Language between theory and education. On the role of grammar teaching in G. I. Ascoli and L. Ščerba

Abstract

In 1874, the great Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli presents, at the IX Italian Pedagogical Congress, a paper on the role of grammar teaching in schools. In 1903, another great linguist, Lev V. Ščerba, presents a paper at the First Congress of Russian Language Teachers in Military Training Institutions in St Petersburg. In both papers, the two scholars express their ideas on the role of grammar in school education, frequently engaging in debate with their predecessors or contemporaries. In the present essay, we shall analyse the positions expressed in the two reports, in order to identify the points of continuity and discontinuity between the two authors, seeking to trace their origins in their academic networks and intellectual dialogues. In the conclusions, we shall attempt to develop some reflections on the dual relationship that is established between language theory and the practice of language education