Linguistic prescription - Revision history

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	==Prescription and description==		==Prescription and description==
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	Linguistic description (observation and reportage of ''how'' language is practised) establishes conceptual categories without establishing formal usage rules (prescriptions), about which the introduction to the [[Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage]] (1994) reports that:		Linguistic description (observation and reportage of ''how'' language is practised) establishes conceptual categories without establishing formal usage rules (prescriptions), about which the introduction to the [[Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage]] (1994) reports that:

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	[[Image:Samuel Johnson by Joshua Reynolds.jpg\|thumb\|175px\|right\|'''Samuel Johnson''', ca. 1772.]]		[[Image:Samuel Johnson by Joshua Reynolds.jpg\|thumb\|175px\|right\|'''Samuel Johnson''', ca. 1772.]]
	For these reasons, some writers have argued that linguistic prescription is foolish or futile; Samuel Johnson, commented as follows on the tendency of some prescription to resist language change:		For these reasons, some writers have argued that linguistic prescription is foolish or futile; Samuel Johnson, commented as follows on the tendency of some prescription to resist language change:
-	~~{{quote\|~~When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the [[Lexicography\|lexicographer]] be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his [[dictionary]] can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature, and clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation.<p>With this hope, however, [[List of language regulators\|academies]] have been instituted, to guard the avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulse intruders; but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain; sounds are too volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength. The [[French language]] has visibly changed under the inspection of the [[Académie française\|academy]]; the [[Style\|stile]] of [[Abraham Nicolas Amelot de la Houssaye\|Amelot]]'s translation of [[Paolo Sarpi\|Father Paul]] is observed, by [[Pierre François le Courayer\|Le Courayer]] to be ''un peu passé''; and no Italian will maintain that the diction of any modern writer is not perceptibly different from that of [[Giovanni Boccaccio\|Boccace]], [[Niccolò Machiavelli\|Machiavel]], or [[Annibale Caro\|Caro]]. <p>— [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5430 ''Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language''] (Project Gutenberg)}}</p>	+	:When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the [[Lexicography\|lexicographer]] be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his [[dictionary]] can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature, and clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation.<p>With this hope, however, [[List of language regulators\|academies]] have been instituted, to guard the avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulse intruders; but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain; sounds are too volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength. The [[French language]] has visibly changed under the inspection of the [[Académie française\|academy]]; the [[Style\|stile]] of [[Abraham Nicolas Amelot de la Houssaye\|Amelot]]'s translation of [[Paolo Sarpi\|Father Paul]] is observed, by [[Pierre François le Courayer\|Le Courayer]] to be ''un peu passé''; and no Italian will maintain that the diction of any modern writer is not perceptibly different from that of [[Giovanni Boccaccio\|Boccace]], [[Niccolò Machiavelli\|Machiavel]], or [[Annibale Caro\|Caro]]. <p>— [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5430 ''Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language''] (Project Gutenberg)</p>

	==Prescription and description==		==Prescription and description==

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	[[Category:Linguistic purism\|Prescription]]		[[Category:Linguistic purism\|Prescription]]
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Nick — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:16:53 GMT

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Nick: New page: In linguistics, '''prescription''' denotes normative practices on such aspects of language use as spelling, grammar, pronunciation, and syntax. It includes judgments on...

Nick — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:13:11 GMT

New page: In linguistics, '''prescription''' denotes normative practices on such aspects of language use as spelling, grammar, pronunciation, and syntax. It includes judgments on...

New page

In [[linguistics]], '''prescription''' denotes normative practices on such aspects of language use as [[spelling]], [[grammar]], [[pronunciation]], and [[syntax]]. It includes judgments on what usages are [[Etiquette|socially]] proper and [[Political correctness|politically]] correct. Its aims may be to establish a [[standard language]], to teach what is perceived within a particular society to be correct forms of language, or to advise on effective communication. If usage preferences are conservative, prescription might (appear to) be resistant to [[language change]]; if the usage preferences are radical, prescription may produce [[neologism]]s.[]

Prescriptive approaches to language are often contrasted with [[Descriptive linguistics|'''descriptive linguistics''']], which observes and records how language is practiced. The basis of linguistic research is text ([[text corpus|corpus]]) analysis and field studies; yet ''description'' includes each researcher’s observations of his and her (own) language usage. Despite apparent opposition, prescription and description (how language ''should be'' used, and how language ''is'' used) exist in a complementary dynamic tension of mutual linguistic support.[]

