Prescriptivism. Flashcards
Define perscriptivism.
Prescriptivism offers an extreme view of language change, suggesting that a language should be preserved and fixed. Those holding a prescriptivist viewpoint make judgements about ‘correct’ usage, identifying ‘good’ and ‘bad’ examples of language.
Outline Jean Aitchison 1996: The language Web.
Aitchison takes on a prescriptivist view and has three views on language:
The damp spoon.
The crumbling castle.
Infectious disease.
Outline the Damp spoon (Aitchison).
This view suggests that language change is caused by sloppiness or laziness.
Outline the crumbling castle (Aitchison).
This view sees language as needing to be preserved; the English language has been gradually and carefully created until it has reached the pinnacle of splendour. This view presupposes that a rigid system is better than a flexible one.
Outline the Infection disease (Aitchison).
This view suggests that we ‘catch’ change from those around us. Social contact is the driving force for language change, but people pick up change because they want to, so it should not be seen as a force we are powerless to resist.
Define complaint tradition.
A tradition of complaining about the state of language.
Define declinism.
The idea that language is in constant decline.
Outline Donald Mackinnon 1996.
Mackinnon suggests that language can be seen as:
Correct or incorrect.
Pleasant or ugly.
Socially acceptable or socially unacceptable.
Morally acceptable or morally unacceptable.
Appropriate or inappropriate in their context.
Useful to us or useless.
Outline Lindsay Johns: Language is Power.
Johns argument is that language is power, and that by using slang rather than standard English, young people in Britain’s urban centres are in danger of doing themselves a disservice when it comes to participating in the world of university and jobs. These sentiments show a common sense attitude towards the fact that we live in a society in which there is more or less broadly recognisable standard form of the language, and this is the form that is expected to be used in situations such as job interviews, college applications and so on.
Outline Robert Lane Greene’s: you are what you speak.
Greene argues that we both worship the power of language and approach it with fear. We think the way we speak is inimitable and superior, and that our language is the clearest outward sign of who we are. These two beliefs taken together form a secular religion of language today - and make language an inviting target for mythmaking and manipulation. He also is a firm believer in diclinism, and takes the view that English is an irreversible decline from a once-great peak.
