The Prescriptive Tradition
David Crystal
By the time most people graduate from high school they are familiar with the "rules" of English and the "exceptions" to those rules. These rules, it turns out, are the legacy of the prescriptive tradition in English that had its beginnings in the eighteenth century. In the following article from The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, British linguist David Crystal traces the history ofprescriptivism, an authoritarian tradition that sought to codify the principles of English and to preserve the language's purity. This background information provides us with an understanding of the current philosophical debate between linguists who want to prescribe and those who want to describe the language, a debate that Crystal does not see as resolvable by an either/or solution.
PRESCRIPTIVISM
In its most general sense, prescriptivism is the view that one variety of language has an
inherently higher value than others, and that this ought to
be imposed on the whole of the speech community. The view is propounded especially in
relation to grammar and vocabulary, and frequently
with reference to pronunciation. The variety which is favoured, in this account, is
usually a version of the "standard" written language, especially as encountered in literature, or in the formal spoken language which most closely
reflects this style. Adherents to this variety are said to
speak or write "correctly"; deviations from it are said to be
"incorrect."
All the main European languages have been studied prescriptively, especially in the 18th century approach to the writing of grammars and dictionaries. The aims of these early grammarians were threefold: (a) they wanted to codify the principles of their languages, to show that there was a system beneath the apparent chaos of usage, (b) they wanted a means of settling disputes over usage, (c) they wanted to point out what they felt to be common errors, in order to "improve" the language. The authoritarian nature of the approach is best characterized by its reliance on "rules" of grammar. Some usages are "prescribed," to be learnt and followed accurately; others are "proscribed," to be avoided. In this early period, there were no half-measures: usage was either right or wrong, and it was thePAGE 102task of the grammarian not simply to record alternatives, but to pro-nounce judgment upon them.
These attitudes are still with us, and they motivate a widespread concern that linguistic standards should be maintained. Nevertheless, there is an alternative point of view that is concerned less with "standards" than with the facts of linguistic usage. This approach is summarized in the statement that it is the task of the grammarian to describe, not prescribe—to record the facts of linguistic diversity, and not to attempt the impossible tasks of evaluating language variation or halting language change. In the second half of the 18th century, we already find advocates of this view, such as Joseph Priestly, whose Rudiments of English Grammar (1761) insists that "the custom of speaking is the original and only just standard of any language." Linguistic issues, it is argued, cannot be solved by logic and legislation. And this view has become the tenet of the modem linguistic approach to grammatical analysis.
In our own time, the opposition between "descriptivists" and "prescriptivists" has often become extreme, with both sides painting unreal pictures of the other. Descriptive grammarians have been presented as people who do not care about standards, because of the way they see all forms of usage as equally valid. Prescriptive grammarians have been presented as blind adherents to a historical tradition. The opposition has even been presented in quasi-political terms—of radical liberalism vs elitist conservatism.
If these stereotypes are abandoned, we can see that both approaches are important, and have more in common than is often realized—involving a mutual interest in such matters as acceptability, ambiguity, and intelligibility. The descriptive approach is essential because it is the only way in which the competing claims of different standards can be reconciled: when we know the facts of language use, we are in a better position to avoid the idiosyncrasies of private opinions, and to make realistic recommendations about teaching or style. The prescriptive approach provides a focus for the sense of linguistic values which everyone possesses, and which ultimately forms part of our view of social structure, and of our own place within it. After 200 years of dispute, it is perhaps sanguine to expect any immediate rapport to be achieved, but there are some grounds for optimism, now that sociolinguists are beginning to look more seriously at prescriptivism in the context of explaining linguistic attitudes, uses, and beliefs.
THE ACADEMIES
Some countries have felt that the best way to look after a language is to place it in the care of an academy. In Italy, the Accademia delta Crusca was founded as early as 1582, with the object of purifying the ItalianPAGE 103language. In France, in 1635, Cardinal Richelieu established the Aca-demic fran(ciise, which set the pattern for many subsequent bodies. The statues of the Academie define as its principal function:
to labour with all possible care and diligence to give
definite niles to our
language, and to render it pure, eloquent, and capable of treating the
arts and
sciences.
The 40 academicians were drawn from the ranks of the church, nobility, and military—a
bias which continues to the present day. The Academic's
first dictionary appeared in 1694.
Several other academies were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Spanish Academy was founded in 1713 by Philip V, and within 200 years corresponding bodies had been set up in most South American Spanish countries. The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786; the Hungarian in 1830. There are three Arabic academies, in Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. The Hebrew Language Academy was set up more recently, in 1953.
In England, a proposal for an academy was made in the 17th century, with the support of
such men as John Dryden and Daniel Defoe. In Defoe's view, the reputation of the members
of this academy
would be enough to make them the allowed judges
of style and language;
and no author would have the impudence to coin without their authority
. . . There should be no more occasion to search for derivations and
constructions, and it would be as a criminal then to coin words as money.