==Aims==
The main aims of linguistic prescription are to define standardized language forms either generally (what is [[Standard English]]?) or for specific purposes (what [[Stylistics (linguistics)|style]] and [[Register (linguistics)|register]] is appropriate in, for example, a [[Brief (law)|legal brief]]?) and to formulate these in such a way as to make them easily taught or learned.[] Prescription can apply to most aspects of language: spelling, grammar, semantics, pronunciation and register. Most people would subscribe to the consensus that in all of these areas it is meaningful to describe some kinds of aberrations as incorrect, or at least as inappropriate in particular contexts. Prescription aims to draw workable guidelines for language users seeking advice in such matters.

Standardized languages are useful for interregional communication: speakers of divergent [[dialects]] may understand a [[standard language]] used in [[broadcasting]] more readily than they would understand one anothers' dialects. It can be argued that such a [[lingua franca]], if needed, will evolve by itself, but the desire to formulate and define it is very widespread in most parts of the world. Writers or communicators who wish to use words clearly, powerfully, or effectively often use prescriptive rules, believing that these may make their communications more widely understood and unambiguous.

A complementary aim of linguistic prescription may be the imposition of a political ideology. During the second half of the 20th century, politically motivated linguistic prescription recommended by various [[advocacy groups]] had considerable influence on language use in the context of [[political correctness]], imposing special rules for [[gender-neutral language|anti-sexist]], [[anti-racist]] or generically anti-[[discrimination|discriminatory]] language (e.g. "[[people-first language]]" as advocated by disability rights organizations).
[[George Orwell]] in ''[[Politics and the English Language]]'' (1946) criticized the use of euphemisms and convoluted phrasing as a means of hiding insincerity. Orwell's fictional "[[Newspeak]]" (1949) is a parody of ideologically motivated linguistic prescriptivism.

==Authority==
[[File:Real Academia Española, Madrid - view 2.JPG|thumb|left|160px|'''Prescriptive Authority:''' The Royal Spanish Academy, Madrid.]]
Prescription usually presupposes an authority whose judgment may be followed by other members of a speech community. Such an authority may be a prominent writer or educator such as [[Henry Watson Fowler|Henry Fowler]], whose ''[[Fowler's Modern English Usage|English Usage]]'' defined the standard for [[British English]] for much of the 20th century.[] The ''[[Duden]]'' grammar (first edition 1880) has a similar status for German. Although dictionary makers often see their work as purely descriptive, their dictionaries are widely used as prescriptive authorities by the community at large. Popular books such as [[Lynne Truss]]'s ''[[Eats, Shoots & Leaves]]'', which argues for stricter adherence to prescriptive punctuation rules, have phases of fashionability and are authoritative to the degree that they attract a significant following.

In some language communities, linguistic prescription is regulated formally. The [[Académie française]] (French Academy) in Paris is an example of a national body whose recommendations are widely respected though not legally enforceable. In [[Germany]] and the [[Netherlands]], recent spelling reforms were devised by teams of linguists commissioned by government and were then implemented by statute.

Other kinds of authorities exist in specific settings, such as publishers laying down a [[house style]] which, for example, may either prescribe or proscribe particular spellings or grammatical forms, such as a [[serial comma]].

Examples of prescriptive bodies include:

* The [[Académie française]] (French Academy, 1635) is the national language-governing academic body whose recommendations, though legally unenforceable, are respected for maintaining standard French.

* The German-speaking nations (Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland) established national, normative spelling usages, to their respective varieties of the language, by statute with the [[German orthography reform of 1996]] (''Rechtschreibreform''). This reform has remained so controversial that in a [[plebiscite]] in [[Schleswig Holstein]] in 1998, a vast majority of voters decided that the reform was not to be executed in the Federal State; however, Schleswig-Holstein parliament overruled that in 1999. Many major German newspapers chose to implement the reform only in part (e.g., [[Axel Springer AG]], [[Der Spiegel]]) or not at all, ending a period where unified German spelling ({{lang-de|Rechtschreibung}}), although officially only mandatory in gouvernemental and educational use, was the de-facto standard in German spelling.

* In the Netherlands, standardized spelling norms were compulsory for Dutch government publications — yet popular and mass communications media language applied an adapted spelling reform, see [[Wordlist of the Dutch language]] and the [[White Booklet]].

