Interview with the Professor

In my interview with Dr. Walling I read the quote from Mulroy “The whole concept of literal meaning has fallen into disfavor in academia”. I asked him if he agreed with this quote. He agreed with the quote, this subject matter is not what he usually handles. One example that he gave was that some high school teachers still try to teach grammar but only enough to get by through school.
Time has a lot to do with grammar as well. When Dr. Walling came to ECU to teach grammar was still something that was important to know and learn. But as the culture evolved the need to have perfectly structured sentences became less important. An example given was John Madden could not be a sports announcer in the sixties when everything was grammatical correct. John Madden was an announcer that did not use Standard English when announcing a game.
As a teacher Dr. Walling does not look for errors in sentences when he reads a students paper, if you look for errors than that is what you will find. A paper can still deliver its message even with errors within the paper.
I also asked Dr. Walling if he thought phenomenon of losing grammar should be something should be worried about or if it would evolve. He stated that what needs to be taught is writing. That a sentence can be natural. That knowing grammar is important but it’s like driving. We know the rules of driving but we don’t know all of them. That if we are confident in what we do then the errors are just a slight matter.
In an article that Dr. Walling mentioned “Phenomenology of Error”, the article talks about errors through out the entire thing while there are errors within its self. It made the article a little confusing at times but it was still readable. At the end of the article it listed the errors. Some may not been noticed by the people reading it because they were not looking for errors.