1. Prescriptive vs. Descriptive
Attitudes toward grammar

2. Descriptive VS. Prescriptive grammar: What are rules?
Prescriptive (traditional) approach:
Attitudes toward language based on what is held to be “correct” by socially prestigious elements and by teachers

3. Prescriptive (traditional) approach
This attitude evinces complete disregard for the way a community actually speaks

4. Prescriptive grammar
Certain forms of language are seen as more “correct” than others as a result of the social prestige associated with their users
The prescriptive attitude seeks to enforce those

5. Prescriptive grammar Examples of common prescriptive rules
Do not use ‘ain’t’
Do not use a preposition to end a sentence with
Pronounce the -ing at the end of words, not -in’
Do not split infinitives:
“to boldly go where man has never gone before”
is wrong, they say

6. Descriptive VS. Prescriptive grammar
Which of the following participles are “correct”?
Kneel kneeled/knelt
Knit knitted/knit
Lean leaned/leant
Leap leaped/leapt
Bid bidden/bade

7. Which is “correct”? Buy bought/boughten Spell spelled/spelt
Forecast forecast/forecasted
Shave shaved/shaven
Dive dove/dived
Drag dragged/drug

8. Which is correct? Are people who use other forms stupid?
Are they socially undesirable?
Why do we think so?

9. Descriptive VS. Prescriptive grammar
Descriptive approach:
Observe principles that describe the way the language is actually spoken

10. Descriptive approach
The goal of the descriptive approach is a description and knowledge of rules (principles) of how the language is actually spoken

11. Descriptive grammar Examples:
Many speakers pronounce ‘-in’ for the (-ing) suffix
In oral speech and most written language we say prepositions at the end of sentences
Some dialects of English do not pronounce –r after vowels
In English, qualifying words often appear between the to and the verb in infinitive phrases: “to boldly go where man has never gone before”

12. Teaching grammar Descriptions of a language used for teaching purposes
Do not confuse this with Prescriptive grammar — isn’t teaching for language learners based on how the language is spoken?

13. Linguistic competence
knowledge of our language and ability (capacity) to produce utterances

14. Goal of study The goal of our study is descriptive
By observing a language as it is actually used
We can learn about the knowledge that speakers have of the language

15. Linguistic competence
This involves our knowledge of how our language works

16. Linguistic competence
This knowledge can be observed and described, in the form of the speech that results from it
Thus descriptive grammar

17. Communicative competence
The linguist Del Hymes stated that if a child could make any possible sentence in the language, we would think he was insane

18. Communicative competence
Our communicative competence involves our knowledge of the speech appropriate in each situation
and how to do what we use language to do

19. Descriptive focus Our course emphasizes a descriptive focus
We are interested
in the language that is actually used
how speakers use it
what they use it to do