* During the [[History of the Soviet Union]] (1917–91) the [[Union of Soviet Writers]] (''Soyuz Sovetskikh Pisatelei'', 1932) policed the [[Russian language]] with prescriptive linguistics to establish a standardized Soviet (Russian) language.

* The standard of [[Spanish language|Spanish]] is maintained in twenty-one countries by the [[Real Academia Española]] (Royal Spanish Academy, 1713) in affiliation with the [[Association of Spanish Language Academies]] (''Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española'', 1951).

* The [[Albanian language|Albanian]] standard language (the [[Tosk]] variety) is regulated by the Social Sciences and Albanological Section of the [[Academy of Sciences of Albania]].

==Origins==
Historically, linguistic prescriptivism originates in a [[standard language]] when a society establishes [[social stratification]] and socio-economic [[hierarchy]], in which instance, the spoken and written language usages of the [[Authority|authorities]] (state, military, church) are preserved as the standard language to emulate for social success; see [[Class|social class]]. To distinguish itself from contemporary [[colloquial language]], standard language usage includes [[archaism]]s and [[honorific]] colours. Like-wise, the [[style]] of language used in [[ritual]] also differs from quotidian speech.[]
[[File:Hanzi.svg{{!}}|thumb|150px|left|'''Standard language:''' Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese Han logograms.]]
When a culture develops a [[writing]] system, the prescriptive linguistics that established (codified) the standard spoken language then establishes the standard written language for unambiguous communications — given the absence of conversation, i.e. the speaker and his or her facial and body language, which eliminate ambiguity in spoken language. The codification of written speech is achieved with a [[grammar]] establishing the parts of speech, [[register (linguistics)|register]], [[diction]], et cetera. Literacy (an [[alphabet]]), usually was propagated by religion; [[Western Christianity]] propagated the [[Latin alphabet]]; [[Eastern Orthodoxy]], the [[Greek alphabet|Greek]] and [[Cyrillic alphabet|Cyrillic]] alphabets; [[Judaism]], the [[Hebrew alphabet]], [[Islam]], the [[Arabic alphabet]], and [[Hinduism]], the [[Devanagari]] script;[] and in [[China]], the [[Chinese character|Han character]] [[logogram]]s are the standard writing language, and from which derive the [[Japanese language|Japanese]] writing system. Furthermore, the establishment of a prescribed (standard) language is supported by the [[political economy]] of the [[publishing]] business, wherein books represent a [[sunk cost]], thus, changes in written language usage are an economic hazard that might render them obsolete, hence does writing promote the preservation of archaic usages; see [[Literary language]].

[[Image:Egypt Hieroglyphe2.jpg|thumb|150px|right|'''Standard language:''' Ptolemaic hieroglyphics from the [[Temple of Kom Ombo]].]]
Linguistically, a government [[bureaucracy]] tends to prescriptivism (standardized language) for functional continuity, thus each bureau uses a prescribed (standard) language. In this respect, official publications (i.e. [[writ]]s), established the precedent usages that are “bureaucratese”, the language of bureaucrats.[] Such prescriptivism dates from [[Egyptian language|ancient Egyptian]] (ca. 3400 BC), wherein bureaucrats preserved the spelling of the [[Middle Kingdom of Egypt]] (2080–1640 BC ) into the [[Ptolemaic period]] (305–30 BC) in the standard usage of [[Egyptian hieroglyphics]].[]

The language of a society, therefore, is a stylistic continuum, wherein privileged language, used in legal, military, and religious ceremony, is valued above regional varieties and local dialects. When the valuation of usage is very marked, the discontinuity between the high style (standard) and the low style (vernacular) of a language, there arises ''[[diglossia]]'' (two tongues), in which instance the privileged language requires formal study to master, and is not readily intelligible to the untutored, who only speak, read, and write the [[vernacular]]. Given the effort required for mastery, a writer who has mastered [[Chinese calligraphy]] or [[English spelling]] might resist its devaluation via (over-) simplification.[]

==Sources==
From the earliest attempts at prescription in classical times, grammarians have observed what is in fact usual in a prestige variety of a language and based their norms upon this. Modern prescription, for example in school textbooks, draws heavily on the results of descriptive linguistic analysis. Because prescription is generally based on description, it is very rare for a form to be prescribed which does not already exist in the language.

