2 Prescribing and describing: popular and academic views of

"correctness'
At the heart of the aspiration to relate theory to practice is a
constant tension between language as viewed by the expert' and
language as everyone's lived experience-including the applied
linguist's own. The two are by no means easily reconciled and, as
in other areas of academic enquiry affecting everyday life, are
likely to be aggravated by any attempt to impose insensitively an
expert' view which runs contrary to deeply held belief. Nowhere'
is this more apparent than in our attitudes to the language
education of children, and the beliefs which they reflect about the
best' language use. These provide a good illustration of the kind of'
problematic issues with which applied linguistic enquiry engages.

Children's language at home and school

As every parent knows, young children speak idiosyncratically. A
child growing up in an English-speaking family, for example,
might say 'I brang it', even though everyone around them says 'I
brought it to mean the same thing. Even when the child does say
I brought it', they may still not pronounce the words as adults'
do. They might, for example, say 'I bwort it'. Parents-even the
most anxious ones-are usually indulgent of such deviations.
They are the stuff of anecdotes and affectionate memories rather
than serious concern. It is clear, after all, what the child is saying,
and most idiosyncrasies disappear of their own accord.
At school, however, the situation is very different. Here the
child is expected, and taught, to use language 'correctly'. Not
only are English-speaking children expected to say the words 'I
brought it clearly and properly pronounced, but also to write

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them correctly spelt (or should that be spelled?) and punctuated.
So not only is 'I brang it wrong, but also, in writing, are 'I brort
and I brought, it'. Indeed, teaching children their own
national language is, in many people's view, synonymous with
eliminating such deviations. A good deal of school time is spent
on this task, and a good deal of the child's educational success
will depend upon the results.
In the case of pre-school 'brang' or 'bwort' there is little to be
concerned about. In school, however, the issue of what counts as
correct is much more complex. What of the child who, through
some speech impediment, never does make the transition from
tbwort to 'brought? What of the child who pronounces 'I
brought it in a regional accent with an ah sound as 'I brart it', or
says 'I seen it' (instead of 'I saw it'), not for some short-lived
developmental reason, but because this is what their family and
friends say too, as part of their dialect? What of the child who
has recently moved to Britain from the USA and says, as their
parents do, I've gotten it' instead of I've got it', and writes
Ideolor instead of colour'? Should the teacher eliminate these
dialectal and national variations, thus seeming to correct the
parents as well? The voices of school and home are not always
the same. To make matters more complex still, a third voice--the
voice of the peer group--speaks ever louder and more
persuasively as children grow older. They put 'RU' instead of 'are
you in text messages; they give words different fashionable
senses, invent new ones, and include slang or swear words of
which the adults disapprove, even if they use them themselves.
Within the school context by far the most controversial aspect
of this situation involves the relationship of the standard form of
the language to dialects. The standard is generally used in written
communication, taught in schools, and codified in dictionaries
and grammar books. Dialects are regional and social-class
varieties of the language which differ from the standard in
pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary, and are seldom
written down at all. The teaching of the standard can be viewed
in two quite contradictory ways. On the one hand it can be seen
as conferring an unfair advantage upon those children who
already speak a variety close to it, while simultaneously denying
the worth of other dialects and damaging the heritage of those

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children who speak them. On the other hand, given that the
standard exists, has prestige and power, and provides a gateway
to written knowledge, it can be argued that teaching it helps to
give an equal opportunity to all. In support of this latter view,
there is no reason why children cannot grow up knowing both a
dialect and the standard form, valuing both in different ways and
using them appropriately according to context.

In educational theory, from the 1960s onwards, this ongoing

debate has been further aggravated and complicated by the
claim, made by the educational sociologist Basil Bernstein, that
some social-class variations indicate not only differences but
deficits. In Bernstein's view, the language used in some sections of
society is a restricted code which lacks the full resources of the
more elaborated code of the standard. Not surprisingly, this view
has been hotly contested by others who argue that all varieties
are equally complex, functional, and expressive.

