Prescriptive vs. Descriptive
Attitudes toward grammar
Descriptive VS. Prescriptive grammar:
What are rules?
• Prescriptive (traditional) approach:
Attitudes toward language based on what
is held to be “correct” by socially
prestigious elements and by teachers
Prescriptive (traditional) approach
This attitude evinces complete disregard for
the way a community actually speaks
Prescriptive grammar
• Certain forms of language are seen as
more “correct” than others as a result of
the social prestige associated with their
users
The prescriptive attitude seeks to enforce
those
Prescriptive grammar
Examples of common prescriptive rules
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Do not use ‘ain’t’
Do not use a preposition to end a sentence with
Pronounce the -ing at the end of words, not -in’
Do not split infinitives:
“to boldly go where man has never gone
before”
is wrong, they say
Descriptive VS. Prescriptive grammar
• Which of the following participles are
“correct”?
• Kneel
kneeled/knelt
• Knit
knitted/knit
• Lean
leaned/leant
• Leap
leaped/leapt
• Bid
bidden/bade
Which is “correct”?
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Buy
Spell
Forecast
Shave
Dive
Drag
Spell
bought/boughten
spelled/spelt
forecast/forecasted
shaved/shaven
dove/dived
dragged/drug
spelled/spelt
Which is correct?
• Are people who use other forms stupid?
• Are they socially undesirable?
• Why do we think so?
Descriptive VS. Prescriptive grammar
Descriptive approach:
• Observe principles that describe the way
the language is actually spoken
Descriptive approach
• The goal of the descriptive approach is a
description and knowledge of rules
(principles) of how the language is actually
spoken
Descriptive grammar
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Examples:
Many speakers pronounce ‘-in’ for the (-ing)
suffix
In oral speech and most written language we
say prepositions at the end of sentences
Some dialects of English do not pronounce –r
after vowels
In English, qualifying words often appear
between the to and the verb in infinitive phrases:
“to boldly go where man has never gone before”
Teaching grammar
• Descriptions of a language used for
teaching purposes
• Do not confuse this with Prescriptive
grammar — isn’t teaching for language
learners based on how the language is
spoken?
Linguistic competence
Linguistic competence:
• knowledge of our language and ability
(capacity) to produce utterances
Goal of study
• The goal of our study is descriptive
• By observing a language as it is actually
used
• We can learn about the knowledge that
speakers have of the language
Linguistic competence
• This involves our knowledge of how our
language works
Linguistic competence
• This knowledge can be observed and
described, in the form of the speech that
results from it
• Thus descriptive grammar
Communicative competence
• The linguist Del Hymes stated that if a
child could make any possible sentence in
the language, we would think he was
insane
Communicative competence
• Our communicative competence involves
our knowledge of the speech appropriate
in each situation
• and how to do what we use language to
do
Descriptive focus
• Our course emphasizes a descriptive
focus
• We are interested
– in the language that is actually used
– how speakers use it
– what they use it to do