However, prescription also involves conscious choices, privileging some existing forms over others. Such choices are often strategic, aimed at maximising clarity and precision in language use. Sometimes they may be based on entirely subjective judgments about what constitutes good taste. Sometimes there is a conscious decision to promote the language of one class or region within a language community, and this can become politically controversial—see below.

Sometimes, prescription is motivated by an ethical position, as with the prohibition of [[Profanity|swear words]]. The desire to avoid language which refers too specifically to matters of sexuality or toilet hygiene may result in a sense that the words themselves are obscene. Similar is the condemnation of expletives which offend against religion, or more recently of language which is not considered [[politically correct]].[]

It is sometimes claimed that in centuries past, English prescription was based on the norms of [[Latin grammar]], but this is doubtful. [[Robert Lowth]] is frequently cited as one who did this, but, in fact, he specifically condemned "forcing the English under the rules of a foreign Language".[] It is true that analogies with Latin were sometimes used as substantiating arguments, but only when the forms being thus defended were in any case the norm in the prestige form of English.

==Problems==
While many people would agree that some kinds of prescriptive teaching or advice are desirable, prescription easily becomes controversial. Many linguists are highly skeptical of the quality of advice given in many usage guides, particularly when the authors are not qualified in languages or linguistics. Some popular books on English usage written by journalists or novelists bring prescription generally into disrepute by making basic errors in grammatical analysis. Even when practiced by competent experts (as in text-books written by language teachers), giving wise advice is not always easy, and things can go badly wrong. A number of issues pose potential pitfalls.

One of the most serious of these is that prescription has a tendency to favour the language of one particular region or social class over others, and thus militates against linguistic diversity. Frequently, a standard dialect is associated with the [[upper class]], as for example [[Great Britain]]'s [[Received Pronunciation]]. RP has now lost much of its status as the Anglophone standard, being replaced by the dual standards of [[General American]] and [[British NRP]] (non-regional pronunciation). While these have a more democratic base, they are still standards which exclude large parts of the English-speaking world: speakers of [[Scottish English]], [[Hiberno-English]], [[Australian English]], or [[African-American Vernacular English]] may feel the standard is slanted against them. Thus prescription has clear political consequences. In the past, prescription was used consciously as a political tool; today, prescription usually attempts to avoid this pitfall, but this can be difficult to do.

A second problem with prescription is that prescriptive rules quickly become entrenched and it is difficult to change them when the language changes. Thus there is a tendency for prescription to be excessively conservative. When in the early 19th century, prescriptive use advised against the [[split infinitive]], the main reason was that this construction was not in fact a frequent feature of the varieties of English favoured by those prescribing. Today it has become common in most varieties of English, and a prohibition is no longer supported by most style guides. However, the rule endured long after the justification for it had disappeared. In this way, prescription can appear to be antithetical to natural language evolution, although this is usually not the intention of those formulating the rules.

A further problem is the difficulty of defining legitimate criteria. Although prescribing authorities almost invariably have clear ideas about why they make a particular choice, and the choices are therefore seldom entirely arbitrary, they often appear arbitrary to others who do not understand or are not in sympathy with the criteria. Judgments which seek to resolve ambiguity or increase the ability of the language to make subtle distinctions are easier to defend. Judgments based on the subjective associations of a word are more problematic.

Finally, there is the problem of inappropriate dogmatism. While competent authorities tend to make careful statements, popular pronouncements on language are apt to condemn. Thus wise prescriptive advice may identify a form as non-standard and suggest it be used with caution in some contexts; repeated in the school room this may become a ruling that the non-standard form is automatically wrong, a view which linguists reject. (Linguists may accept that a form is incorrect if it fails to communicate, but not simply because it diverges from a norm.) A classic example from 18th-century England is Robert Lowth's tentative suggestion that [[preposition stranding]] in [[English relative clauses|relative clauses]] sounds colloquial; from this grew a grammatical dogma that a sentence should never end with a preposition.
[[Image:Samuel Johnson by Joshua Reynolds.jpg|thumb|175px|right|'''Samuel Johnson''', ca. 1772.]]
For these reasons, some writers have argued that linguistic prescription is foolish or futile; Samuel Johnson, commented as follows on the tendency of some prescription to resist language change:
{{quote|When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the [[Lexicography|lexicographer]] be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his [[dictionary]] can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature, and clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation.With this hope, however, [[List of language regulators|academies]] have been instituted, to guard the avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulse intruders; but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain; sounds are too volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength. The [[French language]] has visibly changed under the inspection of the [[Académie française|academy]]; the [[Style|stile]] of [[Abraham Nicolas Amelot de la Houssaye|Amelot]]'s translation of [[Paolo Sarpi|Father Paul]] is observed, by [[Pierre François le Courayer|Le Courayer]] to be ''un peu passé''; and no Italian will maintain that the diction of any modern writer is not perceptibly different from that of [[Giovanni Boccaccio|Boccace]], [[Niccolò Machiavelli|Machiavel]], or [[Annibale Caro|Caro]]. — [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5430 ''Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language''] (Project Gutenberg)}}

