Language Prescription

Don Chapman is an Associate Professor in the Linguistics Department at Brigham Young University, USA. His research focuses on the history of the English language, prescriptivism, and the intersection of those two topics.Jacob D. Rawlins is an Assistant Professor in the Linguistics Department at Brigham Young University, USA. His research focuses on the editing and publishing profession, interactive data displays, and applied rhetorical theory.

In this useful and illuminating collection, contributors methodically demonstrate whether specific norms affect language change and how prescriptive attitudes index group or individual identities—multilingual, postcolonial, national, religious, professional. Indeed, linguists should be led to question their identification with ‘descriptivism’, as binaries like ‘descriptive vs prescriptive’ are examined and dismantled.

• ContributorsJacob D. Rawlins and Don Chapman: IntroductionPart 1: Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism: An Untenable BinaryChapter 1. John E. Joseph: Is/Ought: Hume’s Guillotine, Linguistics, and Standards of LanguageChapter 2. Marla Perkins: Inferring Prescriptivism: Considerations Inspired by Hobongan and Minority Language DocumentationChapter 3. Don Chapman: Are You a Descriptivist or a Prescriptivist? The Meaning of the Term Descriptivism and the Values of those Who Use itPart 2: Prescriptivism vs. Linguistics: An Unnecessary BinaryChapter 4. Lieselotte Anderwald: The Linguistic Value of Investigating Historical PrescriptivismChapter 5. Viktorija Kostadinova: Examining the Split Infinitive: Prescriptivism as a Constraint in Language Variation and ChangeChapter 6. Marten van der Meulen: Language Should be Pure and Grammatical: Values in Prescriptivism in the Netherlands 1917–2016Chapter 7. Loreta Vaicekauskienė: Maintaining Power through Language Correction: A Case of L1 Education in Post-Soviet LithuaniaPart 3: Responding to Correctness: Personal Values and IdentityChapter 8. Carmen Ebner: “Good Guys” vs “Bad Guys”: Constructing Linguistic Identities on the Basis of Usage ProblemsChapter 9. Alyssa A. Severin and Kate Burridge: What do “Little Aussie Sticklers” Value Most?Chapter 10. Nola Stephens-Hecker: Grammar Next to Godliness: Prescriptivism and the Tower of BabelChapter 11. Kate Burridge: Linguistic Cleanliness is Next to Godliness—But Not for Conservative AnabaptistsPart 4: Judging Correctness: Practitioner Values and VariationChapter 12. Giuliana Russo: Fowler’s values: Ideology and a Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926)Chapter 13. Linda Pillière: US Copy-Editors, Style Guides, and Usage Guides and their Impact on British NovelsChapter 14. Jonathon Owen: Practicing Prescriptivism: How Copyeditors Treat Prescriptive RulesIndex