Transformational Syntax and its possible application to language teaching

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the possibilities of applying certain principles of transformational syntax to language teaching. It adopts the Extended Standard Theory of Jackendoff (1972), Chomsky (1971, 72) in which the syntactic component consists of the base and transformation, and where lexical entries are inserted freely by category. The paper indicates that the base produces all the basic sentences in the language while transformations produce all the derived sentences. Taking advantage of these two aspects of transformational grammar, and employing the structural and the substitution-drill methods, it is suggested that the basic sentences produced by the structure rules (PS) and lexical insertions rules could be introduced first. This could later be followed by teaching the derived sentences. In regard to the latter, it is suggested that they could be introduced by employing some simplified transformational rules such as movements, permutation and insertion and deletion. Using examples from Bahasa Malaysia and English, the paper cites relevant examples where principles of transformational syntax are demonstrated as serving useful guides to language teaching.