Section 1.2 Linguistics vs. prescriptivism
In the preceding section, we defined linguistics as the “scientific investigation of language”. Let us focus on what it means to investigate, and come back to what “scientific” means in Section 1.4. When linguists investigate language, they describe how specific languages are used and what we can learn about how these languages in particular, and language in general, work. They do not imagine how language should work or tell language users how they should use their languages. Like all scientists, they are concerned with description and explanation (what is the case, and why is it the case), not with norms (what should be the case).
Like all human behaviour, language use can, of course, be subject to normative considerations. But such considerations are neither the result of linguistic research, nor do they guide it. This often puts linguists at odds with lay members of their language community, who tend to have highly normative preconceptions about language. In this section, we will look at one such preconception — the belief that language users do not know how to use their own language properly unless they have been educated to do so. Linguists refer to this belief, and to a set of ideas that typically accompany it, as (linguistic) prescriptivism.
To illustrate the difference between linguistics and linguistic prescriptivism, let us look at the way in which they treat two linguistic phenomena, both of which are present in the sentence in (1).
Subsection The case of irregardless
The first phenomenon that prescriptivists object to is the word irregardless. Here is what one famous prescriptivist, Bryan A. Garner, has to say about it:
irregardless, a semiliterate portmanteau word from “irrespective” and “regardless,” should have been stamped out long ago. But it’s common enough in speech that it has found its way into all manner of print sourcesGarner’s Modern English Usage (2016)
Garner does not explain what he finds objectionable about the word, but another prescriptivist, John B. Opdycke, is more explicit:
irregardless. There is no such word. When people use this word they mean irrespective or regardless. Two negatives make an affirmative: ir means not, and less means without. So irregardless contradicts itself.Projects in Elementary English (1931)
Taken together, these two quotations illustrate the central preconceptions of prescriptivism: first, that language users must be educated to use their language correctly (note Garner’s assessment of the word irrespective as “semiliterate”); second, that language must conform to rules imposed from the outside (note Opdycke’s claim that “[t]wo negatives make an affirmative”, which is based on the mathematical operation of multiplication, not on principles of English grammar), and third, that writing is the primary form of language (note Garner’s lament that the word has spread from spoken into written English). The quotations also show an exterminatory attitude that prescriptivists often take: the phenomena they criticize should be “stamped out”, or their existence is denied outright (“there is no such word”). It is not a coincidence that some prescriptivists (though not the ones cited here) refer to themselves — ironically, but perhaps with an unintentional honesty — as “grammar nazis”
Linguists would take a very different approach. First, they would note that since speakers of English use the word irregardless, it quite clearly exists. They might wonder how long it has been in use and find that the first documented usage is in a poem published in a Charleston newspaper, City Gazette & Daily Advertiser, on 23 June 1795:
They might then ask a number of specific questions about the word. They might be interested, for example, in how frequent it is and whether it is typical of a particular variety of English or a particular register. They would find that it is extremely rare, more typical of spoken than of written language and more frequent in American than in British English (we will briefly discuss how to find such information in in Section 1.4.
Linguists might also be interested in the structure of the word: it consists of the word regard and two additional bits (called affixes), ir and less, which both mean something like ‘not being or having’. Adding two affixes with the same meaning to a word is rather unusual, so they might ask how it happened in this particular word. They would find, that (as Garner assumes), the word seems to be a blend of two words irrespective and regardless (blends are words that consist of the beginning of one word and the end of another — well-known examples are smog from smoke and fog or brunch from breakfast and lunch). This explains how two negative affixes ended up on the same word: speakers did not add one affix and then redundantly add the other, they combined two words each of which already contained one affix. Linguists might then note that since speakers use the word irregardless with the same meaning as irrespective or regardless, two negatives do not necessarily make an affirmative in language, suggesting that language is not processed in the same way as mathematical equations.
Subsection The case of ending sentences with prepositions
The second phenomenon in example (1) that prescriptivists object to is the position of the preposition to. This preposition indicates a relationship between the nouns access and health insurance, and in the simplest case it would stand between these two words, as in (3a). In the sentence in (1), whose relevant part is repeated here in (3b), the situation is much more complex: the noun health insurance is linked to the pronoun something by the verb to be, and there the preposition occurs inside a relative clause that is attached to the pronoun something by the relativizer that. Crucially, the preposition to stands alone at the end of the sentence — we have indicated the gap where a noun seems to be missing:
- (3a)
- Everyone should have access to health insurance.
