Prescriptivism-
Prescriptivism
(or linguistic purism) is the belief
that one variety of language, such as RP and SE, is superior to all others and should
be promoted. The
general take of a prescriptivist is that there are rules that define how
language should be used, and that mistakes result from when those rules are
broken. Some could say that prescriptivism is
characterized by a concern for "good," "proper," or
"correct" usage.
You might hear this idea of prescriptive linguistics described as normative, which means that the rules
are based on normal usage, and they determine the way things (spelling,
grammar, etc.) ought to be.
Some examples of prescriptive rules are:
- Don’t end a sentence with a preposition
- Don’t split infinitives
- Don’t use the passive voice
- Don’t use the pronoun ‘I’ in object position
Prescriptivist's-
-Shadyah A. N. Cole - wrote an article
on the historical development of prescriptivism , which shows how social and
economic conditions influenced scholarly and popular attitudes to the English
language; and Geoffrey Pullum’s Ideology, Power, and Linguistic Theory,
in which the author assesses justifications for prescriptivist claims, and
shows that “in grammar the 19th century never really went away”.
-Geoffrey Nunberg- "It
may be that my children will use gift and impactas verbs without
the slightest compunction (just as I use contact, wondering that anyone
ever bothered to object to it). But I can't overcome the feeling that it is
wrong for me to use them in that way and that people of my generation who say
"We decided to gift them with a desk set" are in some sense guilty of
a moral lapse, whether because they are ignorant or because
they are weak." Geoffrey Nunberg’s counsel in The Decline
of Grammar (1983) still holds: discussion of the problems of grammar
and their social importance “should be well informed, it should be nonpartisan,
and it should be backed by a measure of courage and tolerance."
Descriptivism-
Descriptivism is a nonjudgmental approach to language that focuses on how it is actually spoken and written. It is the way language is analysed and it describes how language is spoken. Descriptivism is the belief that description is more significant and important to teach. The idea behind descriptive linguistics is that a language is defined by what people do with it. In other words, you begin by studying and listening to native speakers. Then, when you notice patterns in the ways that they communicate, you can record those patterns as guesses about the principles of a language. If you rarely (or never) observe someone breaking those patterns, then your guess is more likely to be an accurate representation of the language. Those guesses are called hypotheses, and when they are well-supported by evidence, they can be accepted as correctness conditions for a language. For example, a correctness condition about Standard English is the notion of a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) word order. It is very difficult (if not impossible) to observe a native English speaker saying something like, “I an apple ate,” so it is a safe bet that if you hear that, you aren’t hearing Standard English. Of course, it also means that if enough people start using a new construction, then your grammatical model should adapt to accommodate it.
Descriptivist's-
-Alexandra D’Arcy- As a
sociolinguist, D'Arcy says, "I describe language as actually used and I
revel in the differences and variations of language in practice. Despite my
proud ancestry, there is no place for prescription in my world."
- Steven Pinker- "Descriptivists, according to this scheme, believe that norms of correctness are arbitrary shibboleths of the ruling class, designed to keep the masses in their place. Language is an organic product of human creativity, and the people should be given the freedom to write however they please."
-Noam
Chomsky, a famous linguist, has a descriptivist point of view. He believes that
language is innate which fits in to the view that prescriptivism in language is
artificial language and descriptivism is natural. However he also sees the
other side to the argument that the specifics of standard grammar in Standard
English should be learnt as part of an education – “I think sensible
prescriptivism ought to be part of an education”. – Noam Chomsky 1991. This
view shows a non negative attitude to variations in accent in dialect unlike
prescriptivism which is arguably the source of negative attitudes towards
accents like that of the ‘stealing’ Scouse or the ‘unintelligible’
Brummy.
- Merriam-Webster
