Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

To most people, the word “grammar” suggests a normative enterprise, dictating what constitutes correct language use. For example, many educated English speakers would identify at least five supposed grammatical “errors” in the following sentence: (1)  Hopefully, we will be able to easily figure out who to talk to. Yet native speakers of American English also certainly recognize that (1) would be an entirely acceptable and natural sounding sentence in ordinary discourse. Indeed, the supposedly “correct” alternative (2) would be an awkward and affected way of expressing the thought. (2)  I hope that we shall be able easily to figure out to whom to talk. Modern linguistics has little use for this prescriptive conception of grammar. Linguists are more interested in the knowledge of English that allows native speakers to judge (1) as fully acceptable and (2) as somewhat less natural. The prescriptions of traditional grammar are attempts to impose the speech patterns of one region, class, ethnicity, or generation on speakers belonging to other groups. They may be of interest to sociologists, historians, and political scientists, but they tell us very little about the nature of language. Language is a natural phenomenon, constituting an essential component of every human society. Linguistics is concerned with studying languages and language in general, much as biology studies living species ... log in or subscribe to read full text