The prescriptive approach to language deals with word structures of a language and syntax.The prescriptive grammar is based on telling people what grammatical rules they should follow, rather than describing the rules people know already. For example, if an adult wants to learn how to speak a new language, he/she wants someone to prescribe them rules to follow.
The descriptive approach to language is when it tries to explain things how they actually are. The descriptive approach tries to find how language is used comprehensively, accurately and systematically.
These two approaches are different in a way that one is based on telling people what rules they should follow which is the prescriptive approach and the other, descriptive approach, is about finding how a language is used by the people that speak it. Another difference is also in the grammar of these two approaches. The descriptive grammar “attempts to describe the rules internalised by a speaker of that language” according to Fromkin et al. (2012). The prescriptive grammar wanted to codify the concept of their language and they also wanted to aspire to settle any disputes over …show more content…
The way i speak and the way that someone would speak from an upper class level would be very different. As a student whose family is middle class, I am not very “proper” with the way I talk or even pronounce words. But, when I am talking to someone that is from a lower class I would adapt my pronunciation to their speech. As mentioned in Holmes (2013, p.240 “the speaker 's relationship to the addressee is crucial in determining the appropriate style of speaking”. I believe that my linguistic behaviour is typical to the relevant reading because my influence on the style I speak when I address someone that is a lower class than me is different to how I would normally
The descriptive approach to language is when it tries to explain things how they actually are. The descriptive approach tries to find how language is used comprehensively, accurately and systematically.
These two approaches are different in a way that one is based on telling people what rules they should follow which is the prescriptive approach and the other, descriptive approach, is about finding how a language is used by the people that speak it. Another difference is also in the grammar of these two approaches. The descriptive grammar “attempts to describe the rules internalised by a speaker of that language” according to Fromkin et al. (2012). The prescriptive grammar wanted to codify the concept of their language and they also wanted to aspire to settle any disputes over …show more content…
The way i speak and the way that someone would speak from an upper class level would be very different. As a student whose family is middle class, I am not very “proper” with the way I talk or even pronounce words. But, when I am talking to someone that is from a lower class I would adapt my pronunciation to their speech. As mentioned in Holmes (2013, p.240 “the speaker 's relationship to the addressee is crucial in determining the appropriate style of speaking”. I believe that my linguistic behaviour is typical to the relevant reading because my influence on the style I speak when I address someone that is a lower class than me is different to how I would normally