All: linguistic prescriptivism or descriptivism
Posted Dec 29, 2019, 1:34 AM UTC
1015
Wait, what?
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What stance do you take.
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Strongly descriptive. The idea that we can consciously control what language means, as individuals, is crazy to me.
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Prescriptivist. Words have meanings.
Generally speaking, I think GC is prescriptivist and QT is descriptivist.
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That’s interesting, I am GC and part of the reason that is is that I take the descriptivist view and I don’t think that “internal sense of belonging” accurately describes what people mean when they say man or woman. I think the people who describe it as a heuristic / social categories based on people assuming what ones sex is based on how they look/sound/etc is more accurate.
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My go-to prescriptivism example is sex and gender. From a P view, the words are distinct, while the D usage is interchangeable. I’m GC as well, so I use sex and gender to refer to two separate things, which is, strictly speaking, the correct, rule-abiding P usage despite the D usage being more common. I’m wary of the meaning shift in descriptivism because it too easily is manipulated into propaganda. That’s not just limited to trans issues, but, for example, the way the US Republican Party has redefined the term “family values.”
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I think with academic language there is more use for prescriptivism. Like I agree that it makes the most sense to use sex as a precise term when speaking or writing in a way meant to seriously communicate.
Also, the thing about propaganda is a really interesting criticism of descriptivism I never thought of before. I don’t know if you can really prevent people from coming up with dog whistle terms like that.
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Backwards. QT has their preferred meanings for words and tries to force others to use them by arguing that woman should mean XYZ because insert reasons here and to believe otherwise is transphobic. GC recognizes that English speaking humans use the combination of phonemes “w-o-m-a-n” to designate people of the female sex.
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Hmm. I agree with what you said, but I don't see how that's backwards. In my mind, QT is descriptivist because they are trying, quite successfully, to make their definition of woman common usage and therefore true, while GC is prescriptivist because there is already a standard definition, adult human female, that should be adhered to.
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QT is descriptivist because they are trying, quite successfully, to make their definition of woman common usage and therefore true
That’s not descriptivism, that’s literally being prescriptive. Trying to get people to use words how you say they should mean and not how they’re actually being used is the literal opposite of descriptivism.
The fact it’s “their” definition they’re pushing to begin with proves it. Anyone with a preferred definition is necessarily not merely describing word use.
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But their definition is how it's actually being used. If it weren't, the words "adult human female" wouldn't be so controversial.
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I think that GCs who claim it means those perceived/categorized as female are more accurate in terms of how intersex people, passing trans people, etc, are actually described by others. If we’re talking descriptivism.
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Might need to break this down more for folks. I certainly think you could make prescriptive and descriptive arguments for word choices. But there is no language pope that arbiters in true tongue that some sounds must and shall always have the same meaning. Language is simply the medium of efficient miscommunication. Sounds/symbols/gestures don't ought to mean anything on their own and dont.
Or watch contrapoints' "Pronouns:" https://youtu.be/9bbINLWtMKI
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I mean, it’s not really a debate right? For most contexts, the descriptive approach is most accurate/helpful. prescriptive/proscriptive approach is only utilized in particularly legal or academic settings.