What is language?

Lin 211 • Section 1, Part 3

Kevin B McGowan

2026-08-31

We can talk about two kinds of language rules

Prescriptive: an attempt to control how language is used

⤷ very common (english teachers, grammar police, etc.)

Descriptive: an attempt to understand how language is used

⤷ uncommon (linguists & lexicographers)

Prescriptive Rules are made up by external actors (e.g., teachers, grammar book writers, grammar police, etc.)
That person (or group) asserts authority in language and issues a prohibition/command that is meant to be unquestioningly followed
Often they try to use shame or threats as motivation
examples:
- “Don’t end a sentence with a preposition.”
- “Do not use contractions.”
- “It is incorrect to ~~ever~~ split an infinitive.
- “You sound ignorant if you say ain’t.”

Descriptive Rules emerge from usage and custom. Descriptive rules vest authority in the people who use and speak the language not in external authorities.
- Rules are based on observations of language in use by real language users.
- These rules can be broken! It is possible to say things that are ungrammatical.
- It’s just that ungrammatical in the descriptive sense means “no one says that”

Example Descriptive Rule: English speakers have to use ‘the’ or ‘a/an’ before a noun.
- * You must have ticket to ride train. ¹
- You must have a ticket to ride the train.
Example Descriptive Rule: the past tense of go is went
- * Daddy goed on the airplane!
- Daddy went on the airplane!

Knowing and following descriptive rules feels right to us
It can be a way of demonstrating one’s erudition, learning, belonging, but…
Enforcing prescriptive rules can also be a way of gatekeeping who gets to be in your group
Prescriptive rules are always social judgements, not linguistic facts.

Prescriptive judgments of “right” vs. “wrong” or superior vs. inferior represent learned social attitudes to a particular variety or a particular form.
They are usually judgments against the speaker groups who use those varieties rather than against the language itself.

What is a ‘rule’ someone has told you about English?
- Figure out together whether this ‘rule’ is Descriptive or Prescriptive
Do these two sentences contain any ‘errors’ and, if so, do they violate prescriptive or descriptive rules?
- “If she ain’t here, I’m leavin’!”
- “* The weather in this part of is extremely.”

Imagine a friend says this sentence to you:
- “I saw a platypus at the zoo today. Did you know they lay eggs!?!?”
Take a stance: How do you know what a platypus is??

This is our first attendance question. You can find it as “August 31st in class” on Canvas and the access code is ‘PLATYPUS’.

Usually, we know what a platypus (or any word!) is by combining what we already know with the evidence from the utterance to arrive at a meaning that is enough to go on
You don’t have to know that a platypus is venomous, you don’t have to know that they mammals who don’t have nipples, or that its Latin name is Ornithorhynchus anatinus to know what “I saw a platypus at the zoo” means
Imagine someone said to you: “Can I pet that snorgfloos?
what is a snorgfloos?

Last week we said we are talking about language as a distinctly human ability, not any individual language
- All humans use language
- Language may be spoken or signed, written or not
According to your book, “human languages are structured systems for making articulated thoughts fully explicit both internally (mentally) and externally (in a form perceptible to other humans)” (p. 3)
But that “fully explicit” depends on: who is talking, who is listening, and the context they’re in!

Accommodations letters, athlete notes, etc. ASAP

Go to recitation on Friday for your first quiz!

Get your textbook as soon as possible

Read “How many” (a PDF on Canvas) for Monday

Get started on Observation Notes #1