Schools are a good barometer of both language use and social

values, and their approach to teaching the national language or
languages, which is much the same all over the world, arises from
two interesting facts. The first fact is that a language--any
language is subject to enormous variation. There are
differences between individuals, social groups, generations, and
nations, and language is used differently in speech and writing,
and in formal and informal situations. The second fact is that
many people are intolerant of this variation. They struggle for a
single 'standard' way of using the language and care very deeply
about achieving this norm. This is why there is general support
for schools in their attempt to teach a standard form of the
language to all pupils, and why many people get so hot under the
collar about anything they perceive as incorrect, whether it be the
dropping' of b at the beginning of words, failure to distinguish'
who' from 'whom', or the use of new words such as 'flammable''
for 'inflammable'. Objections to such language can be very
strong, and low personal morals are often imputed to its
perpetrators. 'Incorrect language is seldom seen as just different,
but is typically described as 'wrong', 'lazy', 'slovenly', 'degenerate',
dirty', 'illogical', or 'corrupt'. Yet while there is general'
agreement over the need for a standard and the need to preserve
standards--the two words are, of course, related there is often

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disagreement over the details, and when this happens there can
be some very bitter arguments indeed. For example, should all
Fight be written as two words, as it used to be taught, or as a
Single word 'alright', as it is often taught now?

Given the depth of feeling which such apparently trivial

differences can arouse, applied linguistics needs to approach
such debates with both caution and respect. If it is to engage with
the people who are in the thick of decision making about which
forms are acceptable in which contexts, then a major task is not
only to understand the nature of variation in the system itself,
but also why this variation can be such an emotive issue.

Description versus prescription

Where in such cases of disagreement over usage can people
appeal for authority? One obvious answer might be to linguistics,
the academic discipline charged with the study of language.
There, surely, decisive and authoritative judgements can be
found? However, the response of academic linguists to this
general public concern for correctness has only added fuel to the
fireyuniting the advocates of both 'all right' and 'alright' in a
common cause! For they have generally argued, not for one side
on the other, but that all variants are equally valid simply by
virtue of the fact that they occur, and that no one form is any
more or less correct than another. As in the natural sciences, they
argue, the task is not to evaluate but to describe and explain. A
botanist, for example, should describe and explain the facts
about plants, not tell you which plants are the most beautiful.
Thus, linguists tend to favour description (saying what does
happen) over prescription (saying what ought to happen) and
argue that, from a linguistics point of view, the standard is
neither superior nor more stable than any other variety. To justify
their views they point to such facts as the following:

1-If there was never any deviation from the norm then languages
would never change. We would all still be saying 'Wherefore
art thou?' instead of 'Why are you?'
2- If a single standard was absolute and unassailable then regional .
standards would never gain independence. Webster's American
Dictionary of the English Language would have the same

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standing as a bad piece of school work, and it would be as

incorrect to write color' in Washington as in London.

3- Dialects have their own consistent rule governed grammars,

every bit as complex and expressive as those of standard

forms. The so-called double negative-'I didn't do nothing',
for example, often castigated as sloppy and illogical-is used
with consistency in certain dialects of English, and equivalents
can be found in the standard forms of other languages such as
Italian 'Non ho fatto niente' and Russian 'Nichego ne sdelal'.
4 The standard form of a language is often very similar to the
usage of the most economically and politically powerful class or
region, for example southern England in Britain and Castile in
Spain. It can be regarded as a dominant dialect which, for political
rather than linguistic reasons, has been elevated and codified.
Consequently, when the balance of power changes, so does the
notion of the standard. The emergence of American English as an
alternative standard to British English is a textbook example.
5- The grammar of written language differs considerably from
that of speech, even among speakers whose variety is closest to
the standard, and writing carries more prestige and authority.
As the standard is often the only form of the language used in
writing, what often happens in debates about correctness is
that written forms, for example, 'Whom do you want?', are
imposed rather self-consciously on speech
6- Some supposedly correct forms have been invented and
imposed by grammarians through analogy with another
language. Probably the best-known example in English is the
claim, based on a rule imported from Latin, that one should
say 'This is l' instead of 'This is me'.
While all of these arguments appear to have a kind of relentless
logic to them, they depend on a detachment from social reality
and are very much at odds with a deeply felt public view of
language. It is all very well to say that, linguistically speaking,
correctness is not a valid concept, but to many people deciding
what counts as correct is the single most important issue about
their language, and for linguistics, the discipline which claims to
study language, to refuse to engage with this debate is perceived
as at best incomprehensible, and at worst subversive and perverse.
Linguists may assume a superior air and insist that their concern

