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PRESCRIPTIVE VS DESCRIPTIVE
The word most frequently used to sum up the traditional attitude to language is
prescriptive. This means creating rules about how people ought to speak
and write, without considering how people actually speak and write (which is
what linguists do). Grammarians should restrict their ambitions to codifying
what is already there, because if they attempt to overreach themselves, their
rules will be overruled by the weight of majority usage.
Usage has a greater authority than the old grammars rules because usage is
alive whereas that of the grammar books is fossilized. An identical argument
could be use about dictionaries: we tell the lexicographer what to put in the
dictionary, not the other way around.
To linguists, of two alternative usages, one is not right and the other wrong.
Different modes of expression are appropriate to different situations.
WHAT LINGUISTICS IS
Defining what Linguistics is not seemed like an appropriate step. To
recapitulate:
-Linguistics performs at least 2 tasks: the study of a particular language in
order to be able to produce complete and accurate descriptions of it, and as a
means to obtain information about the nature of the language in general.
-Linguists need to be as objective as possible, avoiding being prescriptive or
making impressionistic judgements.
-Linguists focus their studies on the speech-habits of a community.
-They try to describe the language in its own terms, considering all styles and
levels of that language.
Languages main job is that it is the most used and most highly developed form
of human communication (the transmission of information of some kind).
Language is one form of communication, there are others which are not
necessarily connected with human behavior. What linguists mean by language,
however, is essentially a human phenomenon.
a- Visual and vocal: all the facial expressions and bodily gestures we make
communicate a great deal of information, but the visual system of
communication in humans doesnt have the same structure as the vocal (which
is why linguists dont call it a language).
Linguists restrict the term language to a vocal system of human
communication. They only allow the visual a place in two instances: sign
languages and writing (since all modern writing-systems are designed to copy
speech).
There are many sounds we utter that are not linguistic (that do not
communicate a message). A sneeze, for example, is an audible vocal noise
which doesnt communicate a message and is uncontrollable. Words are not
tied down to our bodily state.
Another set of vocal effects which we will exclude from language is that
commonly referred to as voice quality. Whenever we speak, we make known
our identity to the outside world. There are features of everyones voice which
will allow others to recognize individuals without seeing them. Accent, on the
other hand, is a more general phenomenon: voice quality tells us who people
are, accent tells us where theyre from.
To summarize, we will refer to language as human vocal noise used
systematically and conventionally by a community for purposes of
communication.