvantage is that the results may lack validity.

Discus two research methodologies based on the observation of naturalistic data

1- Case study: it allows the researcher to focus on a particular body of data in order to generate hypotheses about behaviour in general.

2- Correlational or comparative study: it relies on the systematic control of factors in order to compare one set of data with another in an attempt to establish the existence and strength of any relationship between the factors.

Transforming a hunch into a formal hypothesis

Commendable features of the hypothetical research design include:

1- Scale2- Tightness of focus3- Naturalistic data4- Existence of previous research

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Identifying the variables

A- The controlled variables: those that the researcher hold constant

B- The varying variables: those that the researcher manipulates for the purpose of his research (independent variables).

C- The dependent variables: the features(s) in which the researcher expect, or observe, the behaviour of his subjects to differ (grammatical features)

Collecting data: naturally-occurring speech

Q- Why is it difficult to gather large representative corpora of naturally occurring data? (Important question)

1- Access: gaining access to informal private conversation is both difficult to achieve and ethically problematic because it intrudes on people's privacy.

2- Representativeness: how typical are the people who grant permission for themselves to be recorded by researchers and how typical is the situation in which they allow themselves to be recorded.

3- Transcription: although speech-to-text recognition systems are improving, they are still at a relatively early stage of development.

Q- What are the characteristics of naturally occurring conversation?

1- It takes place in shared context2- It avoids elaboration or specification3- It is interactive4- It expresses stance5- It takes place in real time6- It employs a vernacular range of expressions

2. Representation of speech in literary texts

Q what are the common features of speech in literary texts?

1- High density of interpersonal reference2- Question and answer routines3- Grammatical contractions4- Ellipsis

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Q How is speech represented in literary texts?

1- When one character starts speaking before the other has finished, the point of interruption is marked with (/)

2- A character sometimes continuous speaking right through another's speech

3- Sometimes a speech follows on from a speech earlier than the one immediately before it, and continuity is marked with (*).

Q What are the conventions that authors use to represent speech in fiction?

1- The use of different quotation marks.2- Adopting the convention of a new line for each speaker.3- The use of explicit projecting clauses.4- The use adverbial expressions to indicate the manner of speaking.5- Texts are written in conventional orthography (no particular accent).6- The limited use of italic script to indicate stress.7- The use of initial capitals.

3. Is there a distinctive grammar of fiction?

* Some of the most salient features of fiction identified by Biber (1999)

1- Features of dialogue in fiction which are used to compensate for some of the missing contextual of real speech

2- Archaic or conservative features-the use of negatives other than (not)-the use of the use of existential there with verbs other than (be)-the use of possessive with (ing-clauses)

3- A cluster shared with other written registers-the use of restrictive embedded clauses-the frequency and length of circumstances-the tendency to combine circumstances of manner and location-the tendency to use circumstantial dependent clauses-the use of ing-clauses following adjectival complements

4- Some apparently idiosyncratic features of fiction-the use of reflexive and reciprocal pronouns-the use of attributive adjectives-the repetition of comparative adjectives-the use of the verbs try, seem and especially begin-the use of phrasal and / or prepositional verbs-the use of the relative adverb where

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Unit 19: Data collection for lexicogrammatical research

Collecting spoken data

1- The research question (to explore all or just one of the following features)-lexical hedges or fillers-tag questions-rising intonation on declaratives-empty adjectives-precise colour terms-intensifiers like just and so-hypercorrect grammar-super-polite forms-avoidance of strong swear words-emphatic stress

2- The research setting: this includes the time and place

3- Research ethics: a researcher must gain permissions form the people who are going to be recorded

4- Not taking: two types, simulation notes & field notes

5- How much data to collect

6- How to transcribe data

7- The influence of the method of analysis: the method of analysis might influence the findings, in some cases it is difficult to generalise.

- Observer's paradox: a common problem of research which refers to the fact that people change their behaviour, including their use of language, when they know they are being observed.

