- NEW!
by ThrtyisScrtch on March 5th, 2009
That's actually not a very good answer, pardon my saying so but, Radulski has overlooked the fact that language, is a natural, essential, and (most importantly )communication tool, and can therefore, NEVER be reduced to nonsense...Someone, somewhere must understand it, i.e. reinforce the speaker, so that he will continue to speak it. Secondly, language IS malleable, desriptively so. All attempts to place regulations or guidelines on language (by scholars or any other trend setter), in the attempt to make all speaker of that language strictly adhere to those prescriptive rules, have failed. But no matter how much speakers have deviated from the "standard or recognized" forms of their mother tongue, they have NEVER, fallen into unintelligibility (meaning that they just started speaking a language that noone could decipher)... I, as you may have surmised am support the descriptive views of linguistics... not necessarily because I want to (slang gets under my skin too) but because it simply is a better way to observe something as dynamic as language. I mean, just because we fail to recognize certain changes, doesn't mean they didn't happen.
by jade310 on August 15th, 2009
I go for descriptive linguistics, because it's so much more interesting to me to observe how things really are, as opposed to trying to squeeze things into a set of rules. For me, that's the beauty of language--you can just watch it develop and grow!
by Tom 47 is back in his bear COAT on March 1st, 2008
Who, me? I am just reading and waiting for other answers....(?) Would "prescription" allow for easier translation from one language to another? And does "description" mean idioms and nuances run rampant, creating a translator's nightmare?
by Radulski on March 1st, 2008
That's a hard one. Description allows language to continue to be a malleable, 'living' thing... Still, too much can leave the world speaking nothing but nonsense.
What is the repetition of vowel sounds called?
by Answerbag Staff on April 15th, 2010
| 1 person likes this
Do U.S Southerners realize to foreigners they are "YANKS" as well?
by -O-uknow on December 31st, 2010
| 2 people like this
bored. what should do?
by da truth on January 8th, 2011
| 1 person likes this
Q about the linking r rule; does it apply to proper names? My teach says it does, but I have never heard an example of this in conversation.
by Annette_F8752 on December 10th, 2010
| 1 person likes this
So does the word 'terrorist' now mean anyone who challenges the status quo?
by r i p facebook on December 10th, 2010
| 3 people like this
You're reading In linguistics, are you more for prescription or description?
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Comments
ThrtyisScrtch: thank you very much for your answer!
by iwnit on March 5th, 2009