Charles carpenter fries biography

FRIES, Charles C(arpenter)

FRIES, Charles C(arpenter)[1887–1967].American grammarian and lexicographer, born in Reading, Pennsylvania, and educated at Bucknell U., where he was appointed to the faculty in 1911 to teach RHETORICand GREEK. In 1914, he shifted from classics to English, and he gained his Ph.D. in 1922 with a study of shalland willin Renaissance English. He joined the English department at the U. of Michigan in 1921 and worked there until his retirement in 1958. He became editor-in-chief in 1928 of the Early Modern English Dictionary, and was an adviser to the Random House American College Dictionary(1948). Fries sought to describe English as it was rather than as it ought to be. In American English Grammar(1940), he investigated social-class differences through the study of letters written to a government agency. In defining the scope of this enquiry, he declared ‘that there can be no “correctness’ ‘apart from USAGE’. A second descriptive work, The Structure of English(1925), drew on recorded telephone conversations; his innovative approach in that volume emphasized ‘signals of structural meaning’ that could be isolated and described from the stream of SPEECHrather than from the ‘ideas’ expressed. A conviction that English should be described and learned through speech rather than WRITING shaped Teaching and Learning English as a Second Language(1945) and Foundations of English Teaching(1961). The methods he developed at the English Language Institute, which he founded at Michigan in 1941, influenced ESL teaching around the world and his conception of pattern practiceshaped ESL teaching for a generation. He was senior author of the Fries American English Series(1952–6), among other ESL textbooks. After retirement, he turned his attention to reading instruction for native speakers and published Linguistics and Reading(1963) and A Basic Reading Series Developed upon

Charles C. Fries' life and career

[The account below is partial and still under construction]

Anthony (n.d.: 39) reports as follows:

Charles Carpenter Fries spent most of academic career at the University of Michigan. He was 'part of the mainstream of American language study; a member of the Linguistic Society of America from its beginning, once its president, more than once Director of its Linguistic Institutes; member of the [. . .] National Council of Teachers of English, and once its president; and a supporter and vice president of the Modern Language Association'. His students included Robert Lado and Kenneth Pike. (Anthony n.d.: 39)

Fries was primarily a linguist specializing in the English language, but he was always concerned with how languages could best be taught and learned. Early on in his career he was interested in improving the ways English was taught to native speakers, and later on English as a second language. According to Anthony (ibid.), it is no accident that the American TESOL Organisation chose Michigan-trained people for many of its early presidents.

Sources (most not yet incorporated into the above account):

Anthony, Edward M. 1968. 'Charles Carpenter Fries 1887-1967'. English Language Teaching 23/1: 3-4; Fries, Peter Howard and Fries, Nancy M. (eds). 1985. Toward an Understanding of Language: Charles Carpenter Fries in Perspective, Amsterdam: Benjamins (in particular, 'Bibliography of Charles C. Fries' and Bailey, Richard W, 'Charles C. Fries: The life of a linguist'); Anthony, Edward M. n.d. [1986?]. 'The work of Charles Fries within the changing contexts of language teacher education', in Bickley, Verner (ed.), Future Directions in English Language Teacher Education: Asia and Pacific Perspectives, Hong Kong: Institute of Language in Education, Education Department; Norris, William E. and Strain, Jeris E. (eds). 1989. Charles Carpenter Fries: His 'Oral Approach' for Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages. Washington, D.

Charles Carpenter Fries

American linguist

Charles Carpenter Fries (November 29, 1887 – December 8, 1967) was an American linguist and language teacher. Fries is considered the creator of the Aural-Oral method (also erroneously called the Audio-Lingual method). He believed, along with Robert Lado, that language teaching and learning should be approached in a scientific way.

Fries graduated from Bucknell University in 1909 where he also taught from 1911 to 1920, becoming a professor in 1917. Most of his career was spent lecturing at the University of Michigan (1920 and 1958). Fries was president of the National Council of Teachers of English in 1927 and 1928, president of the Linguistic Society of America in 1939, and director of the Linguistic Institute from 1936 to 1940 and from 1945 to 1947. He founded the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan and served as its director from 1941 to 1956.

Fries's chief works dealt with structural linguistics. He conducted diachronic and synchronic studies of the English language, prepared a series of English-language textbooks for foreigners, and developed, what he called 'scientific principles for the study of foreign languages'. Fries was the editor of the journal Language Learning in 1948. Between 1928 and 1958 he was editor in chief of the Early Modern English Dictionary.

Fries wrote extensively on language teaching including early work on Corpus linguistics, education and linguistics.

References

Relevant literature

Fries, Peter Howard, and Nancy M. Fries, eds. Toward an understanding of language: Charles Carpenter Fries in perspective. Vol. 40. John Benjamins Publishing, 1985.

    Charles carpenter fries biography
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    • Charles C. Fries archive

    The Warwick ELT Archive contains the following books by or relating to C.C. Fries:

     

    Fries, C. C. (1940). National Council of Teachers of English: English Monograph. American English Grammar: The Grammatical Structure of Present-day American English with Especial Reference to Social Differences or Class Dialects. New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts.

    Fries, C. C. (1945). Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language. Ann Arbor, MI, University of Michgan Press.

    Fries, C. C., Ed. (1953). Selected Articles from 'Language Learning'. Series I: English as a Foreign Language. Ann Arbor, MI, The Research Club.

    Fries, C. C. (1957). The Structure of English: An Introduction to the Construction of English Sentences. London, Longmans, Green.

    Fries, C. C. (1962). Linguistics: The Study of Language. Chapter Two of 'Linguistics and Reading'. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

    Fries, C. C. (1962). The Teaching of English: A Series of Essays on: What is Good English?; Teaching the English Language; Teaching Literature. Ann Arbor, MI, George Wahr.

    Fries, C. C. (1963). Linguistics and Reading. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

    Fries, C. C. and A. A. Traver (1950 [1940?]). English Word Lists: A Study of their Adaptability for Instruction. Ann Arbor, MI, George Wahr.

    Hull, A. L., R. F. Robinett, et al. (1953). Fries American English Series for the Study of English as a Second Language. Book 3. Teachers Guide. Boston, MA, Heath.

    Hull, A. L., R. F. Robinett, et al. (1953). Fries American English Series for the Study of English as a Second Language. Book 4. Teacher's Guide. Boston, MA, Heath.

    Hull, A. L., R. F. Robinett, et al. (1953). Fries American English Series for the Study of English as a Second Language. Book Four. Boston, MA, Heath.

    Hull, A. L., R. F. Robinett, et al. (1953). Fries American English Series for the Study of English as a Second Language. Book Three. Boston, MA, Heath.

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