Disadvantages of the term "grammar"

Norms and rules are passed on and adapted, and do not exist as pure formal systems.

Negotiable areas and normative textures on a street in Ireland

There are disadvantages to the term grammar.

Places are not linguistic. Actions in places are not true or false in the linguistic sense, though like linguistic performances they can be judged successful or not, honest or not, appropriate or not.

Also, the term grammar can suggest an isolated and complete set of rules, whereas the texture of possibilities in a place may range from an explicit set of rules to habitual expectations that have never been seriously averted to. Our practical living is not stamped out by complete formalized systems. Daily elisions and tactical decisions within the current places both reproduce their grammar and introduce changes. Neither the process nor the structures exist without the other. Pierre Bourdieu's discussion of the relation of practice and structure is very useful in this regard, although he may not give enough weight to the more reflexive products of modernity. (Bourdieu 1977)

So should we use the term?

• [Nearby: Place grammar outline -- Keeping the term "grammar" ]