History I / Language and Culture
Practice question · Sort into groups

Sort each statement about language: descriptive (how people speak) or prescriptive (how someone says they should)?

Groups: Descriptive · Prescriptive

Hints
  1. One kind of statement records usage, the other legislates it.
  2. Calling a form wrong is not a description.
Show the answer

Descriptive: Many Londoners pronounce "th" as "f", Double negatives mark emphasis in this dialect, Younger speakers here are dropping the case endings

Prescriptive: Never end a sentence with a preposition, "Ain’t" is not a real word, Say "whom" wherever it is grammatically licensed

Why

Linguistic anthropology is descriptive: dialects are data, not errors. Prescriptive rules are themselves data too, evidence about which groups hold the social power to define "correct."

Read the lesson: Language and Culture →

Practise Language and Culture

The app has 7 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.

More questions on Language and Culture