Prescriptive vs. Descriptive

1. Prescriptive vs. Descriptive Attitudes toward grammar

2. 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

3. Prescriptive (traditional) approach This attitude evinces complete disregard for the way a community actually speaks

4. 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

5. Prescriptive grammar Examples of common prescriptive rules • 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

6. 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

7. Which is “correct”? • Buy bought/boughten • Spell spelled/spelt • Forecast forecast/forecasted • Shave shaved/shaven • Dive dove/dived • Drag dragged/drug • Spell spelled/spelt

8. Which is correct? • Are people who use other forms stupid? • Are they socially undesirable? • Why do we think so?

9. Descriptive VS. Prescriptive grammar Descriptive approach: • Observe principles that describe the way the language is actually spoken

10. Descriptive approach • The goal of the descriptive approach is a description and knowledge of rules (principles) of how the language is actually spoken

11. Descriptive grammar 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”

12. 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?

13. Linguistic competence Linguistic competence: • knowledge of our language and ability (capacity) to produce utterances

14. 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

15. Linguistic competence • This involves our knowledge of how our language works

16. Linguistic competence • This knowledge can be observed and described, in the form of the speech that results from it • Thus descriptive grammar

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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