Abstract 1D

Saturday, July 8 2:25pm

Gatekeeping, Hazing or Rigor? The impact of teaching practices in theoretical syntax

Laura Bailey l.r.bailey@kent.ac.uk
University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom

Bronwyn Bjorkman bronwyn.bjorkman@queensu.ca
Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada

Kirby Conrod kconrod1@swarthmore.edu
Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, USA

Caitl Light clight@luc.edu
Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, USA

In October 2022, there was a public discussion on social media regarding the role of syntax in linguistics training. Several participants proposed that syntax pedagogy is uniquely inadequate or inappropriate. Others suggested that syntax is privileged over other subfields in degree and program requirements, or regarded as uniquely ‘rigorous’ by instructors. At the same time, the discussion included several reports of positive experiences with syntax instruction. We take the extremely strong affective responses on all sides to suggest that questions of scholarly teaching are particularly pressing in the pedagogy of syntax in linguistics. 

In this presentation, we introduce a newly-launched project that aims to investigate methods of instruction in teaching syntax at the university level in Canada, the UK and the US, and attitudes towards the role of syntax in linguistics education, among both instructors and students. We aim to investigate whether teaching styles of syntax are indeed different than those of other subfields, and to uncover patterns or correlations in how instructors and students think about syntax in educational settings in comparison with other subfields of linguistics. In order to do this, we will use a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach.

We plan to survey programs / departments in which linguistics is taught, as well as individual instructors and individual students at both the undergraduate and graduate (MA and PhD) levels, and then conduct follow-up interviews with selected participants. The intended outcome of this study is to better understand the role syntax plays in linguistics education currently, as well as potentially to offer recommendations on how training in this area could be improved. Our purpose in presenting this project at CoSTaSiL is to solicit feedback on the scope and design of our research design and survey instruments in advance of beginning our data collection phase, scheduled for Summer 2023.