History of linguistic prescription in English

Prescription is the formulation of normative rules for language use. This article discusses the history of prescription in English. For a more general discussion, see linguistic prescription.

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When I hear people bring up "grammar" in daily conversations, most of the time it's interchangeable with "proper grammar". Ain't ain't a word. Double negations are ungrammatical. Always use who as a subject, but whom as an object. Following these kinds of rules makes your speech sound polite, educated and prestigious. This "proper grammar" is telling you how to use your language. Linguists call it prescriptive grammar because it prescribes certain words and structures. If prescription demands that you follow certain grammar rules (it's a linguistic "DO THIS!"), proscription prohibits you from breaking rules (a linguistic "DON'T DO THAT!"). But now you've come over to the nativlang channel, and you've started watching the videos here, and these videos talk about grammar differently. You learn that in Catalan, a language native to Eastern Spain, they put articles before proper nouns: "el fill de la Joana" literally means "the son of the Joanne", but that's how they say "the son of Joanne" or "Joanne's son". Maybe you even find out that in earlier English, double negatives were common and expected, like in "nān ne dorste nān þing āscian". Yup, that is English, and it literally means "no one dared not ask nothing". These are real-life descriptions of language. This is descriptive grammar. Notice the difference. One approach attempts to dictate how speakers ought to speak their language. The other one captures and documents language objectively, as it is used, not as some people wish it were used. Historical descriptions show us that prescriptive rules go into and out of fashion: double negatives were once mainstream in English, but now they're marginalized. Cultural differences show us that prescriptive rules don't apply to all languages, so they're not fundamental to human language or grammar: many modern languages also use double negatives. Yes, from this perspective, the prescriptive rules you hear from grammar geeks and style guides sound flighty and incidental. But before we shout "nobody tells me what to do!" and race to dump prescriptivism in the trash, let's think about the possible upside. Establishing a standard language could boost social cohesion. Monumental works of literature, standardized reference resources like dictionaries and the education of a highly literate population traditionally involve - and maybe even depend on - some amount of prescriptivism. Prescriptivism and descriptivism both talk about language use. But both of them stop short of offering a model of human language. A model of language wouldn't be a laundry list of descriptions of a particular language. Instead, a model explains human language. It's a theory of language. For example, Chomskyan theories of generative grammar see language as a group of rules that, once activated in the right way, will produce the structure of a specific language. On the other hand, functional theories of grammar see language as a linguistic instrument for communicating in social situations. Prescriptive, descriptive, theoretical - you'll sound smart when you get the chance to work these concepts into at least one upcoming conversation. What's more, now you can see some of the reasons behind dividing the study of language into different fields. I hope you've enjoyed this topic as much as I have. Please subscribe for more on linguistics, languages and logic in the future, and thank you for learning with me!

Origins

Languages, especially standard varieties or official languages used in courts of law, for administration of government, and for the promulgation of official works, tend to acquire formally regulated norms over time. Once English became the language of administration of law in England, a form of late Middle English called chancery English became such a standard.^[1]^: 102 When William Caxton introduced printing with movable type into England, the norms of his grammar and spelling were taken largely from chancery English.^[2]

However, the "correction" of English grammar was not a large subject of formal study until the 18th century. Poet John Dryden remarked that the grammar in use in his day (second half of the 1600s) was an improvement over the usage of William Shakespeare. Dryden was himself the first to promulgate the rule that a sentence must not end with a preposition.^[3] Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary contributed to the standardization of English spelling. More influentially, the first of a long line of prescriptionist usage commentators, Robert Lowth, published A Short Introduction to English Grammar in 1762. Lowth's grammar is the source of many of the prescriptive shibboleths that are studied in schools and was the first of a long line of usage commentators to judge the language in addition to describing it.^[4] For example, the following footnote from his grammar is, in turn, descriptive and prescriptive: "Whose is by some authors made the Possessive Case of which, and applied to things as well as persons; I think, improperly."^[5]

