A Grammar of the Nation: On El libro del idioma, by Pedro Henriquez Urena and Narciso Binayan

This paper analyses the resources used by Pedro Henriquez Urena and Narciso Binayan in El libro del idioma (1927) to refresh language teaching criteria while making a contribution to the formation of a sense of nationality. First of all, it considers the relationship between grammar theory and language teaching in the text, which relies on the authors' assumption that the teaching of grammar must be in the service of the development of reading and writing skills. This utilitarian view of grammar is reflected in a strategy that is a response to social change in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Accordingly, the training in primary discourse genres (notes, letters, telegrams, etc.), the formation of a literary canon mostly comprised of Argentine writers or the use of posters as starting points for descriptive sequences that function as iconic representations of the nation are some of the resources in this innovative methodological perspective. Adapted from the source document