6.1492, Disc: Prescriptivism

[The Linguist List]

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-6-1492. Wed Oct 25 1995. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines:  160
 
Subject: 6.1492, Disc: Prescriptivism
 
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---------------------------------Directory-----------------------------------
1)
Date:  Mon, 23 Oct 1995 21:24:05 EDT
From:  amr at CS.Wayne.EDU (Alexis Manaster Ramer)
Subject:  Re:  6.1489, Disc: Prescriptivism
 
2)
Date:  Tue, 24 Oct 1995 09:00:30 CDT
From:  CONNOLLY at MSUVX1.MEMPHIS.EDU
Subject:  Prescriptivism
 
3)
Date:  Tue, 24 Oct 1995 10:35:46 PDT
From:  toolan at u.washington.edu (Michael Toolan)
Subject:  Re: 6.1489, Disc: Prescriptivism
 
4)
Date:  Tue, 24 Oct 1995 16:48:35 EDT
From:  haig at aall.ufl.edu (Haig Der-Houssikian)
Subject:  6.1470,  Disc.  Prescriptivism
 
---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date:  Mon, 23 Oct 1995 21:24:05 EDT
From:  amr at CS.Wayne.EDU (Alexis Manaster Ramer)
Subject:  Re:  6.1489, Disc: Prescriptivism
 
I like Dick Hudson's way of focusing the discussion a lot.  But, aside
from the minor and almost irrelevant fact that some speakers, e.g., me,
might find both Dick's (1) Me and you ... and (2) You and I perfectly
good, what I am suggesting is precisely that the question of what
linguists believe in relation for patterns like (1) IS "a very difficult
question to answer", and that for two reasons:
 
(a) Although I was always taught that AS LINGUISTS we must describe
real usage and have no truck whatever with those who decry usages
like (1) as "incorrect", it seems to me now that there are first if
all many linguists who do not accept this doctrine of linguistic
equality or whatever we may call it at all, and that in any case
the involvement of linguists on a far grander scale than I had
suspected with prescriptive grammars and dictionaries means that
many more at least do not practice what the textbooks preach.
 
(b) I am not sure that the anti-prescriptivist doctrine is
in fact adequate as a presription for what we should believe
and how we should describe language, because, first of all,
notions of correctness are not as artificial as we are taught
(they are not just inventions of some irrelevant old schoolmarm
or traditional grammarian, at least not in general), and because
if speakers themselves believe in such notions, then that makes
them real in some sense.   Moreover, I have been noticing some
patterns cross-linguistically in what is considered correct and
incorrect which suggest that there is something beyond mere
convention in these cases.
 
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2)
Date:  Tue, 24 Oct 1995 09:00:30 CDT
From:  CONNOLLY at MSUVX1.MEMPHIS.EDU
Subject:  Prescriptivism
 
r.hudson at linguistics.ucl.ac.uk (Richard Hudson) wrote:
 
>Let's consider a concrete example of prescriptivism, the one raised by
>Leo Connolly:
>
>(1) Me and you can do it.
>
>For Leo this is on a par with 2+2=5, i.e. (presumably) simply wrong;
>on the other hand, he also makes the disclaimer that: `It is important
>that the schoolmarms insist on prestige English in the classroom --
>without insisting that it is somehow wrong or "ignorant" to use
>nonprestige forms on other occasions.' These views seem to me to
>conflict.
 
I did not mean them to conflict; my example was just poorly chosen.  I
meant to say that (1) is as wrong *in prestige usage* as 2+2=5 is in
normal math.  I did not mean to say that (1) was wrong in absolute
terms -- but my example certainly made it seem so.  Sorry for the
confusion I caused.
 
BTW, I have heard that it is possible to build a consistent
mathematics precisely on the proposition 2+2=5.  Not being a
mathematician, I have no idea whether that is true; but if it is, then
perhaps my example was not quite so bad as it seemd at first?
 
Regards
 
Leo A. Connolly                         Foreign Languages & Literatures
connolly at msuvx1.memphis.edu             University of Memphis
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3)
Date:  Tue, 24 Oct 1995 10:35:46 PDT
From:  toolan at u.washington.edu (Michael Toolan)
Subject:  Re: 6.1489, Disc: Prescriptivism
 
Dick Hudson, following Leo Connolly, remarks that 'Me and you' etc. as
Subject, deemed nonstandard, is like a different counting system in
which 2 + 2 = 5.  There's just no legitimate comparison of this, or
assessment of it, via the standard system in which Subj is 'You and I'
and 2+2=4.  Different horses, different courses, to be described
separately.  But isn't the crux of the issue the fact that, to extend
the arithmetical analogy, people who add 2 and 2 and get 4 are living
and working alongside people who add 2 and 2 and get 5?
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4) Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 16:48:35 EDT From: haig at aall.ufl.edu (Haig
Der-Houssikian) Subject: 6.1470, Disc.  Prescriptivism
 
The notion of "prescriptivism" comes across as a non issue in the
discipline of Linguistics.  Speech is a continuum from most formal to
least formal with many stylistic lateral deviations up or down the
continuum as a requisite of the context. If the distinctions along the
continuum could be measured accurately as to where one ends and the
other begins, in other words if the notion of "register" were
measurable, we could then specify a one to one correlation between
"register" and context. We could also designate, prescribe if you
will, which "register" is appropriate for which context.  I don't
believe anyone would argue against appropriateness.  Linguistics as a
discipline, and Linguists as such, cannot be either for or against the
notion of appropriateness.  However, as Linguists we are responsible
for "describing" all forms of speech, at all points on the continuum.
Beyond this, one's preferences, biases if you will, for one or another
form of speech is not, as far as I can see, within the purview of
Linguistics.  Sociolinguists would likely want to associate a point on
the continuum with certain contexts and engage in predictions of
sorts.  At this point Linguistics begins to phase into communication
theory, and so on.  As hot a subject as PC is, in terms of Linguistics
it is either a part of one's default system of language or a part of
one's notion of appropriateness.  Haig
 
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