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How do people here land on the subject of "prescriptive linguistics"? I personally find myself getting irritated at people putting down prescriptive linguistics. For the past 10 years, anyone who tells someone they're not using certain words correctly gets shut down as a prescriptive linguist. I'm reminded of an SSC post
I feel like the same applies for "prescriptive linguistics", it's basically a cudgel, a way of telling someone to die in a fire.
Charitably, people justify this argument by saying that linguistics is a descriptive science, so there's no place to be prescriptive. In their mind, linguistics is meant to just describe how people use language, not tell people how to use it.
Uncharitably, I think this sounds like a general push towards post modernism, a pushback on the notion that there's any correct way to do anything. They're not just against prescriptive linguists, they're against prescriptive anything.
In an anti-prescriptivist mindset, someone may use prescriptive linguistics as a cudgel to shut down alternate ways of expression, and (of course) enforce colonial and white supremecist standards on unprivileged minorities. This especially comes up in conversations about double negatives, which are commonly used in various low-class English variants, like ebonics.
I might push back on anti-prescriptivists by saying, many people who try to enforce grammar rules not a linguistic scientists, but people who are trying to enforce sense in their worlds. Therefore, they're not prescriptive linguists; they're not even linguists! They're people living in the world and using language as a tool, and they want that tool to be as effective as possible.
It's not their sacred duty to simply understand language no matter what, so don't call them a prescriptive linguist. When I tell someone not to use the word "literally" as emphasis, it's because I'm finding that the word literally is less useful than it used to be, and I want to combat that. Nowadays there is no word that accurately works in as an antonym for "figuratively"; the meaning is muddled and unclear because people have watered down the definition of literally to be something else.
I also sense there may be political aspects to the use of the word "prescriptive linguistics". relating to Noam Chomsky's history in the field and his political affiliations, but I don't know enough about that to comment. I'm interested if anyone here has info on this.
A lot of the more obnoxious prescriptivism came from elites who wanted to impose (imagined) Latin grammatical structures on English. Entirely status and in-group signaling, and totally contrary to English as spoken by anyone at the time.
Recognizing that AAVE has its own consistent structures doesn't mean you can't teach SAE. But it's kind of important to recognize that it's a shibboleth to indicate education level and class membership. That way you know that someone who says nucular is an outsider and therefore an enemy (if only by virtue of the fact that they're choosing to use the vernacular of the enemy).
SAE is not merely a shibboleth. Keeping language variation small enough that mutual intelligibility is largely maintained is an important practical goal.
Languages naturally diverge over time. To counteract this, you need some kind of central coordination to act as a centripetal force. I don't trust any group to police language in a way that doesn't betray their own parochial biases. And, in particular, I don't trust the people who today have the power to police Proper English not to mangle it even more than they already have as a display of raw power.
It's better to let individuals use language in whatever way that's most useful to them. Those who want to participate in the broader consolidated market can naturally learn to code switch to the dialect they need to.
To be clear, I don't think you have any obligation to try to communicate with people using dialects that are grating.
And this is generally bad, as it makes communication more difficult.
Indeed. And some of those groups (like the woke, and AAVE speakers demanding other blacks not "talk white") are going to try. So the other groups better try too, or they're just going to get wiped off the language map.
I think we've arrived at the reason why so many hegemonic empires choose a prestige dialect with few or no native speakers- Latin, Mandarin, Koine, etc.
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Your claim is that SAE is in danger of being wiped off the language map?
Not "Standard American English", the living dialect. But the version spoken today, yes.
Yeah, I guarantee that all dialects spoken today will be unrecognizable in a few hundred years except for those fortunate languages who are already dead, that being the only real way for a language to endure unchanged.
Shakespearean English is recognizable today. And I'm talking about dialect, not accent. And I'm not talking about a few hundred years, but a few decades. Your post is just a smokescreen.
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It makes communication between groups more difficult. But it makes communication inside the group and communication of who is in the group easier. Which of those is more useful or valuable is largely dependent on what you're valuing and circumstances.
If everyone in the world spoke perfect English only then communication would be easier. But we would certainly have lost something of value I think.
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