In 1712, Jonathan Swift presented his Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining
the English Tongue, in which he complains to the
Lord Treasurer of England, the Earl of Oxford, that
our language is extremely
imperfect; that its daily improvements arc by no
means in proportion to its daily corruptions; that the pretenders to polish
and
refine it have chiefly multiplied abuses and absurdities; and that in
many instances it offends against every part of grammar.
His academy would "fix our language for ever," for,
I am of the opinion, it is better a language should not be wholly
perfect,
than it should be perpetually changing.
The idea recevied a great deal of support at the time, but nothing was done. And in due course, opposition to the notion grew. It became evident that the French and Italian academies had been unsuccessful in stopping the course of language change. Dr. Johnson, in the pReface to his Dictionary, is under no illusion about the futility of an academy, especially in England, where he finds 'the spirit of English liberty' contrary to the whole idea: PAGE 104
When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after
another,century after century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to
prolong life to a thousandyears; and with equal justice may the
lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a
nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall
imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and
secure it from
corruption, and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature,
or clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation.
From time to time, the idea of an English Academy continues to be voiced, but the response has never been enthusiastic. A similar proposal in the USA was also rejected. By contrast, since the 18th century, there has been an increasing flow of individual grammars, dictionaries, and manuals of style in all parts of the English-speaking world.
LANGUAGE CHANGE
The phenomenon of language change probably attracts more public notice and criticism than any other linguistic issue. There is a widely held belief that change must mean deterioration and decay. Older people observe the casual speech of the young, and conclude that standards have fallen markedly. They place the blame in various quarters—most often in the schools, where patterns of language education have changed a great deal in recent years, but also in state public broadcasting institutions, where any deviations from traditional norms provide an immediate focus of attack by conservative, linguistically sensitive listeners. The concern can even reach national proportions, as in the widespread reaction in Europe against what is thought of as the "American" English invasion.
Unfounded Pessimism
It is understandable that many people dislike change, but most of the criticism of
linguistic change is misconceived. It is widely felt that the
contemporary language illustrates the problem at its worst, but this belief is shared by
every generation. Moreover, many of the usage issues recur
across generations: several of the English controversies which are the focus of current
attention can be found in the books and magazines of the
18th and 19th centuries—the debate over it's me and very unique, for example. In The
Queen's English (1863), Henry Alford, the Dean of
Canterbury, lists a large number of usage issues which worried his contemporaries, and
gave them cause to think that the language was rapidly
decaying. Most are still with us, with the language not obviously affected. In the
mid-19th century, it was predicted that British and Ameri-
can English would be mutually unintelligible within 100 years!
There are indeed cases where linguistic change can lead to problemsPAGE 105of unintelligibility, ambiguity, and social division. If change is too rapid, there can be major communication problems, as in contemporary Papua New Guinea--a point which needs to be considered in connection with the field of language planning. But as a rule, the parts of language which are changing at any given time are tiny, in comparison to the vast, unchanging areas of language. Indeed, it is because change is so infrequent that it is so distinctive and noticeable. Some degree of caution and concern is therefore always desirable, in the interests of maintaining precise and efficient communication; but there are no grounds for the extreme pessimism and conservatism which is so often encountered—and which in English is often summed up in such slogans as "Let us preserve the tongue that Shakespeare spoke."
The Inevitability of Change
For the most part, language changes because society changes. To stop or control the one
requires that we stop or control the other—a task which
can succeed to only a very limited extent. Language change is inevitable and rarely
predictable, and those who try to plan a language's future
waste their time if they think otherwise—time which would be better spent in devising
fresh ways of enabling society to cope with the new
linguistic forms that accompany each generation. These days, there is in fact a growing
recognition of the need to develop a greater linguistic
awareness and tolerance of change, especially in a multi-ethnic society. This
requires, among other things, that schools have the knowledge and
resources to teach a common standard, while recognizing the existence and value of
linguistic diversity. Such policies provide a constructive
alternative to the emotional attacks which are so commonly made against the development of
new words, meanings, pronunciations, and grammatical constructions. But before these
policies can be implemented, it is necessary to develop a proper understanding of the
inevitability and consequences of linguistic change.
Some people go a stage further, and see change in language as a progression from a simple
to a complex state—a view which was common as a consequence of 19th-century
evolutionary thinking. But there is no evidence for this view. Languages do not develop,
progress, decay, evolve, or act according to any of the metaphors which imply a specific
endpoint and level of excellence. They simply change as society changes. If a
language dies out, it does so because its status alters in society, as other cultures and
languages take over its role: it does not die because it has "got too old," or
"becomes too complicated," as is sometimes maintained. Nor, when languages
change, do they move in a predetermined direction. Some are losing inflections; some
are gaining them. Some are moving to an order where the verb precedes the object;
others to an order where the object precedes the verb. Some languages are losPAGE 106ing vowels and gaining consonants; others are doing the
opposite. If metaphors must be used to talk about language change, one of the best is that
of a system holding itself in a state of equilibrium, while changes take place within it;
another is that of the tide, which always and inevitably changes, but never progresses,
while it ebbs and flows