Key to transcription

(.) Brief pause( ) Longer pause(Guess) Transcription uncertain: a guess(Unclear) Unclear speech{Hello{Goodbye Overlapping speech[Laugh] Transcription of a sound

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Unit 20: Critical linguistic approaches

- Critical discourse analysis (CDA) critical linguistics: this approach has been developed by linguists with an interest in the rhetorical potential of texts – the potential of texts to influence societal beliefs, values and expectations.

1. Critical linguistic approach: some key claims and assumptions

- Ideology: It refers to the fact that all speakers and writers necessarily operate with assumptions, beliefs and expectations about the way the world is, and the way it ought to be.

The terms 'ideology' and 'ideological' when used within critical linguistics refer to the sets of assumptions, beliefs and values which constitute a world view, rather than simply to political philosophies or agendas.

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- Semantic prosody: the process of apparently neutral terms carrying some negative or positive sense.

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Unit 22: Using grammar to establish the facts

Who said what?

* Using lexical and grammatical clauses to distinguish speech from its scripted equivalent, this can be used in law area for legal cases to help judges and juries to reach a more reliable verdict.

- Forensic stylistic: questions of authorship identification, in attempting to attribute a text to an individual, forensic stylistic uses linguistic clues at all levels from accent, spelling and punctuation to overall textual coherence. Example: linguistic fingerprint: an attempt to analyse disputed written texts, in which the evidence is largely based on surface features like handwriting and spelling

Who wrote what?

- Computational stylistics: a methodological approach to study unattributed texts, also known as stylometry or stylometrics

- Stylometric analysis: it originated in the middle of nineteenth century and evolved since that time, its primary purpose is to identify texts whose authorship is in dispute, with a special attention to ancient texts.

Plagiarism in academic texts

- Plagiarism: the process of borrowing textual material from another source without acknowledging it.

* Quoting: attributing or reporting a written or spoken idea to another person:

1-verbal or mental process to quote directly (Halliday states: xyz are important)2-verbal or mental process + a projected clause to report indirectly (Halliday demonstrates/argues/claims that xyz are important)3-verbal or mental process + noun phrase (Halliday demonstrates/argues for/stakes a claim for the importance of xyz)4-passive voice + non-finite clause (Candidates were invited to set down)5-an adverbial + statement (according to/apparently/allegedly)

- Factive: the kind of verbal or mental process (such as prove or reveal) which implies the truth of the following statement.

- Non-factive: the kind of verbal or mental process (such as claim or assume) which suggests that the truth of the following statement is questionable.

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Unit 23: Putting grammar into translation

Introduction

An important issue facing all translators and interpreters is whether the 'equivalent' meaning will necessarily have the same impact, both experiential and interpersonal, on a culturally different audience – in other words whether it will have, as Michael Halliday puts it, 'equivalence of function in context'.

- Equivalence: a similarity in meaning or function between language choices, whether of lexis, grammatical pattern or cohesion, especially when applied to translated texts.

What happens when a text is translated?

Example: Imagine that you want to borrow a book from your fellow student, in the first case by using speech such as 'can I borrow your book?' or 'do you mind if I borrow your book'. Now how might you express this request differently if you (write a note for a fellow student/ask your tutor/write to a library) In order to produce an equivalent effect in the changed context, various levels of transformation will be used.

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* The process of translation transforms text-A (source language SL) to text-B (target language TL)

- Back translation: a literal translation in the reverse direction, which works from the target language back into the source language. It is a useful window into the logical structures of other grammars.

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* A good translation strives for:

- Functional equivalence: the extent to which lexicogrammatical choices in one text, especially a translated text, produce a similar effect to those in another text in terms of experiential, interpersonal and textual meaning.

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How are experiential and interpersonal meanings communicated in translation?

