Prescriptivism - peddling myths about language

What are you so afraid of, Thomas?

Yes, there are ignorant "teachers of English" who rule against items like the double negative as a "no-no", but their ignorance is of the social function of ideolects where such a rule is common (as in standard French). They are actually making a political statement about "educated English" evem though it merely has the status of a dress-codes. The "informed teacher" is sensitive to peer group pressures on ideolects and explains what is called "standard English" as the alternative register of choice in for use in general contexts. This is also the form of English which tends to be demanded by EFL students who seek quick fix yes/no decisions on usage.

In short, there are as many "Englishes" as contexts of usage, and those contexts are in constant flux.

I'm not joking, Joe. Do you think that parents and others surrounding a child actually know the rules of grammar?

You're confusing memorized and learned. People memorize prescriptions but they fail to follow them in natural speech, even in their writing. That's because prescriptions are not natural rules of English, they are, as S Pinker states, "alien to the natural workings of the language system".

If children were taught language and grammar the way you envision then we'd have every reason to expect that the prescriptions would stick, would we not?

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So what? That just might mean that they're speaking incorrectly.

'might', Joe? You don't sound like you're all that sure. Language science is not in agreement with you, nor are the people who use language.

All languages have their natural rules, Joe. And all have their prescriptions. The latter are not natural. As I mentioned above, they aren't followed because they are alien, ie. not natural.

Why would children be this successful but adults, with a much greater capacity for reason be so much less successful?

Corpus studies show you to be mistaken. Maybe not for the two simple examples you've given here, but I can assure you that there are large differences between the registers. There are even large differences among the registers of speech.

Well, again, that all depends on what you mean by "prescriptions." I get the sense that you define "prescription" as any grammatical rule that you disagree with. So, for instance, according to you the "that/which" distinction is a prescription, while the formation of the singular possessive is a "natural rule."

I admit I don't understand that distinction. If some rule is prescribed, it just means that it's considered mandatory. In that sense, the rule for forming singular possessives is a prescription just as much as any other grammatical rule.

I think you're being unfair, Joe. If you don't have an understanding of what I mean by prescription, you should ask. I can't think of anything that I've ever said that would lead you to believe that I define "prescription" as you've suggested.

Your error lies in the fact that you're assuming that just because something is prescribed, it is actually part of the grammar of the English language.

The facts, as pointed out by Professor Pullum, tell us that. Corpus studies show that 'which' is used frequently in academic writing for restrictive clauses. Reviews of prescriptivists' writing show they frequently break their own prescriptions - natural rules versus prescriptions, Joe.

I asked before but what might lead someone to invent a rule proscribing something that was always part of the natural language?

JTT wrote: The prescriptions that B Garner repeats

JTT: Since you brought up Bryan Gardener as a scapegoat for the evils of prescriptivism, I submitted your alleged myths of prescriptivist linguistics to a test: I looked them up in Gardner's Modern American Usage (2003), checked if I can find the prescription there, and, if I found it, checked what the reasoning was.

The lion's share of your myths are not peddled by Gardner, the epitome of prescriptivist evilness of your choice. What he does peddle are loose guidelines that seem utterly sensible to me.

Actually, everything you've written leads me to that conclusion, and there's nothing in your latest post to make me reconsider that conclusion.

But, just so there's no confusion, let me ask:

"Is the rule regarding the declension of regular verbs a "prescription?"

Is correcting someone who says "me want cookie" an example of prescriptivism?

Well, I guess your error is that you jump to unwarranted conclusions. I never said that just because some rule is prescribed that it is part of the grammar. If someone advocates a particular rule, that doesn't mean the rule is automatically adopted.

Rules almost always follow practice when it comes to language. In fact, that's what you are advocating. So you might want to answer that question yourself.

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But, just so there's no confusion, let me ask:

"Is the rule regarding the declension of regular verbs a "prescription?"

No, it isn't, Joe. That's a good an example of a natural rule. And children follow that natural rule. In that article, you may have noticed the discussion on "I holded the rabbit". The default rule for modern English, which every young child knows, is that we add 'ed' to a lexical verb to denote a finished action.

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Is correcting someone who says "me want cookie" an example of prescriptivism?

No, it isn't.

But correcting someone who uses 'which' in restrictive clauses is a prescription and it's wrong; wrong according to English grammar and wrong according to the facts.

Ah, well then, I was right: for you, a "prescription" is any rule that you don't like.

Look, in broadest terms, a prescriptivist is someone who says how the language should be spoken while a descriptivist is someone who says how the language is spoken. A prescriptivist isn't just someone who says you can't split an infinitive or who insists on a distinction between "that" and "which." Correcting a child who says "me want cookie," therefore, is an act of prescriptivism. Otherwise there'd be no basis on which to correct the kid.

Now if you want to bring up the argument that maybe people are speaking incorrectly, then you should take one of these rules and explain why it is a good and natural rule of English, why we should actually follow it.

How do you justify new rules that seek to correct long standing language practices, ones that, long ago, served language well and continue to serve language well?

"Correction" of children's language often involves repressing grammatical rules by introducing exceptions.
E.g Two mailmans --> two mailmen.

Now if you want to go ahead and use "prescription" to mean only those grammatical rules that you don't like, that's fine. It's humpty-dumptyism on your part, but at least I'll understand you.

It's not on JTT's part, you've happened onto the inherent contradictions in descriptive linguistics. Basically, prescriptions are rules that descriptivists decide are not real representations of the use of the language.

It's not exactly what they "like" but it's not much better, it's what they consider "real". And I'll note that when they decide what is a real rule and what is a prescriptive rule they are not very different in practice from proscriptive linguists because there are plenty of people who say "me want cookie" and they are deciding that this particular register is not legitimate.

January 26, 2005

"EVERYTHING IS CORRECT" VERSUS "NOTHING IS RELEVANT"

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What's so interesting is that it is quite clear Zink [Robert] cannot see any possibility of a position other than two extremes: on the left, that all honest efforts at uttering sentences are ipso facto correct; and on the right, that rules of grammar have an authority that derives from something independent of what any users of the language actually do.

But there had better be a third position, because these two extreme ones are both utterly insane.

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001843.html

Right you are, Robert.

I've always thought that a phrase such as "me no can stop drinking" makes far more sense, linguistically, then "I cannot stop drinking." Yet I'm sure both the descriptivists and prescriptivists would be on the same side against me on this.

The long and the short of it is that a descrptivist describes what he/she hears and then prescribes that as the "correct" construct.

Basically, you don't know what you're talking about. But do go ahead and prove your point.