Lowth's method included criticising "false syntax"; his examples of false syntax were culled from Shakespeare, the King James Bible, John Donne, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, and other famous writers.^[6] A number of his judgments were reinforced by analogies to Latin grammar, though it was his stated principle that such an analogy should not in itself be the basis for English prescriptions.^[7] Thus for example he criticises Addison's sentence "Who should I meet the other night, but my old friend?" on the grounds that the thing acted upon should be in the "Objective Case", corresponding, as he says earlier, to an accusative in Latin.^[8] (Descriptive critics, on the other hand, would take this example and others as evidence from noted writers that "who" can refer to direct objects in English.) Lowth's ipse dixits appealed to those who wished for certainty and authority in their language.^[9] Lowth's grammar was not written for children; nonetheless, within a decade of its appearance, versions of it were adapted for schools, and Lowth's stylistic opinions acquired the force of law in the classroom.

Wider dissemination

During the 19th century, with the rise of popular journalism, the common usage of a tightly knit educated and governing class was extended to a more widely literate public than before or since, through the usage of editors of newspapers and magazines. A broader market for usage guides therefore developed. In general, these attempted to elucidate the distinctions between different words and constructions, promoting some and condemning others as unclear, declassé, or simply wrong. Perhaps the best-known and most historically important text of this sort was Henry Watson Fowler's idiosyncratic and much praised Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Originally published in 1926, it was extensively revised for the 1996 third edition, and remains a primary reference for many educated speakers and editors. Besides Fowler, other writers in this tradition include the 19th-century poet and editor William Cullen Bryant, and, in the 20th-century, Theodore Bernstein and William Safire.

Contemporary stylebooks such as the Associated Press Stylebook, from the Associated Press in the United States, or The Times Style and Usage Guide, from The Times in the United Kingdom, are prescriptive in intent, for use by editors of their respective publications to standardise presentation.

Criticism

During the second half of the 20th century, the prescriptivist tradition of usage commentators started to fall under increasing criticism. Thus, works such as the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, appearing in 1993, attempt to describe usage issues of words and syntax as they are actually used by writers of note, rather than to judge them by standards derived from logic, fine distinctions, or Latin grammar.^[10]

Topics in English usage prescription

References

^ Wright, Laura (2012) [1996]. "About the evolution of Standard English". In M. J. Toswell; Elizabeth M. Tyler (eds.). Studies in English Language and Literature: 'Doubt Wisely': Studies in honour of E.G. Stanley. Routledge. pp. 99–115. ISBN 9781134773398.
^ "Caxton's English". Caxton's Chaucer. Treasures in Full. British Library.
^ E. Ward Gilman, ed. (1989) [1974]. "A Brief History of English Usage". Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. Merriam-Webster. pp. 7a–11a. ISBN 9780877790327. OCLC 18948588. Archived from the original on 1 December 2008.
^ Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid (2010). "The Grammar and the Rise of Prescriptivism". The Bishop's Grammar: Robert Lowth and the Rise of Prescriptivism. Oxford University Press. pp. 254–288. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199579273.003.0008. ISBN 9780191595219.
^ Lowth, Robert (1763). A Short Introduction to English Grammar (Second ed.). London: A. Millar. p. 37 n. 6 – via Internet Archive.
^ Fries, Charles C. (March 1927). "The Rules of Common School Grammars". Proceedings of the Modern Language Association. 42 (1): 221–237. doi:10.2307/457587. JSTOR 457587.
^ Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid (2012). "The codification of English in England". In Raymond Hickey (ed.). Standards of English: Codified Varieties Around the World. Cambridge University Press. pp. 34–54. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139023832.003. ISBN 9780521763899.
^ Lowth (1763), p. 105.
^ Locher, Miriam A. (2008). "The rise of prescriptive grammars on English in the 18th century". In Miriam A. Locher; Jürg Strässler (eds.). Standards and Norms in the English Language. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 127–148. doi:10.1515/9783110206982.1.127. ISBN 9783110206982.
^ "What to read to become a better writer". The Economist. 9 September 2022.

This page was last edited on 7 April 2024, at 13:11

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