Self-study
P1
Grammarians of the prescriptive school take it as part of their task to distinguish correct from incorrect usage in language and thereby to encourage the former. ████ ███████ ████ ██ ██ █████ ████ ████ ██ █████████ ████ ██ ██████████ █ ██████████ ████████ ████████ ████ ███████ ████ █████████ ███
Prescriptivists ·
Distinguish correct from incorrect language use
Prescriptivists want to encourage correct use.
Descriptivists ·
Describe actual usage
Descriptivists just want to describe how language is used. They think prescriptivists will fail to stop “incorrect” use.
Example ·
Supporting Descriptivists
“Data” is used as a singular noun rather than plural. That's one example of usage judged by prescriptivists to be incorrect, but over time has come to be accepted.
P2
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Descriptivists' Objection 1 ·
Scientific objection (language transformation inevitable)
Descriptivists object that language change is governed by laws similar to scientific laws. Prescriptivists can’t change them.
Descriptivists' Objection 2 ·
Egalitarian objection (imposing elite standards on language)
Descriptivists object that prescriptivists are immorally trying to impose their own language practices, which are those of the educated and rich elite.
P3
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Prescriptivists' Counter to 1 ·
Language laws not like science
Prescriptivists counter that laws governing language aren’t like scientific laws. We can influence language usage.
Prescriptivists' Counter to 2 ·
Inclusive aims of prescriptivists
Prescriptivists say that having a “correct” usage is important for free exchange of ideas. The goal of prescriptivists is to include, not exclude.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
10.
The passage indicates that which ███ ██ ███ █████████ █████ ██ ████ ██ ████████████████
a
The constant change ████ ████████ █████████ ██████ ██ ████████ ██ ███████ ███ ███ █████████
If anything, prescriptivists would oppose change. They believe in correct usage and want people to either stick with that or change their language to conform to that. But no more changes are necessary after people reach correct usage.
b
The study of ████████ ██ ███ █ ██████████ ████████████
The passage never states this as one of the prescriptivists’ views. (B) might be tempting because we know that prescriptivists don’t think that laws of language transformation are like scientific laws. But “laws of language transformation” is different from “the study of language.” Prescriptivists could very well agree that the study of language is a scientific undertaking – we may want to use scientific methods to study how people use language. Prescriptivists aren’t necessarily opposed to studying language in this way. They would just want to make sure that we try to encourage correct usage.
c
A word's origins ██████ ██████ ███ ███████ ██████
d
Laws do not ██████ ███ ██████████████ ██ █████████
(D) might be tempting because we know that the prescriptivists do not believe that the laws of language transformation are like scientific laws. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t believe in the existence of language transformation laws at all. They could accept that such laws exist, but simply think that those laws are not like scientific laws. In other words, they are laws that can be changed and influenced by people.
e
Morality is not ██ █████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ████████ ██████
We don’t know what the prescriptivists think about morality. We know that, according to the egalitarian argument of the descriptivists, the prescriptivists’ attempt to police language use is immoral. But that’s the descriptivists’ opinion. It doesn’t tell us what prescriptivists think about morality and its relationship to studying language usage.