Prescriptivism - An approach that sets out rules
for what is regarded as correct in language and when those rules are broken,
mistakes happen. Some examples of prescriptivist rules are: Don't end a
sentence with a preposition, don't split infinitives, don't use the passive
voice and don't use the pronoun 'I' in object position. The rules aren't
restricted to grammar and can also concern spelling and punctuation.
Well known
prescriptivists - Robert Lowth,
John Humphrys, Lynne Truss
John
Humphrys - A well known
prescriptivist, who compared the misuse of an apostrophe as ‘vandalism’. He
said, “Unless you get into the habit of being precise, you will be open to
misunderstanding.” He argues that we must safeguard grammar and clarity in an
age of texting, slang and hype. He argues that texters are "vandals who are doing to our
language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours 800 years ago. They are
destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our
vocabulary. And they must be stopped."
Descriptivism
- The idea that a language is
defined by what people do with it and seek to describe objectively what people
do with it. They do not subscribe to correct and incorrect language use.
Well known
descriptivists - Jean Aitchison, David Crystal
David
Crystal - He created his own Tide
Metaphor to explain language change. In this, he suggests that
language is like a tide – constantly changing. It ebbs and flows, bringing in
new words and taking out others in a natural, progressive way. In using this
metaphor, Crystal claims that changes are not for the worse, or for the better.
“Just changes,” he says.