Page17
is with objective description, but in taking this stance they
necessarily distance themselves from people's everyday
experience of language.
For these reasons, on occasions when they have argued their
case in public, linguists have usually aroused irate opposition,
and then-feeling bruised but superior--they have hastily
retreated back into their academic sanctuaries. This isolationism,
though sad, might have some justification. Linguists' concern is
knowlodge as an end in itself rather than with action based upon
that knowledge. For applied linguistics, however, withdrawal is
not an option; it is committed by definition to engagement with
problems in the world in which language is implicated'. It
cannot turn its back upon such matters as the policy for teaching
national language in schools. Applied linguists have a
responsibility to investigate the reasons behind the impasse
between descriptivists and prescriptivists itself a problem
involving language), to engage with the practical consequences
holding one view or another, and to mediate between
academic and public concerns. They must relate to, and negotiate
between, the descriptivist view, often used to support the claim
that the standard form is merely a political convenience
perpetuating the privilege of a minority, and the prescriptivist
view ironically often held by speakers whose dialect differs
most-sharply from it--that there is something intrinsically
superior and better about the standard.
We might observe that, as is so often the case in such disputes,
it is bertainly not that academic experts are necessarily right and
day opinion just wrong-headed. Academics do not have a
monopoly either on knowledge or on rational argument. The
same his true in many analogous domains--for example,'
medicine, nutrition, or childcare--where everyday activity, vital
to people's well-being, is also the subject of academic research.
Thus, while there is force in descriptivist arguments, there are
also valid reservations to be made about them:
1- To talk about a language at all, there must be some pre-
existing notion of what does and does not count as an
example. Descriptivists may accept, as instances, some
examples of dialectal forms which hard-line prescriptivists
would exclude, but there are always others from another

paage18
language for example--which they reject. Thus, they are
drawing the boundary around a language in a different place,
not abandoning the notion of boundaries altogether.
2- In deciding what does count as an example of the language,
linguists often base their decisions upon native speaker use or
judgement. This, however, simply shifts the criterion away
from what is said to the person who says it. It also runs the
danger of becoming circular, i.e. native speakers provide valid
examples of the language; valid examples of the language are
provided by native speakers.
3- Despite descriptivist insistence on the equality of all varieties, it
is nevertheless the standard which is most often used in their
analyses while other varieties are described as departures from it.
4-If linguists are concerned with describing and explaining facts
about language, then the widespread belief in prescriptivism,
and the effect of this belief on language use, is itself a fact

about language which needs describing and explaining.

5- Paradoxically, to advocate description and outlaw prescription
is itself prescriptive.

An applied linguistics perspective

There is clearly material here for a head-on collision and this
indeed is what regularly happens when the two sides exchange
views. The arguments on both sides, however, are not easily
influenced either by appeals to logic or to evidence. This is
because adherence to one side or the other is often as much
emotional and ideological as rational. Descriptivists, on the one
hand, are passionate believers in an objective science of language;
prescriptivists, on the other, feeling that their very identity and
heritage is at stake, have an equally strong desire to impose
conformity. Given the incompatibility of the two views, it is
unrealistic that people holding either will simply make way for
the other. To make any headway, applied linguistics has the very
difficult task of trying to find points of contact in the contrary
views so that necessary decisions can be made.
Perhaps the first step is to recognize that, as points of view, they
can be taken as different perceptions which need not be seen as
competing alternatives. Thus it is unquestionably the case, as

