Descriptivist vs. Prescriptivist

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Have you ever wonder how our language would be if there were no rules placed? This is a big question. But, thanks to the prescriptivism we have some rules in our language that guide us while writing. In the other hand descriptivist stand, this camp goes with the theory that it doesn’t matter how English is used as long as people can communicate.

Throughout the article there are three points of view clearly explained. The first one written by Bryan A. Garner defends the camp of descriptivist and argues how society’s misunderstanding in this field, when saying that “no real-world descriptivist still accept that a native speaker cant make a mistake. This is thoroughly wrong-headed dogma that took many years to debunk- and still it persists.” Society thinks that descriptivist is based in the idea that natives don’t make mistakes, according to Garner this is wrong, all nations have ignorant people that generalize, so, during his part he defends the descriptivist and states the good part of being one of them.

Robert Lane Greene stands with the position that there should be a balance between the two camps, writers’ should be ‘prescriptive descriptivist’. He clearly states that he goes against errors, “native Americans don’t make mistakes [they just] contribute to their one idiolect.” I disagree with Greene idea because if language included both camps that he states then everybody could enforce laws of writing thus our language will become a disaster.

During this article the writers use the rhetoric mode of logos to manipulate the readers mind. They are constantly referring to antique texts that re-enforce what they are explaining. For example, Garner quotes, Ellsworth Barnard, Lars- Grunnar Andersson and Peter Trudgill, words that help him state that his point is correct, and with this convince the reader to believe what he is writing, always defending descriptivist.

These writers “brain wash” the readers mind by telling them which camp they should follow, with this having a better development of society’s language.