==Prescription and description==
{{Main|Descriptive linguistics}}

Linguistic description (observation and reportage of ''how'' language is practised) establishes conceptual categories without establishing formal usage rules (prescriptions), about which the introduction to the [[Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage]] (1994) reports that:
“[[Possible]] is sometimes considered to be an [[absolute adjective]]”. The discipline of modern linguistics originated in the 16th and 17th centuries from the [[comparative method]] of [[lexicography]] that was principally about [[classical languages]], the results of which formed the bases, in the 18th and 19th centuries, of contemporary linguistics; by the early 20th century, descriptive research concentrated upon [[modern languages]].

In the article “Realistic Prescriptivism” (2008), [[Ghil'ad Zuckermann]] “provides a critical analysis of the [[Academy of the Hebrew Language]]’s mission, as intriguingly defined in its constitution: ‘to direct the development of Hebrew in light of its nature’.” In describing several volte-faces of the Hebrew Academy, Zuckermann said that the Academy “has begun submitting to the ‘real world’, accommodating its decrees to the parole of native [[Israeli Hebrew|Israeli]] [Hebrew] speakers, long regarded as ‘reckless’ and ‘lazy’.”[]

The principal opposition to linguistic prescription is the preference (establishment) of a regional variety or local dialect as the standard language for the nation (language community), because it then subordinates the other varieties and dialects to being “non-standard language”, usually not an impartial circumstance.[] As such, the standard dialect usually is associated with an [[upper class]], e.g. [[Received Pronunciation]] (RP) in the UK. In the event, since the end of the Second World War (1939–45), RP was replaced as the Anglophone standard by the dual standards of [[General American]] in the US, and [[British NRP]] (non-regional pronunciation), in the UK.[][]

Despite the demotic intent of General American and Non-regional Pronunciation Englishes as “standard language”, upon being ''established'' as such, they are prescriptively exclusive of other [[Anglosphere|Anglophone]] folk languages such as [[Scottish English]], [[Hiberno-English]], [[Australian English]], and [[African-American Vernacular English|AAVE]], whose speakers might take umbrage at such a descriptive prescription; hence, despite apparent opposition, prescription and description exist in a complementary dynamic tension of mutual linguistic support.[]

==See also==
* [[Corruption (linguistics)|Bastardization / corruption]]
* [[Descriptive linguistics]]
* [[Fowler's Modern English Usage]]
* [[History of English grammars]]
* [[History of linguistic prescription in English]]
* [[Hypercorrection]]
* [[Language policy]]
* [[Linguistic purism]]
* [[List of English words with disputed usage]]
* [[List of frequently misused English words]]
* [[Logorrhoea (linguistics)|Logorrhoea]]
* [[Mondegreen]]
* [[Pedant]]
* [[Pleonasm]]
* [[Politics and the English Language]]
* [[Sapir–Whorf hypothesis]]
* [[Traditional grammar]]

==Notes==

==References==
* Simon Blackburn, 1996 [1994], "descriptive meaning", ''Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy'', pp. 101–102 for possible difficulty of separating the descriptive and evaluative
* Strunk and White's ''[[The Elements of Style]]''

==Additional resources==
* [http://people.ucsc.edu/~pullum/MLA2004.pdf Ideology, Power and Linguistic Theory (pdf format)] a paper about descriptivism and prescriptivism by [[Geoffrey Pullum]].
* [http://wiki.oxus.net/Language_Police Language Police] at Kerim's Wiki
* [http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/syntax-textbook/ch1.html#prescriptive Prescriptive versus descriptive grammar]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Linguistic Prescription}}
[[Category:Sociolinguistics]]
[[Category:Linguistic purism|Prescription]]
[[Category:Political correctness]]