A Short Historical Overview of Linguistics: Prescriptive (Traditional Grammar) Vs Descriptive

(Modern Linguistics) Approaches to the Study of Language.

There have been two different approaches to the study of language in the history of linguistics. The old
paradigm called Traditional grammar was an amalgam of approaches dating back to the 4th century BC.
Because of its demerits, this approach had been criticised for its non-scientific nature. In order to compensate
for its shortcomings, the study of language took a new direction in the 20 th century. The outcome was the
emergence of modern linguistics which provided a more scientific account of language.
.Greek Tradition

It goes back to the Greek philosophers of the fifth century B,C. who considered grammar as a branch of
philosophy. They were essentially concerned with the written language as the term grammar used to mean in
Greek. They studied topics such as the origin of language, logic, rhetoric and etymology and the relationship
between language and thought. The most well known philosophers were Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato.

Most of the Greek philosphers developed interesting ideas about language but they speculated about them.
In the Greek period, there was a debate between two schools of philosophy: the naturalists and the
conventionalists. The question debated was : ‘ Is language due to physis (nature) or to namos (naming) ?. The
naturalists: as Plato believed that language was the outcome of nature, i,e ; that words imitate the sounds in
nature = onomatopoeic words. Ex: the telephone rings, the word ring is named as that because of the sound that
the telephone makes when someone is calling.” As if there is something in it that says that it is my name”. The
conventionalists believed that language was based on social agreement (arbitrary) therefore, there is no logical
connection between an object and its name. Ex: table is known as table because a group of people agreed to name
it as such.
Another debate between two other groups of philosophers was presented in this period : The analogists:
who believed that language was regular and organized as it follows rules and the anomalists: who believed that
language was irregular because rules are not always respected. Ex: book = books / pen = pens / window =
windows…… regularity in language. Parenthesis = parentheses / phenomenon = phenomena / mouse = mice….
irregularity in language. English language has both analogy and anomaly so; language cannot be totally regular or
irregular.
Regarding their contribution the the study of grammar, The Greeks discovered among other things the parts
of speech . Plato (429-347 B.C) , for instance, was the first to distinguish nouns from verbs on logical grounds.
Aristotle (384_322 B.C) discovered the category of ‘conjunctions’, the stoics (a group of philosophers ) founded
the transitive and intransitive verbs….etc

1. Prescriptivism

In linguistics, prescription refers both to the codification and the enforcement of rules governing how
a language ought to be used. These rules can refer to standards for spelling and grammar or syntax, or rules
for what is deemed socially or politically correct or proper. Prescriptive Grammar (also called traditional
or normative grammar), therefore, is a set of explicit rules for using language that are taught,or enforced
so that people will use the language in a particular way. In other words, it refers to a set of principles about
language based on how people think language should be used. Believing in this approach, prescriptivists or
prescriptive grammarians try to tell people how they should speak and write.
Traditional approaches to language study were developed on the basics of Greek and Latin languages
and were applied to description of large number of other languages. They were also more or less concerned
exclusively with the standard language and tended to disregard or condemn as incorrect more informal usage
in speech and in written. For example, prescriptivists claim that the spoken language is inferior to and
depended on standard written language.Because they believe that one variety of language is superior to others,
 prescriptivists have a great concern for good, proper or correct usage of language.

Shortcomings of Traditional approaches (Prescriptivism):

It was criticized for being non-scientific and subjective in perspective. This criticism was developed against
the presumption that Standard English is superior to regional dialects which do not enjoy its glorified status
(in terms of beauty, clarity and correctness).

Examples of prescriptive rules:

1. It was me (incorrect) OR it was I (correct). Prescriptive grammarians would consider the second sentence
as correct and the first sentence as incorrect because it is not formal.
2. Jhon and I went. (correct) and Me and John went (incorrect).
3.Do not use “ain’t” (am not, is not, are not, has not, have not). Example: He ain’t going. (incorrect) and he
is not going. (correct)
4.Do not use a preposition to end a sentence with. Example: which journal was your article published in?
(incorrect) and In which journal was your article published ? (correct)
5.Do not split infinitives. Example: we were told to carefully observe each star. (incorrect) and were told to
observe carefully each star. (correct)

2. Descriptivism
In the late19 th century and early 20 th centuries, modern linguistics took a more descriptiveapproach
as focus shifted from historical concerns of changes in languages over time (synchronic study) to the
description of a language at one particular point in time. Modern linguistics appeared to construct a theory of
grammar which is more general than the traditional one and which is appropriate for the description of all
human languages.
From a linguistic point of view, description refers to the observation and record of how language is actually
used in real life. Descriptive grammar, thus, tries to examine how language is really used in writing and in
speech. By adopting this approach, linguists tend to provide a description of the rules and principles of how
the language is actually spoken by a group of people in a speech community. Descriptive grammarians do not
give advice; but they detail the ways in which native speakers use the language. A descriptive grammarian is
interested in ‘what is said’, not what he thinks ‘ought to be said’. He describes language in all its aspects, but
does not prescribe rules of what he believes, ‘correctness’.
In a Descriptive Grammar, there is no right, wrong, good or bad languages. For descriptivists, all the
dialects and varieties of language are of equal consideration though they are less systematic than the standard
language, something which traditional grammar failed to realise. In modern linguistics, both the spoken and
the written forms of languages should be considered because the latter is a means to representthe former.
Though descriptive grammarians might recognize that one type of speech appears to be more socially
acceptable than others, this does not make the socially acceptable variety any more interesting for them than
the other varieties, or the old words any better than new ones. The change of language is a natural,process, not
a sign of decay. Unlike prescriptive approaches, descriptive grammar was scientific because it studies
language objectively and is empirical (based on experiments and observable facts).
Examples:
1. Fewer than vs. less than. A Descriptive Grammarian: would state that both statements are correct, as
long as the receiver of the message can understand the meaning behind the statement. A Prescriptive
Grammarian, however, would analyze the rules and then determine which of them is correct according to
those rules.
 3. Differences between Prescriptive and Descriptive Grammar

Prescriptive Grammar Descriptive Grammar

1. It is a traditional approach that declares a set of 1. It is a modern linguistic approach that describes the
rules about what a language should be like. rules based on how language is actually used. It
studies what a language is like.
2. It is an approach to grammar that is concerned with 2. It is an approach to grammar that is concerned with
establishing the norms of correct and incorrect usage describing the use of language by native or non-
and formulating rules based on these norms soas to be native speakers without reference to proposed norms
followed by users of the language. of correctness and advocacy of rules based on such
norms.

3. It takes the principal that the long existed 3. It takes the principal that the language usage can
grammar rules created by the native speakers are the vary according to the varied speakers. Thus, it does
“correct”, and the variations are “incorrect”. not consider what is “correct”.
4. There are specified and standard set of grammar 4. Descriptive grammarians focus their analysis on
rules and structures that tell people how they should the language rules which are made according to its
speak and write. daily usage by speakers.
5. It is selective, subjective and not scientific because 5. It is objective, scientific, and systematic because
it gives priority to the standard language over other it does not give worth to one variety at the expense
varieties. of others. For descriptivists, all varieties should be
considered.
6. It is concerned with the historical development of 6. It studies language at a specific point in history.
languages . (Diachronic in perspective) (synchronic in perspective)