Q why is equivalence at the lexical level is not simply possible across a given pair of languages. Why literal translation is so impractical? (Important)

If languages were simply a nomenclature for a set of universal concepts, it would be easy to translate from on language to another. But languages are not nomenclatures; the concepts of one language may differ radically from those of another, and each language articulates or organizes the world differently. Languages do not simply name existing categories, they articulate their own.…………………………………………………………………………………….

Q What is meant by the concept of collocation markedness?

Baker states: that a speaker or writer can 'reinforce the patterns of collocation which already exist in the language by adhering to them' or 'create variations on an existing pattern' 'a marked collocation being an unusual combination of words, one that challenges our expectations as hearers or readers'.

- Colligation (grammatical patterning): The tendency for two or more words from different grammatical categories to co-occur in the same structural relationship.

Q What are the devices used for allocating appropriate prominence?

1- Inversion accompanied by initial 'there'-there are many mysteries in the world on nature

2- Inversion not accompanied by initial 'there'-behind the government's press-releases lies a very different story

3- Double inversion for emphasising the subject-included in the text a long excursus on macro-economic theory

4- Clefting via the pronoun 'it'-it was the great depression that helped Hitler to commence his journey to power

5- Passivisation-the modern world is seriously threatened by rampant overpopulation

6- Pseudo-Clefting-what this country needs is a totally transport policy

- Clefting (it-clefting / pseudo-clefting): the use of a grammatical construction where information is broken into two clauses, to provide extra focus to one piece of information. It-cleft: it was his voice that held me. Wh-cleft: what I want is something to eat.

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Pragmatic preference

- Pragmatics: the way language is used in context to perform social acts.

- Pragmatic effect: an impact on the hearer, the effect of an utterance on someone’s feelings, beliefs or behaviour.

- Pragmatic force: the strength of its intended impact, even before the end has been reached.

How is textual meaning created in the course of translation?

* The two broad ways in which texts are created:

-Cohesion: the way, in which a text holds together through grammatical and lexical features which link one part of a text with another. Cohesive devices include lexical and grammatical repetition, anaphora, and the use of synonyms, ellipsis and pattering.

-Coherence: the way, in which a text holds together through links in meanings both within a text and in relation to the wider context, including the background knowledge of the listener or reader. Coherence devices include thematic progression, the use of discourse markers, logical relationships between parts of the text such as hyponymy and metonymy.

- Thematic progression: the way in which each theme in a text relates to the preceding themes and rhemes.

The Particular challenges of subtitling

Q How do intralingual (monolingual) subtitles differ from interlingual (bilingual) subtitles?

- Interlingual (bilingual) subtitles: they provide a translation from one language to another, and in interlingual subtitles much of the redundancy of spoken language is deleted, because sighted and hearing viewers can retrieve this kind of information from the original source text.

- Interalingual (monolingual) subtitles: they provide a written version of speech, especially for the deaf and hard of hearing, and interalingual subtitles retain for the deaf and hard of hearing as many of the features of the original spoken language as possible, because the target viewers do not have full access to the aural channel.

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The use of multilingual corpora

* General developments in corpus linguistics, and the particular impetus towards machine translation, have led to the increasing use of multilingual corpora in translation work.

Q Give a distinction between comparable corpora and parallel corpora?

- Comparable Corpora: they are sets of naturally occurring texts in two or more languages, and similar to any other well-selected corpora, in size, distribution, age, and topic.

Example: PAROLE / Preparatory Action for Linguistics Resources Organisation

- Parallel Corpora: they are sets of naturally occurring texts in their original language with their translations; therefore they are commonly referred to as translation corpora.

Example: TELRI / Trans-European Language Resources Infrastructure

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- Prominence: the quality by which a sound is heard as standing out from the other sounds around it.

- Redundancy: the tendency for language, particularly spoken language, to involve more than is strictly necessary to convey information. For example, at the level of morphology, the –s in ten years is redundant since ten already indicates plurality; at the level of discourse, anger may be conveyed by tone of voice as well as by linguistic choices.

