Linguistic prescription

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Linguistic prescription[a] is the establishment of rules defining preferred usage of language,[1][2] including rules of spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Linguistic prescriptivism may aim to establish a standard language, teach what a particular society or sector of a society perceives as a correct or proper form, or advise on effective and stylistically apt communication. If usage preferences are conservative, prescription might appear resistant to language change; if radical, it may produce neologisms.[3] Such prescription may be motivated by attempts to improve the consistency of language to make it more "logical"; to improve the rhetorical effectiveness of speakers; to align with the prescriber's aesthetics or personal preference; to impose linguistic purity on a language by removing foreign influences;[4] or to avoid causing offense (i.e. for etiquette or political correctness).[5]

Prescriptive approaches to language are often contrasted with the descriptive approach of academic linguistics, which observes and records how language is actually used (while avoiding passing judgment).[6][7] The basis of linguistic research is text (corpus) analysis and field study, both of which are descriptive activities. Description may also include researchers' observations of their own language usage. In the Eastern European linguistic tradition, the discipline dealing with standard language cultivation and prescription is known as "language culture" or "speech culture".[8][9]

Despite being apparent opposites, prescriptive and descriptive approaches have a certain degree of conceptual overlap[10] as comprehensive descriptive accounts must take into account and record existing speaker preferences, and a prior understanding of how language is actually used is necessary for prescription to be effective. Since the mid-20th century some dictionaries and style guides, which are prescriptive works by nature, have increasingly integrated descriptive material and approaches. Examples of guides updated to add more descriptive material include Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1961) and the third edition Garner's Modern English Usage (2009) in English, or the Nouveau Petit Robert (1993)[11] in French. A partially descriptive approach can be especially useful when approaching topics of ongoing conflict between authorities, or in different dialects, disciplines, styles, or registers. Other guides, such as The Chicago Manual of Style, are designed to impose a single style and thus remain primarily prescriptive (as of 2017).

Some authors define "prescriptivism" as the concept where a certain language variety is promoted as linguistically superior to others, thus recognizing the standard language ideology as a constitutive element of prescriptivism or even identifying prescriptivism with this system of views.[12][13] Others, however, use this term in relation to any attempts to recommend or mandate a particular way of language usage (in a specific context or register), without, however, implying that these practices must involve propagating the standard language ideology.[14][15] According to another understanding, the prescriptive attitude is an approach to norm-formulating and codification that involves imposing arbitrary rulings upon a speech community,[16] as opposed to more liberal approaches that draw heavily from descriptive surveys;[17][18] in a wider sense, however, the latter also constitute a form of prescriptivism.[8]

Mate Kapović makes a distinction between "prescription" and "prescriptivism", defining the former as "a process of codification of a certain variety of language for some sort of official use", and the latter as "an unscientific tendency to mystify linguistic prescription".[19]


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  1. ^ Crystal, David (2008). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (6th ed.). Blackwell. p. 384. ISBN 978-1-4051-5296-9.
  2. ^ Matthews, Peter Hugoe (2007). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. p. 316. ISBN 978-0-19-920272-0.
  3. ^ "What is Purism in Language?".
  4. ^ Walsh, Olivia (2016). Linguistic Purism: Language Attitudes in France and Quebec. John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 8–9. ISBN 978-90-272-6673-6.
  5. ^ Jeffrey Reaser; Carolyn Temple Adger; Walt Wolfram; Donna Christian (2017). Dialects at School: Educating Linguistically Diverse Students. Taylor & Francis. p. 117. ISBN 978-1-317-67898-4.
  6. ^ McArthur (1992), p. 286 entry for "Descriptivism and prescriptivism" quotation: "Contrasting terms in linguistics."
  7. ^ Moch. Syarif Hidayatullah (2017). Cakrawala Linguistik Arab (Edisi Revisi) (in Indonesian). Gramedia Widiasarana Indonesia. pp. 5–6, 18. ISBN 978-602-452-369-5.
  8. ^ a b Markowski, Andrzej. "Językoznawstwo normatywne dziś i jutro: stan, zadania, szanse, zagrożenia". Konferencje i dyskusje naukowe (in Polish). Polish Language Council. Retrieved 2019-02-22.
  9. ^ "Speech Culture". The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (3rd ed.). 1970–1979.
  10. ^ Cameron, Deborah (2012). Verbal Hygiene. Routledge Linguistics Classics. ISBN 978-0415696005.
  11. ^ (Heinz 2003)
  12. ^ Annabelle Mooney; Betsy Evans (2018). Language, Society and Power: An Introduction. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-82339-8.
  13. ^ Kapović, Mate (2013). "Jezik i konzervativizam". In Vuković, Tvrtko; Kolanović, Maša (eds.). Komparativni postsocijalizam: slavenska iskustva (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagrebačka slavistička škola. pp. 391–400. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
  14. ^ Kliffer, Michael D. "Quality of language": The changing face of Quebec prescriptivism (PDF). McMaster University. p. 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-01-08. Retrieved 2018-11-09.
  15. ^ McIntyre, John (1 September 2011). "Prescription for prescriptivists". Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on 6 January 2020. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
  16. ^ Kordić, Snježana (2006). "Sprache und Nationalismus in Kroatien" [Language and Nationalism in Croatia] (PDF). In Symanzik, Bernhard (ed.). Studia Philologica Slavica: Festschrift für Gerhard Birkfellner zum 65. Geburtstag gewidmet von Freunden, Kollegen und Schülern: Teilband I. Münstersche Texte zur Slavistik, vol. 4 (in German). Berlin: Lit. pp. 339–347. ISBN 3-8258-9891-1. OCLC 315818880. SSRN 3438896. CROSBI 426593. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 June 2012. Retrieved 4 January 2013.
  17. ^ Jezierska, Beata (2016). Frazeologizmy w polskich przekładach współczesnej prozy francuskiej (na wybranych przykładach) (in Polish). Poznań: Wydział Filologii Polskiej i Klasycznej: Instytut Filologii Polskiej. pp. 97–99. hdl:10593/14690.
  18. ^ Kordić, Snježana (2018) [1st pub. 2010]. Jezik i nacionalizam [Language and Nationalism] (PDF). Rotulus Universitas (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb: Durieux. pp. 57–68. doi:10.2139/ssrn.3467646. ISBN 978-953-188-311-5. LCCN 2011520778. OCLC 729837512. OL 15270636W. S2CID 220918333. CROSBI 475567. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 6 April 2022.
  19. ^ Kapović, Mate (April 2014). "Ideology in Grammar" (PDF). Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg: 8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 December 2023. Retrieved 14 December 2023.