T.J.,
My post requires an explanation. I wanted to show that the contrast between "descriptivism" and "prescriptivism" is only apparent. According to Trask in his "A Student's Dictionary of Language and Linguistics,"
"descriptivism - The approach to language description in which the observed facts of the usage of native speakers are described as they are found to exist. Almost ALL SERIOUS LINGUISTIC WORK IS DESCRIPTIVIST [emphasis mine]. (p. 67)
while,
"prescriptivism - The approach to language which attaches priority to determining and teaching "correct" or "proper" usage and to identifying and eliminating "incorrect" usage. A degree of prescriptivism is usually heldd to be necessary in education, but MOST LINGUISTS REJECT PRESCRIPTIVISM AS A BASIS FOR SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF LANGUAGE [emphasis mine] and espouse descriptivism." (p.175)
What I wanted to show is that, in fact, what "descriptivists" describe as "the observed facts of the usage of native speakers...as they are found to exist" are the facts of a language that was "prescribed" to the "native speakers" during their socialization process. No "native speakers" are born "language-ready." They all acquire/learn the language prescribed to them by those humans who socialize them, and so, again, what "descriptivists" describe is a prescribed language.
Ultimately, what matters is that all "native speakers," including the "descriptivists" speak and write a language "prescribed" to them before birth and all through adulthood and old age. To claim freedom from "prescriptivism" would be like claiming freedom from air - because prescriptivism is the "language air" we all breathe.
Eduard
From: "T. J. Ray" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2011 11:20:40 AM
Subject: Re: The "Anti-Grammar Forum"
Your second, third, and fourth paragraphs very precisely contradict your first. In the first
you seem to be on the offense against descriptive and prescritpive grammars, and then
you lay solid foundation for the necessity of those disciplines. I don't see how you can
have it both ways.
T. J.
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list"Craig,
I am a LINGUIST, not a GRAMMARIAN. I am not a grammar school teacher or a high school teacher. In my undergraduate and graduate studies I have studied phonetics and phonology, morphology and syntax, semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics, etc. From my perspective, the concept of "grammar" as discussed on this forum seems to be limited, narrow, and incomplete, and the distinction between "descriptive" and "prescriptive" in language is nonsensical. Someone said, "We describe in order to prescribe." Most examples of "prescriptive" English are so pathetic that they make me weep, and those who insist on the distinction don't seem to understand the ultimate purpose of language - communication.
The whole purpose of English language education is to "prescribe" how people should speak and write in order to produce a consesus language. The alternative would be for each one of us or for groups of people of various sizes in this country to coin words that have a meaning only for individuals or for grouns, and to build an unlimited number of individual or group grammars. If we followed this course of action we would soon loose the ability to communicate between individuals and groups. We would witness a modern Tower of Babel.
Why is the American education paying every year English language teachers and other educators? In order to "prescribe" behavior in language, arts, and science. This is called "socialization," and without socialization creatures born to humans are will not become human.
Instead of speaking about "grammar" I would rather speak about language structure and its communicative, rhetorical purpose. If we cannot communicate in language, the production of sounds, words, and strings of words is irational and useless. It is necessary for humans, in order to communicate through language, to "prescribe" what words and strings of words mean so that they could all use those words and word strings to mean the same thing. We don't live in Alice's wonderland, and we are rabbbits, ascribing personal and arbitrary meanings to words if we want to communicate because if we did so we would loose very rapidly the ability to communicate with each other and one another.
Language use has a DIRECT and SPECIFIC purpose: TO COMMUNICATE. If we forget its purpose, then we are lost.
Eduard
From: "Craig G Hancock" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2011 11:18:12 AM
Subject: Re: The "Anti-Grammar Forum"Eduard,
These leaves me with some questions. 1) Are you ONLY interested in what makes something Standard, or does your interest in grammar go beyond that? In other words, once something is determined as Standard English, are there other things we can observe about its grammar that are useful and beneficial? Is our only concern making sure language conforms to norms or should we also think about ways in which grammar contributes to rhetorical effect or to meaning? 2) Are you at all troubled by the fact that many of the rules of prescriptive grammar seem rather arbitrary? One example might be the “due to” versus “because of” distinction in a recent post that many of us felt was on shaky ground. How do we determine whether something is standard or not? 3) Does that mean that literary texts that use dialect in one way or another should be expunged from the canon? I’m thinking of books like “Huckleberry Finn” or “The color Purple”, much of the poetry of Robert Burns and Langston Hughes, the plays of August Wilson (so many of our plays, for that matter), and so on? How do we deal with the fact that a great deal of highly valued literature is built on creative use of the vernacular?
The final question, I guess, might be how we stimulate widespread acquisition of the standard. Is disparaging dialect a necessary step in that direction? I don’t think many of would disagree that knowing Standard English is a central goal. How do we accommodate other goals as well, including encouraging fluency?
Craig
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eduard Hanganu
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 6:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The "Anti-Grammar Forum"
Well,
Maybe the difference in perspective between the two of us is that you consider different "grammars" that govern different "varieties" of the English language, while I recognize only ONE GRAMMAR, the Standard English Grammar. Of course we all speak our own idiolects, and use various registers depending on the linguistic context, but if those idiolects and registers do not follow the rules of the Standard English Grammar I cannot call those "varieties" or "registers" good English, but to the degree to which they differ from the Standard English I call them "illiterate English." Anecdotally, someone mentioned to me that "Ebonics" as a "language variety" does not differ much from the broken English that some poor, illiterate people speak in the Appalachians. What is the common denominator between these two "varieties" of the English language? Illiteracy.
Eduard
From: "Dick Veit" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 5:18:07 PM
Subject: Re: The "Anti-Grammar Forum"
The assumption in several posts that there can only be one variety of English for every occasion flabbergasts me. Aren't we all masters of many registers? In an earlier post I wrote that one language phrase "bugs the hell out of me." I deemed that informal expression to be appropriate in this forum, just as I would consider it inappropriate in many others. I know the difference. You do too. Your language in writing journal papers is identifiably different from your language in an email to colleagues and different from your speech in conversing with friends while watching a football game or in talking on the phone with your insurance agent. You have no trouble making the adjustments. That is what being a sophisticated user of language is all about.
I taught writing for forty years, and my goal was always for students to master the principles of formal written English. There are accepted conventions that educated people need to learn. Another goal was for them to understand different registers and to know which is appropriate to use in different situations. And yes, students can master that too.
When someone in this forum observes that an informal expression is grammatical in a certain register or dialect, they are simply describing what they observe and not making a moral judgment. Such an observatrion doesn't mean that (1) they do not believe in teaching formal written English, (2) they favor teaching students to write Ebonics, or (3) the world is coming to an end.
Dick
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