- Target audience: the audience for whom a particular text is intended.

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Unit 24: Putting grammar into the dictionary

1 The evaluation of the dictionary (past / present)

Q What are the differences between dictionaries in the past & the present?

Past: in the production of earlier dictionaries, the compiling of evidence on the meaning and behavior of words was a very difficult process. The lexicographers had to read through a lot of books and when they found a particular example of a word, they would write it out on a card with the context in which it was found and send it to the editor of the dictionary they were working on.

Present: the use of real attested language to exemplify the meanings of words | The lexicographers draw widely on large corpora of natural language in order to make decisions about words meaning, collocation, phraseology and grammatical patterning | The increased coverage of English as a world language

Q What was the aim of OED Oxford English Dictionary? The OED aimed to document the history of words, while today we mainly compile synchronic dictionaries: dictionaries that show how a word is used today.

Dictionaries fall into six major categories

- Monolingual dictionaries for native speakers of a language- Monolingual learner’s dictionaries for non-native speakers- Bilingual dictionaries- Dictionaries of dialect or regional varieties of English- Children’s dictionaries- Specialist dictionaries on subjects such as law and medicine, sports and games

Q What do monolingual for native-speaker dictionaries aim at?

Monolingual native-speaker dictionaries are dictionaries aimed at native speakers of a language, one example: Encarta World English Dictionary EWED

Q What do learner's dictionaries for non-native speakers aim at?

Learner’s dictionaries are aimed at different levels of learner: elementary, intermediate or advanced, one example: Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

* The major differences between native-speaker dictionaries and learner's dictionary are that native-speaker dictionaries have more entries (more individual words that are defined). On the other hand, learner’s dictionaries contain more grammatical information.

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2 The use of corpora to establish meaning

2.1 Establishing the meaning of words

Q What is the major task for lexicographers?

A major task for lexicographers is the discrimination of senses, or the different meanings of words, therefore the lexicographer analyses a set of concordance lines in order to find out the senses of a word. The first duty of the lexicographer is to use the corpus to tease out not only the meaning of a word, but also crucial facts about its immediate context.

2.2 Identifying phraseology

Q What two principles does Sinclair advance to explain the way meaning is made within a text?

- The open choice principle is a way of seeing language text as the result of a very large number of complex choices. At each point where a unit is completed (a word or a phrase or a clause), a large range of choices opens up.

- The principle of idiom is that a language user has available to him or to her a large number of semi-preconstructed phrases that constitute single choices even though they might appear to be analysable into segments.

Q What is the relationship between these principles and conventional ideas of grammar?

Sinclair argues that virtually all 'conventional grammars are constructed on the open choice principle', because they divide language into sequential segments (whether words or phrases). The idiom principle, however, acknowledges a close interaction between lexis and grammar. And is thus 'at least as important as grammar in the explanation of how meaning arises in text'.

2.3 Identifying idioms

- Idiom: it is a special kind of phrase. It is a group of words which have a different meaning when used together from the one it would have if the meaning of each word were taken individually.

* Although idioms are often described as 'fixed', they are typically not fixed at all. Many idioms have two or more alternative forms, without any change in meaning, for example: burn your bridges and burn your boats.

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2.4 Identifying collocations

*Both learner’s dictionaries and monolingual native-speaker dictionaries contain information about collocation or, as Firth put it, the company that words keep.

Q What are the ways to show collocates in a native- speaker dictionary and in a learner’s dictionary?

There are two ways to show collocates. One way is to have a selection of related collocates before the examples. The other strategy is to indicate collocates in bold types in the examples.

3 The structure of dictionary entries

The alphabetical ordering in dictionaries

Headword: the first element in any dictionary, Headwords are ordered alphabetically in all modern dictionaries, on a letter-by-letter basis rather than a word-by-word basis.

