Grammar as ideology, writing as evidence: diachronic insights from Noun Phrase use in the primary school context (1979–2021)

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González-Díaz, V, Fernández-Pena, Y, Gallardo Del Puerto, F and Parr, E orcid iconORCID: 0000-0002-9794-503X (2026) Grammar as ideology, writing as evidence: diachronic insights from Noun Phrase use in the primary school context (1979–2021). English in Education, 60 (3). pp. 201-223. ISSN 0425-0494

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Abstract

This paper explores the long-term ideological association between grammar teaching and children’s writing development through a small case-study of Noun Phrase (NP) use across time and curricular contexts. Drawing on the Writing over Time corpus (1979–2021), a collection of narrative and argumentative writing from primary schoolchildren in Merseyside, it compares texts produced before and after the institutionalisation of explicit grammar instruction in the English National Curriculum. At the linguistic level, quantitative and qualitative analyses of NP complexity reveal both stability and change in NP use across time and genres. At the wider, socio-educational level, the linguistic findings are used to (a) question the historical standing of ideological associations between explicit grammar teaching and “rising standards” of language proficiency and (b) highlight, in line with previous synchronic-oriented scholarship, the need for more coherent, meaning-oriented models of grammar pedagogy as part of curricular language models and teacher training.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: 1302 Curriculum and Pedagogy; 3901 Curriculum and pedagogy
Subjects: L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB1501 Primary Education
P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Divisions: Education
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Date of acceptance: 17 June 2026
Date of first compliant Open Access: 23 July 2026
Date Deposited: 23 Jul 2026 09:11
Last Modified: 23 Jul 2026 09:11
DOI or ID number: 10.1080/04250494.2026.2692992
URI: https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/29049
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