😎 Prescriptivism vs Descriptivism Meaning - Prescriptivism Defined - Prescriptivist Examples

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:01]hi there students prescriptivism and descriptivism okay these are two ways of looking at language prescriptivism says that there are norms There are rules um that must be used when using language that you've got to follow certain grammatical rules in order to um speak correctly on the other side you could have descriptivism which is the um the opposite of uh prescribing norms and language any language is good as long as it um clearly describes what you want it to say so prescriptivism saying that there are very clear rules about language and I think some languages are much more prescriptivist than others English itself I think is a descriptive a descriptivist language that what people use is corre correct if lots and lots of people use it then this is correct English um and uh English is very malleable you're ve it's a very good language for inventing things um in prescriptivism you're not allowed to invent you're only allowed to uh do to do the things that the language uh the the rules of the language tell you and this may be toward dealing with spelling with pronunciation with vocabulary with morphology with syntax um and prescriptivists are linguistic purists that um the the the language has to be like that and it always has to be like that um now personally I am a descriptivist and I think if you actually look at descriptivism and prescriptivism I think linguists are descript descriptivists they look at the language and they listen to examples of of how it's used whereas I think school teachers are prescriptivists you've got to do it like this I before E except after C but one of the things I've discovered as an English teacher is every time you you give a rule a student puts up their hand and says and what about so I before E except after C let's see how do I spell the word weird we i r d well you see that that's the problem certainly in English is the prescriptive uh rules don't work and I was never taught English grammar at school so I think English is a very descri descriptivist language um there are other languages where which are much more um prescriptivist and there is a Royal Academy that maintains the language that um uh stops the Lang the the language from uh from changing and I think languages are something that are alive languages are always something that that change and therefore prescriptivism stopping it from changing but what where do neologisms come from yeah neologisms come from descri uh descriptivism yeah from uh linguistic description from CH changing it um but prescriptivism certainly for uh I think for language is is not the right thing because language languages are alive they are always evolving they are always changing and therefore you have to have to accept new things now you can also actually use this word prescriptivism or script prescriptivist for philosophy and prescriptivist philosophy says that some things are morally right and other things are moral Al wrong and I would say no I think it depends on the situation because I think prescriptivism in philosophy is just telling someone what they must or must not do and I think every situation is different and we must view situations uh each situation individually so um Pres descriptivism is the idea that the possibility to uh there it is possible to lay down rules for the correct use of language and I I don't think that's true because languages are all are always changing linguistic uh prescriptivism has judgments on what usage is socially or politically correct and what is not and uh I think this is one of the problems with prescriptivism prescriptivist a prescriptivist somebody who um says that we must do the prescribed things not proscribe but prescribe with an E uh to prescribe is to tell someone what they must do what they must have is to make rules not to proscribe which means to prohibit so grammatical rules prescribe how words may be used together um but I think really you can put words together in any way that the uh listener will understand them and I think that really is the point so um prescriptivism is the belief that there are right and wrong ways to use language um and I think if enough people use and different way of working then the the language has evolved so prescriptivism and descriptivism prescriptivist descriptivist prescribe not proscribe so bye for now