3.2 The identification of sense

An important question that faces the lexicographer is whether or not a particular lexical unit is perceived as belonging to the same cluster of meanings or senses as a similar unit, or whether it has a completely different meaning.

- Polysemy: a case which requires that both the form and the grammatical function of the two lexical units are the same.

- Homonymy: a case in which two words are pronounced alike or have the same spelling, irrespective of grammatical function but that differ significantly in other respects.

Q What are the two forms of Homonymy?

-Homographs: those which are written the same way. -Homophones: those which are pronounced the same way.

3.3 The inclusion of inflections

* Immediately after the headwords are the inflections 'the different elements of the lemma that together constitute the headword'

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3.4 The wording of definitions

* There is a major difference in defining styles between learner’s dictionaries and native-speaker dictionaries. In both types of dictionary, definitions have to be as concise as possible. They have to be simple and straightforward and, as far as possible, use language that is clear and sounds natural.

3.5 The incorporation of grammatical and collocational information

Q What aspects that set CCED apart from other learner's dictionaries?

All the definitions are given in full sentences which reflect the grammatical and collocational behavior of the word. And it makes a distinction between so-called (if, when) and (to-infinitive) definitions.

3.7 The generation of examples

* One of the most important tasks of the lexicographer is to find examples to illustrate the word being defined. All learners' dictionaries give a lot of examples while monolingual dictionaries give far fewer. Examples have to be as short as possible, given the space restrictions of every dictionary. And examples should reflect the typical grammatical behavior of a word

3.8 The inclusion of additional information

* Other elements which are included in the structure of dictionary entries:

Pronunciation /Word class /Synonyms and antonyms /Cross-reference to related words /encyclopedic information /Illustrations /Etymology /Pragmatics

Q Why is there less grammatical information in monolingual native-speaker dictionaries?

Monolingual native-speaker dictionaries concentrate more on having a huge number of headwords rather than on grammatical patterning of particular words. Grammatical information is clearly thought not to be of interest to native speakers- although much else is included instead, for example, etymology.

Q What is the difference between a dictionary and a grammar? Important

According to Sinclair, it may be that a free-standing grammar can be distinguished from the grammar appropriate to a dictionary by its treatment of material that is capable of occurrence but has not been observed to occur. A grammar has a responsibility to account for limitless variety of new sentences which have not yet occurred – hence it cannot be restricted to attestations only. On the other hand a dictionary is a record of how words are used.

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Unit 25: Putting grammar into educational practice

1 Descriptive grammar versus Pedagogic grammar

Q What is pedagogic grammar?

It is one which has been adapted for teaching and learning purposes, not only for students and teachers of their own mother tongue, but also for students and teachers of English as a foreign language, or other languages.

Q What are the features of pedagogic grammar (Sylvia Chalker)?

- It can be for reference or for coursework.- It could be comprehensive, but will be probably be more modest in its aims.- It will draw attention to rules, thus combining prescription with description.- It will help non-native speakers to learn a foreign language, and/or help mother-tongue speakers to understand their own language.- It can be either for teachers or for learners.

1.1 Ways of teaching and learning grammar

Q According to Batstone, there are three approaches to the teaching and the learning of grammar, what are they?

1- Grammar seen as a product: this approach takes a product perspective on grammar, with teaching structured round a careful specification of language forms which provide the target language (or to be more precise the targeted language) for each lesson.

2- Grammar seen as a process: A process approach, engages learners in language use, formulating their own meanings in contexts over which they have considerable control, and in doing so, drawing on grammar as an ongoing resource.

3- Grammar seen as a skill: seeing grammar as a skill essentially seeks to combine product with process, avoiding the dangers of grammar divorce from use (which tends to happen with a focus on product) and the dangers of randomness where the learning of grammar is left in a sense to chance occurrences of particular grammatical forms in use.

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2 Grammar in the English language syllabus: new orientations & new resources

Q Why do we need learning pathways or syllabuses in teaching grammar?

