Differences Between Descriptive And Prescriptive Grammar

Author Bryan A. Garner, in his article “Making Peace in the Language Wars” (published in Garner’s Modern American Usage 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, 2009), seeks to negotiate a cease-fire between two fighting countries, the prescriptivists and the descriptivists, by dispelling myths about each of their camps. First and foremost, Garner outlines the war is happening between the lines of our favorite novels and poetry, and he describes what each camp stands for. Prescriptivists desire to instruct the world around them on how to use the language by enforcing, or at the very least informing the general public about the rules of grammar. They are sometimes described as conservative and are very concerned

“Authority and American Usage” written by David Foster Wallace, poses an argument about the English language, and the different beliefs of its usage. This essay was written in defense of Bryan A. Garner’s, A Dictionary of Modern American Usage. His argument in “Authority and American Usage” is the difference the between prescriptivism perception and the descriptivism perception (Linguistic terms that could easily be made into smaller, more understandable words for people like me). Since the beginning of time, language has evolved. From biblical times, to Shakespearean times, to present day; the English language has been continuously changing since it’s birth and has no intentions on stopping.

Every language has a grammar: a set of patterns and rules that we learn to use when we're reading.

Simon states “some people are pleased to call linguistic evolution was almost always a matter of ignorance prevailing over knowledge” (209). This statement shows the opposing view of the liberal -linguist. On the other hand, the other group of people the opposition of the liberal-linguist mentioned by Simon believe that “there is such thing as Standard English” (208). This makes the works of this article balanced and truthful. As a conservative, Simon wants individuals to preserve the English language and not just go with any fad that may come upon us. Henceforth, Simon wants us to teach ourselves and he stresses training yourself. Though Simon presents favoritism toward what he describes as the minority or the conservatives. “we are here… to arrest unnecessary change” (209). He accurately reveals the two viewpoints regarding good English usage.

The second level grammatical-rhetorical analysis aims to investigate the relationship between grammatical choice and rhetorical function in written English for science and technology. Discourse analysis as interaction represents the third level of language description. Most importantly, interactional analysis outlines the concept of interpretation of discourse by the reader or listener. Discourse analysis appears to have steadily moved from surface-level analysis to a deeper description of language use. However, in the context of language teaching for specific purposes, applied discourse analysis seems to represent a rather narrow description of language in use and is inadequate in its explanation. In order to introduce a thick description of language in use, it is necessary to combine socio-cultural and psycholinguistic aspects of text-construction and interpretation with linguistic insights to answer the question: why are specific discourse-genres written and used by the specialist communities the way they are? Genre analysis as an insightful description of English for specific purpose texts has become a useful and powerful tool to arrive at significant form-function correlations which can be utilized for a number of applied linguistic purposes.

A piece of writing is much more than just words on a page. Just as a potter carefully molds and carves every detail and shape into a piece of art, so does a writer. Each comma, dash, antecedent, and fragment is picked cautiously. Each grammatical choice brings to pass a different rhetorical effect creating an irreplaceable and unique piece of art filled with fine detail. Rhetorical grammar is the clay of a potter. One must have it to begin and it has a variety of options to choose from. A person’s ability to understand and use grammar is as the technique owned by the craftsmen. Just as clay can be brittle and weak, so can grammar if used incorrectly or not to its best ability. The most amazing work is not made simply by chance but because of

I will start with a journey through a hellacious class focused around grammar. Coming into the WCSCC as a 12th grader, I was astonished at how little skill I had when it came to grammar. It still boggles my mind that it took twelve years of school before I met a teacher who really, really cared about how I composed my sentences. She wanted us to know what adjectives, prepositions, nouns, pronouns, and run on sentences were. However, she knew we didn’t. On the first day of class, she made the

Reading chapter six from Beyond Grammar Language, Power, and the Classroom, written by Mary R. Harmon and Marilyn J. Wilson has open my eyes not to base peoples’ language off from standard American English because everyone has a different dialect depending on their culture. I am going to be more mindful of peoples’ dialect, and not be quick to judge a person based on their language because a person's language is what makes that individual unique. Instead, I am going to embrace the different dialects and use them as an advantage when teaching a classroom

Teachers creatively “dress up” as a component of grammar and “act out” its function. The website https://www.weareteachers.com/grammar-fun/ provides the following examples of costumes with actions that demonstrate grammatical

The Language Wars have been waged in the realm of English Literature, Language and Linguistics for years. Both sides of the argument are staunch believers in their position, but are more than willing to concede points to the other sides’ favour. In Bryan A. Garner’s essay, “Making Peace in the Language Wars”, he describes himself as a ‘descriptive prescriber’ (Garner, Making Peace in the Language Wars 2008, 270), and offers a truce that fulfils both sides of the argument as the crux of his essay. While the separate sides of the argument are relatively easy to define, it seems that no one sticks to them religiously, and the argument is between individuals fighting over individual points. The two sides are that of the descriptivist and that

Ever wonder how good grammar can lead to success? Think about it like this, say you just sent an essay to the college of your dreams, and you’ve worked on that essay for weeks fixing it, making sure the grammar is perfect. Finally the letter you been waiting for is here, and you’re so nervous and scared to see what it says. Once you open it you see that you’ve gotten accepted, and they’re amazed with the grammar used in your essay, and that they’ll love having someone with that good of a grammar at their college. Good grammar doesn’t only lead to good success, but great opportunities in life which is better for our future.

It is not uncommon to say that grammar instruction plays an important role in language teaching. Regarding the status and importance of grammar teaching, a variety of opinions have been made. Batstone (1994) states that “language without grammar would be chaotic: countless words without the indispensable guidelines for how they can be ordered and modified” (p. 4). More vividly, Wang (2010) makes two similes. She compares grammar to the frame of a house, which is a decisive factor to ensure the solidness of it. Additionally, she regards grammar as a walking stick, whose function is to help and support students to learn English. Thus, the nature of grammar instruction manifests its own significance as it helps students

Larsen-Freeman (2001) as cited in Mart (2013), describes grammar as a system of meaningful structures and patterns that are governed by particular pragmatic constraints. This clearly indicates that grammar plays a crucial role in learning the target language. Grammar instruction is one of the most difficult issues that people have encountered in language learning and teaching. Therefore, the best way to overcome this issue is by

Specialists in descriptive grammar (linguists) examine the principles and patterns that underlie the use of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. In contrast, prescriptive

He seeks to find underlying similarities across these “distinct” languages, to construct a general theory of a singular language. However, it seems as though he cannot be scientifically vindicated without the groundwork being laid down by many of the authors that he is critical of. Thus, it is particularly interesting that Chomsky seems to be so at odds with the idea of descriptivism. When Chomsky says, “Grammar should not be merely a record of the data of usage, but, rather, should offer an explanation for such data,” (587) he is acknowledging the usefulness, presumably to his own theories, of descriptive linguistics. He in fact recognizes the debt he owes when he says, “To me, it seems that [structural linguistics'] major achievement is to have provided a factual and a methodological basis that makes it possible to return to the problems that occupied the traditional universal grammarians...” (590) But he goes on to say, “On the other hand, it seems to me that the substantive contributions to the theory of language structure are few, and that, to a large extent, the concepts of modern linguistics constitute a retrogression as compared with universal grammar.” (590) Where the descriptivists see an end, Chomsky sees only the means, and is somewhat dismissive of them.