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descriptivists tell us, that all language varies, that all language
carries markers of social identity, and that there is no way of
establishing the relative superiority of a form of speaking on
linguistic grounds, so that when varieties are preferred or
stigmatized it can only be for sociopolitical or ideological reasons.
One cannot legitimately use description for prescriptive purposes;
one cannot, for example, promote the cause of standard English by
appealing to the superior logic inherent in its grammar. Conversely,
it is a social fact that different forms of speaking are indeed
privileged or stigmatized, that people find security in stability and
resist change, and that proper or correct behaviour, whether
linguistic or not, is inextricably involved with a sense of cultural
identity. In short, prescription is a social phenomenon and it cannot
legitimately be countered by description.
Whatever the merits of the rival arguments for descriptivism
and prescriptivism and there is certainly a degree of truth on
both sides-in many practical activities it is simply impossible to
proceed without some notion of correct language use. In the
cases of speech therapy, foreign language teaching, and language
testing, for example, it is hard to see how the activity could exist
at all if there were not some yardstick to measure success.
Criteria of correctness may change-and they are more often
implicit than explicit-but they must nevertheless exist. A major
task for applied linguistics is to bring out what these criteria are
and how they are decided. If it is to inform practical decision
making, applied linguistics must first investigate what it means to
know a language and to use it well, presenting its findings in
ways which are relevant and useful to professionals such as
teachers and speech therapists, who necessarily have to act as
though they knew the answers to these impossible questions.
This is not to say that it is possible to present answers which
are absolute and stable. On the contrary, applied linguistics is
denied the luxury of those easier solutions which are available to
both academics disengaged from the urgencies of practice, and to
non-academics confident that they have nothing to learn from
research. Ideas about language are constantly shifting, both in
the light of new theories and findings, and under the impact of
non-linguistic factors such as demographic and political change.
Findings are inherently provisional, flexible, and open to constant

Page20
challenge. Consequently, applied linguistics must engage with
messy and disputable areas. Without undermining the rationale
for its own existence, it cannot avoid controversy.
In Britain, for example, the educational dilemma about
standard and dialect forms has been a highly charged and
emotive issue, concerning as it does the rights and futures of
children, and issues of social advantage and disadvantage. It is
also a classic applied linguistic problem. From the 1980s, applied
linguists were involved in a series of government committees
making recommendations on the teaching of English in schools.
Yet, as so often the case in such debates, opinions became
polarized and simplified, and more thoughtful recommendations
tended to be sidelined or ignored by politicians. (This course of
events is again in itself an applied linguistic problem.) Clearly it is
not enough, in such policy-making arenas, for the applied
linguist only to give learned and informed advice. He or she also
needs to have strategies for engaging with and exerting influence
upon the realities of decision making. If people do-at least in
modern literate societies--have a strong disposition towards
establishing norms of correctness, if they do have to act upon
their beliefs even when the reasons for them are not entirely clear,
then it is essential to negotiate with those attitudes and beliefs, to
build them into our model, to participate as well as to observe.
There is, however, something in this necessary troubleshooting
which gives applied linguistics an edge, both over other branches
of linguistics and over decision making not informed by theory
and research. Precisely because it must consider both perspectives,
it can contribute a richer understanding than either. Language is
a lived experience intimately involved with people's sense of
worth and identity. It does not lend itself to easy or simple
answers, and it cannot for this reason be treated, even when
studied as an academic discipline, in the same cold and
impersonal way as astronomy or mechanics, for if we do treat it
in this way we lose something of its essential nature. Yet language
also has aspects of a nature that eludes casual speculation, and
that can be enriched by institutionalized reflection and academic
research. The task of applied linguistics is to mediate between
these two very different perspectives. This is a difficult task, but it
is what applied linguistics does and what makes it worthwhile.