Any grammar is a resource for understanding a particular language. It provides an organized and systematized bank of information about how a language works. This allows teachers and learners to construct what we might call pathways to learning about the resources, to acquire knowledge of the language which they can put to communicative use.

Q Presentation, Practice, Production (PPP) approach vs. Illustration, Interaction, Induction (III) approach, Explain?

In combining the ideas of grammar as product, process and skill, McCarthy and Carter illustrate an alternative pattern to the traditional Presentation, Practice, Production (PPP) approach, where the emphasis is on teachers identifying a particular grammatical form, presenting it to the learners, and then requiring the learners to practice the form without necessarily placing it in an authentic context of use. The alternative approach has been called III, or Illustration, Interaction, Induction, the grammatical form is first located in authentic stretch of actual language, in writing or in speech, and learners are then helped by a process of interaction with the teacher or other learners to understand the form or the function, and so come to learn the grammatical form inductively.

Q What are some principles of syllabus design offered By Collins Cobuild English Course?

1- People learn language most effectively by using language to do things.

2- A focus on accuracy is vital. Learners need time to think about the language they are using.

3- A rich input of real language helps learners to extend their understanding of how English works, and to acquire new expressions for themselves.

4- Grammar is learned rather than taught.

5- Learners need strategies for organising what they have learnt – they need rules, patterns and categories.

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Q Explain three new orientations towards teaching grammar? Important

1- Lexical syllabuses: deriving lexicogrammatical patterns from the lexical and grammatical environments (collocations and colligation) in which words typically occur.

2- Corpus-based syllabuses: deriving grammar and vocabulary learning from the richly contextualized language resources provided by a corpus.

3- Text-based syllabuses: situating grammar and vocabulary learning in the analysis of different types of texts.

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Q What are the advantages lexical syllabuses?

The lexical syllabuses offer genuine coverage of the most central and typical patterns of English. It also provides a focus for language analysis, which allows students to develop and refine their awareness of the actual grammar of the language, and of typical patterns in both spoken and written discourse.

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* Text- based syllabus design is based on an approach to teaching language which involves:

1- Teaching explicitly about the structures and grammatical features of spoken and written texts.

2- Linking spoken and written texts to the social and cultural contexts of their use.

3- Designing units of work which focus on developing skills in relation to whole texts

4- Designing units of work which focus on developing skills in relation to whole texts.

5- Providing students with guided practice as they develop language skills for meaningful communication through whole texts.

* One important feature of a text-based syllabus is that texts do not occur in isolation. They typically occur in sequences, associated with sets of linked actions or events and resulting in identifiable text-types.

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Grammar and language learning

- Consciousness–raising: it is what Rod Ellis calls 'attempts to make learners aware of the existence of specific linguistic features in the target language'.

Q What kind of grammar is being tested according to Pauline Rea-Dickins?

According to Pauline Rea-Dickins, in term of linguistic explanation, we perceive a changed perspective on the nature of grammar | in language test | which moved form a traditional view reflected in the question (what do these forms mean?) to a structural view (is this, the correct form of the past tense?) to one in which the question is (how are these meanings expressed?)

New directions in testing grammar

Q Why grammar testing does not match the developments in the approaches to describing grammar and creating pedagogic grammar?

A- According to Pauline Rea-Dickins, Part of the explanation for this must derive from the communicative movement which had the unplanned outcome of diminishing the role for grammar as a respectable focus of teaching and learning.

B- Other possible reasons include:

1- Syllabuses do not emphasise the central place of grammar in making meaning in context.

2- It is too difficult to construct imaginative test items which reflect the contextualization of grammar that we have been emphasising.

3- The different meanings some grammatical structures have in context make it difficult to obtain single 'right' answer in any test.

4- More open-ended test items are just too difficult to score consistently.

5- It depends on what we mean by 'grammar'.

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