My interest in Linguistics

My interest in linguistics began at the dinner table when I was very young. The linguist and my father, Samuel Jay Keyser, played language games with my siblings and me, while we were growing up. I began to understand, at those dinner time sessions, what it meant to be able to speak a language. I learned that I had an intuitive command of a vast and systematic body of knowledge called English and that I could trust that intuition. More than anything, my father provided me with the ability to ask questions about language, a gift I continue to use to this day. When it came to school, my teachers taught a different kind of “grammar,” mostly associated with writing. This became increasingly confusing because it flew in the face of my intuitive understanding of linguistic grammar. There were so many exceptions to the rules taught in school that the rules seemed worthless. It was not until I took a syntax class at The University of Montana as a graduate student that some of those questions were finally answered. This class also provided me with some information that connected the dots between the lessons at the dinner table and the ones at school. In fact, what I learned in this graduate level class made so much sense to me that I asked myself why not teach it when I become an English teacher? Linguistics in education became a part of my Master’s Thesis (Keyser, 2001). Since I graduated, I have taught syntax and phonology, syntax to grades five through nine and phonology to grades seven and eight. Those dinner conversations with my father have turned into collaborations inside and outside the classroom.