© 2019 Steve Campsall
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grammar - to describe or prescribe usage? |
This is a good place to stop and consider an important point concerning grammar already touched on on page one:
The rules of grammar's
can be used to describe (i.e. explain) how people use language effectively, i.e. descriptive grammar.
The rules of grammar can be used to prescribe (i.e. tell) how people should use language, i.e. prescriptive grammar.
There are all sorts of circumstances in which it is necessary to teach people how they should use language if it is to make sense and be suitable for a particular context, audience and purpose but grammar is still sometimes used to judge more than a person's abilities with language: we tend to make judgements of people rather quickly - and the way some people use grammar has been a way of judging them rather than their language use.
As was said on the first page of this guide, judging language users is no part of your course. You should label non-standard grammar just that - 'non-standard' or, if it is, as 'ungrammatical'.
Avoid calling such grammar 'bad', 'wrong' or 'poor'.
PRESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR
Telling people how
they should speak and write is called 'prescriptive' grammar.
It seeks to insist on set ways of using language.
This way of using grammar has been attacked by some linguists because it can seem to be based more upon social or educational considerations rather than purely linguistic assumptions, i.e. it can appear to criticise or judge a person rather than that person's language.
Grammar is better used to explain what choices are available to a speaker or writer when they want to construct a sentence to create a style suited to a particular context, audience and purpose.
Consider the following four sentences. Which do you think would be considered 'right' and 'wrong' by a 'prescriptive grammarian'? Try to say why and then write out the 'wrong' sentences 'correctly'.
Which would you call 'ungrammatical' or 'non-standard'?
Are there times when language like this is appropriate? When and why?
It were him what done it, not me.
I ain't got a match mate, so I can't help.
I ain't got none.
I want me dinner!
