Prescribing and

Describing: Popular and

Academic Views of
"Correctness"
Children’s language at home and school

Theory: “language as viewed by “the expert”. Practice:
“language as everyone’s lived experience”. Children
Language at Home and School Children speak
idiosyncratically (a strange or unusual habit that someone
has), for example, an American kid growing in an English-
speaking family would say words incorrectly, he would try
to pronounce them correctly, but he won’t do it like adults
do.
Children’s language at home and
school 

At school, children are expected to use, pronounce and

write words correctly because they’re being taught to do so.
“The child’s success will depend upon the results”.
Sometimes the student’s errors come from their houses
because their family members speak that way, so school
and house does not have the same point of view always.
People often change the spelling of words such as “thanx”
instead of “thanks or thank you”, adults disapprove this
even when they use them.
Children’s language at home and
school 
Within the school context by far the most controversial as
pect of this situation involves the relationship or the stand
ard form of the language to dialects. The standard is gene
rally is used in written communication, thought in schools,
and confidied in dictionaries and grammar books.Dialects
are regional and social class varieties of the languages w
hich differ from the standard in pronunciation, grammar,
and vocabulary, and are seldom written down at all. The
teaching of the standard can be viewed in two quite contr
adictory ways.
Children’s language at home and
school

In Bernstein’s view, the language used in some
sections of society is a restricted code which la
cks the full resources of the more elaborated co
de of the standard. Not surprisingly, this view h
as been hotly contested by others who argue th
at all varieties are equally complex, functional,
and expressive.
Children’s language at home and
school 
Schools are a good barometer of both language use and s
ocial values, and their approach to teaching the national
language or languages, which is much the same all over
the world, arises from language is subject to enormous
variation.
There are differences between individuals, social groups,
generations, and nations, and language is used differently
in speech and writing, and in formal and informal
situations.
Children’s language at home and
school

The second fact is that many people are intolerant of this
variation. The struggle for a single ‘standard’ way of usin
g the language and care very deeply about achieving this
norm.
Description versus prescription


The academic discipline charged with the study of language. Decisive

and authoritative judgments can be found. Linguistics tend to favor
description (saying what does happen) over prescription (saying what
ought to happen) and argue that, from a linguistics point of view the
standard is neither superior nor more stable than any other variety.
To justify their views they point to such facts as the following :-
Description versus prescription

1. if there was never any deviation from the norm then languages
would never change. We would all still by saying ‘wherefore art you?
Instead of ‘why are you?’
2. if single standard was absolute and unassailable then regional
standards would never gain independence. Webster’s American
Dictionary of the English Language would have the same standing as
a bad piece of school work, and would be as incorrect to write colour in
Washington in London.
Description versus prescription

3. Dialects have their own consistent rule governed grammars
every bit as complex and expressive as those of standard forms.
4. The standard form of a language is often very similar to the
usage of the most economically and politically powerful class or
region.
5. The grammar of written language differs considerably from that of
speech, even among speakers whose variety is closest to the standard
and writing carries more prestige and authority.
Description versus prescription

6. some supposedly correct forms have been invented and imposed
by grammarians through analogy with another language.
Academic do not have a monopoly either on knowledge or on rational
argument. The same is true in many analogous domains for example
medicine, nutrition, or childcare where everyday activity, vital to
people’s well being, is also the subject of academic research. While
there is force in descriptivist arguments, there are also valid
reservations to be made about them:
Description versus prescription

1. To talk about a language at all, there must be some preexisting
notion of what does and does not count as an example.
Descriptivists may accept, as instances, some examples of dialectal
forms which hard-line prescriptixists would exclude, but there are alway
s others-from another language for example-which they reject.
2. In deciding what does count as an example of the language
linguistics often base their decisions upon native-speaker use or
judgment.
Description versus prescription

3. Despite descriptivists insistence on the equality of all varieties, it
is nevertheless the standard which is most often used in their analyses
while other varieties are described as departures from it.
4. If linguistics are concerned with describing and explaining facts
about language, then the widespread belief in prescriptivism, and the
effect of this of this beliefs on language use, itself a fact about
language which needs describing and explaining.
5. Paradoxically, to advocate description and outlaw prescription is it
self prespective.
An applied linguistics perspective

There is clearly material here for a head-on collision- and this indeed is
what regularly happens when the two sides exchange influenced either
by appeals to logic or to evidence. This is because adherence to one
side or the other is often as much emotional and ideological as rational.
Descriptivists, on the one hand, are passionate believers in
an objective science of language; prescriptivists, on the other, feeling
that their very identity and heritage is at stake, have an equally strong
desire to impose conformity.
An applied linguistics perspective


Given the incompatibility of the two views, it is unrealistic that people
holding either will simply make way for the other. To make any
headway, applied linguistics has the very difficult task of trying to find
points of contact in the contrary views so that necessary decisions can
be made.
An applied linguistics perspective

The first step is to recognize that, as points of view, they cam be taken
as different perceptions which need not be seen as competing
alternatives. Thus it is unquestionably the case, as descriptivists tell
us, that all language varies, that all language carries markers of social
identity, and that there is no way of establishing the relative superiority
of a form of speaking on linguistic grounds. When varieties are preferre
d or stigmatized it can only be for sociopolitical or ideological reasons.
Thank You