Curzan and Adams Chapter 2

Question 1

lexicographers

Answer 1

creators of dictionaries; goal to describe usage rather than legislate it

Question 1

language columnists

Answer 1

often attempt to distinguish between good and bad usage

Question 2

standard English

Answer 2

the variety most widely accepted and understood within an English-speaking country or throughout the English-speaking world

Question 3

style

Answer 3

the use of “good English”; language used effectively for clarity, appropriateness, and aesthetic appeal

Question 4

perscriptivists

Answer 4

usually language pundits

Question 5

descriptivists

Answer 5

usually linguists and lexicographers

Question 6

prescriptive rules

Answer 6

establish and enforce what we should say or write according to established notions of good and bad, right and wrong; these rules judge the correctness of utterances and try to enforce one formal norm

Question 7

descriptive rules

Answer 7

attempt to model speakers’ linguistic competence and performance, what speakers know about a language and how they actually use it; generally associated with the spoken language

Question 8

hypercorrection

Answer 8

an attempt to speak correctly that results in a supposed “error”

Question 9

corpora

Answer 9

large electronic text databases which students and scholars of language can search systematically in order to examine language in use

Question 10

corpus linguistics

Answer 10

the systematic, empirical study of language based on “real life” examples of language use, written and spoken