- (3b)
- Health insurance is something that everyone should have access to __.
Some prescriptivists say that prepositions should never occur in this position, for example Steven G. Krantz:
As a general rule, do not end a sentence with a preposition. Do not say “Where do we stop playing at?” Instead say “At what point do we stop playing?” Better still is “When do we stop playing?” Do not say “What book are you speaking of?” Instead say “Of which book do you speak?” or “Which book is that?”
Others are less strict and recommend avoiding this placement of prepositions but not to worry about it too much, and yet others claim that there “used to be” a rule against ending sentences with prepositions but that this is no longer the case. However strictly or loosely prescriptivists formulate the rule, they have one thing in common: they do not explain why prepositions should not occur in this position. The closest thing to an explanation is the statement that since preposition includes the element pre, which means ‘before’, prepositions should come before something. But if anything, that is an argument against the label “preposition” — the solution would be to use a different term.
So, how do linguists deal with this phenomenon? Again, they would start by noting that speakers of English regularly produce sentences like (3b), so clearly, English has a rule that allows prepositions to occur at the end of a sentence. Starting from this, they might ask a range of questions. For example, they might investigate this rule further and see what happens if you try to follow the hypothetical rule that prepositions must not occur at the end of the sentence. This would require us to place the preposition before the relative pronoun, as in (3c):
Interestingly, unlike the sentence in (1)/(3b), this sentence actually does violate a rule of English grammar: the relative pronoun that cannot follow a preposition. This is not a rule invented by a prescriptivist, but a rule that every fluent speaker of English follows subconsciously, without having been taught. Such actual rules of a language are what linguists are interested in.
Investigating further, they might look at other relative pronouns in English, to see if the same rule applies. It turns out that this is not the case: the relative pronoun which, for example, can follow a preposition, so that speakers use it in structures like that in (3c) (see 3d), as well as in structures with the preposition at the end (see (3e):
- (3d)
- Health insurance is something to which everyone should have access.
- (3e)
- Health insurance is something which everyone should have access to __.
So, the fact that English has a relative pronoun that cannot follow a preposition may be the reason (or part of the reason) why it allows the preposition to occur at the end of a sentence! Linguists might check this by looking at other languages and the way they deal with prepositions and relative pronouns. For example, they might note that in German (a language closely related to English), relative pronouns can always follow a preposition and prepositions (see (4a, b)), and they can not occur at the end of a sentence (see (4c)):
- (4a)
- Jeder sollte Zugang zu einer Krankenversicherung haben.
Everyone should access to illness.insurance have - (4b)
- Eine Krankenversicherung ist etwas, zu dem jeder Zugang haben sollte.
illness.insurance is something to REL everyone should access have should - (4c)
- * Eine Krankenversicherung ist etwas, das jeder Zugang zu __ haben sollte.
illness.insurance is something REL everyone access to should have
In contrast, in Danish (another language closely related to English), relative pronouns can never follow a preposition, so prepositions always have to occur at the end of the sentence in structures like the ones discussed here:
- (5a)
- Alle bør have adgang til sygeforsikring.
Everyone should have access to illness.insurance - (5b)
- * Sygeforsikring er noget, til som alle bør have adgang.
illness.insurance is something to REL everyone should have access - (5c)
- Sygeforsikring er noget, som alle bør have adgang til __.
illness.insurance is something REL everyone should have access to
These data support the idea that there is a relationship between two factors: (a) whether a language allows relative pronouns to follow a preposition, and (b) whether a language allows prepositions to occur at the end of a sentence. Obviously, this is only the beginning of an analysis, but it shows how linguists approach language — not with a set of norms in mind that they want to impose on language users, but with a curiosity as to how language users actually use their language, what subconscious rules they follow in doing so, and why those rules are what they are.
Prescriptivism is wide-spread especially in highly literate language communities, where it is often perpetuated by the education system. It may therefore feel very natural to you. But don’t be fooled, prescriptive rules are artificial constructs that have nothing to do with the way languages work. At best, it is based on wrong ideas about the way languages work (like the idea that two elements with negative meaning “cancel each other out”). Most of the time, it is based on nothing but the whims of its proponents (as in the case of prepositions at the end of a sentence). This may seem harmless, but it is not: prescriptivist rules are used to make language users who “know” these prescriptivist rules feel superior to language users who do not “know” them. They are a tool for perpetuating privileges based on education and social status.
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CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0. Written by Anatol Stefanowitsch
