ABSTRACT
Three things can be said ab out this. Firstly, that, because of his theory of interpretation, Richards' attitude to any theory is ambivalent, since it is always open to hirn to say that it derives from certain 'facts of mind' and that the words it uses have different meanings from those used by the people who would contradict the theory. Secondly, Richards evidently believes that the proponents ofthe usage theory misinterpreted it themselves. And thirdly, as we have seen, he is always in favour of a more microscopic approach and presumably believes that only this, which gives us a view of the fluidity and sensitivity of language, can help us in reading and writing. And certainly it is this microscopic approach concerned with wordmeanings that he puts forward as the positive grammar that should be taught in our schools. He defines grammar, whose purpose for hirn, we will remember, was "to aid training in interpretation ... ", as "for our purposes, nothing but the study 0/ the co-operation 0/ words with one another in their contexts" (16). Let us see what this positive conception of grammar involves.
