prescriptivism vs descriptivism

Question 1

What are some of the common metaphors about language change?

Answer 1

• Broken (needs protecting)
• Diseased (needs defending)
• decaying (being polluted)
• scavenger (killing other langs)
• metaphors work to make us think ‘traditional’ English is under threat or at risk.

Question 2

What is prescriptivist?

Answer 2

• The attitude that language should have a strict set of rules. Language should be preserved and fixed.

Question 3

What is descriptivism?

Answer 3

• Language change should be acknowledged and recorded, rather than judged and corrected.

Question 4

What are the common beliefs of prescriptivists?

Answer 4

• preserve standard forms, condemning ‘irregular’ use.
• consider RP and standard English as superior.
• commonly disagree with:
  
  • American spellings ‘colour’
  • beginning sentences with conjunctions; ending with prepositions
  • grammatical conversion (‘text’ as in the noun and verb).