Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-jtdwj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-31T06:09:11.915Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Calling for a truce in the descriptivist-prescriptivist wars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2003

Bryan A. Garner
Bryan A. Garner
Affiliation:
U.S.A.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A reply to Tom McArthur, ‘Error, Editing, and World Standard English’, ET65 (Jan 01)

When modern linguists focus exclusively on speech, they're overreacting to their predecessors' preoccupation with writing. Descriptivists have a bias toward studying speech; prescriptivists have a bias toward studying writing. Both are important. Speaking precedes writing. It's the essence of language. Yet writing is a form of language worth studying in its own right. For some reason, though, many linguists refuse to recognize this.

Information

Type
Original Articles
Information
English Today , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , April 2001 , pp. 5 - 9
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable