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Prescriptive Grammar Are The Rules Governing How Term Paper

Prescriptive grammar are the rules governing how one speaks and writes, based on an English standard "norm," or how society in general believes the language of English should be spoken and written (Russel, 2003). Prescriptive rules by nature judge whether the language being used is correct or not. Descriptive Grammar is very different, in that rather than assigning rules regarding the manner in which one should speak and write, it examines how people actually do speak and right and attempts to account for variant grammar usage (Russel, 2003). Descriptive grammar allows for more variation of the spoken and written word than prescriptive grammar, and takes into consideration a native speakers intuitive ability to comprehend grammatical structure without actually studying the mechanisms behind it. Prescriptive grammar assumes that everyone should or will be following an assigned standard...

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Linguists tend to more closely associate with descriptive language, which does not assume that because people are native English speakers, that they necessarily understand the mechanics of the language. Instead, using a model of descriptive grammar linguists assume that a speaker has obtained "linguistic competence" (Russel). This means that even though a native speaker has the ability to properly use, pronounce and comprehend the language, they may not necessarily understand or have learned all of the rules regarding the language or the reasons why the language works. A descriptive grammatical user is able to understand when words are not in English, so utilizes internal mechanisms to interpret and comprehend the language.
An example of prescriptive language would include using "i" before "e" except in the case of "c." When a…

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Russel. (2003). "Prescriptive vs. Descriptive Grammar." Retrieved March 23, 2003 at http://grove.ufl.edu/~russell/prescriptive.html
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