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    Attitudes Towards Variation and Change

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    Shanwaz Sajad
    There are two main attitudes towards language change: prescriptivism and descriptivism. Prescriptivists believe in rules defining correct language usage and disapprove of violations. Descriptivists objectively describe how language is used without judgments of correctness. An example is the debate over double negatives, which prescriptivists view as illogical but descriptivists see as emphasis. Well-known linguists Jean Aitchison and David Crystal argue language naturally evolves over time through tide-like changes rather than decaying or spreading as a disease as prescriptivists claim.

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    Attitudes Towards Variation and Change

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    Shanwaz Sajad
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    There are two main attitudes towards language change: prescriptivism and descriptivism. Prescriptivists believe in rules defining correct language usage and disapprove of violations. Descriptivists objectively describe how language is used without judgments of correctness. An example is the debate over double negatives, which prescriptivists view as illogical but descriptivists see as emphasis. Well-known linguists Jean Aitchison and David Crystal argue language naturally evolves over time through tide-like changes rather than decaying or spreading as a disease as prescriptivists claim.

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    There are two main attitudes towards language change: prescriptivism and descriptivism. Prescriptivists believe in rules defining correct language usage and disapprove of violations. Descriptivists objectively describe how language is used without judgments of correctness. An example is the debate over double negatives, which prescriptivists view as illogical but descriptivists see as emphasis. Well-known linguists Jean Aitchison and David Crystal argue language naturally evolves over time through tide-like changes rather than decaying or spreading as a disease as prescriptivists claim.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    23 views2 pages

    Attitudes Towards Variation and Change

    Uploaded by

    Shanwaz Sajad
    There are two main attitudes towards language change: prescriptivism and descriptivism. Prescriptivists believe in rules defining correct language usage and disapprove of violations. Descriptivists objectively describe how language is used without judgments of correctness. An example is the debate over double negatives, which prescriptivists view as illogical but descriptivists see as emphasis. Well-known linguists Jean Aitchison and David Crystal argue language naturally evolves over time through tide-like changes rather than decaying or spreading as a disease as prescriptivists claim.

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    Attitudes towards variation and change...

    There are two main attitudes to language change - ‘prescriptivist’ and ‘descriptivist’.
    Descriptivists seek to describe, (objectively) how language is used. They do not
    subscribe to ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ language use. (This is the approach that English
    Language students should take). Prescriptivists favour rules that identify ‘correct’
    language usage. They disapprove of uses of language that breaks these rules.

    An example of these behaviours in action is in the use of double negatives. Jean


    Aitchison, an avid descriptivist, suggests that the use of double negatives is merely a
    means of emphasising a point. She states that, in other languages, the illogicalness of
    the statement is ignored and the multiple use of negatives just goes to enforce the idea
    further. In contrast, prescriptivists would argue that by using double negatives, you are
    expressing a positive. They view language in a logical manner.

    John Humphrys (Radio 4 presenter) is a well known prescriptivist, who compared the
    misuse of an apostrophe as ‘vandalism’. He said, “Unless you get into the habit of
    being precise, you will be open to misunderstanding.” This is a common prescriptivist
    view. Lynne Truss (author of ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves’) has a similar perspective,
    calling it, in The Telegraph, an ‘apostrophe catastrophe’. “I am popularly supposed to
    be the sort of person who regularly upbraids the illiterate,” she said.

    As previously stated, Professor Jean Aitchison is a descriptivist. In ‘The Language


    Web’ and also in the BBC Reith Lectures in 1996, she attacks the prescriptivist view
    by presenting three language myths that she feels are false:

    The Crumbling Castle myth suggests that English was a once great castle, but over
    time it has decayed and crumbled into the sea. She states this is false because the
    description of English as a ‘once fine language ‘ is a particularly inaccurate one, as
    language is constantly changing and evolving. “No year,” she said, “can be found
    when language achieved some peak of perfection.”

    The Damp Spoon myth suggests that ‘bad English’ sticks to people who are lazy and
    passive. The laziness is reflected by the people that put the damp spoon into the sugar
    bowl. Aitchison, though, states that “the only lazy speech is drunken speech” and that
    speaking quickly, for example, isn’t a sign of laziness – it is anything but.

    The Infectious Disease myth suggests that ‘bad English’ is like a horrible disease, like
    herpes, that spreads from person to person. We have no control or vaccine. It is
    coming to get you! Aitchison suggests that the idea that changes are ‘caught’ and
    ‘spread’ is technically correct, but it is no disease. People pick up changes in language
    because they want to.

    Similarly, David Crystal, language extraordinaire, shares the same perspective as


    Aitchison. He created his own Tide Metaphor to explain language change. In this, he
    suggests that language is like a tide – constantly changing. It ebbs and flows, bringing
    in new words and taking out others in a natural, progressive way. In using this
    metaphor, Crystal claims that changes are not for the worse, or for the better. “Just
    changes,” he says.

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