Henry Hitchings on language change and the key arguments
Henry Hitchings tells us that: “It seems as if no day passes without an
argument over the English language and its ‘proper’ use.”
We’ve all seen that many people get very worked up about how
the language is used (or abused), and the concerns range from spelling and
punctuation in writing, to abbreviations in text messages, right up to some of
the most common features of spoken language, such as fillers and tag questions
Key: one person’s LOL is often another person’s WTF?.
If you’re an A2 English Language student you’ll no doubt have
come across what are termed prescriptive and descriptive views of language:
arguments on one side that tell us how we should use language, and, on the
other, arguments that focus instead on linguistic description. This isn’t a
recent debate either. As Hitchings tells us, language has been a battleground
for centuries.
Prescriptivists complaining of particular uses: Tag questions
e.g. ‘innit’
Ongoing complaints of: New words, accents, foreign influence
on English, way punctuation is
used.
Identifies 2 types of prescriptivism:
- One is motivated by
desire for use of language effectively and consistently.
- Second is a group with anxiety about larger social issues;
link to ‘broken window’ thesis where if you don’t mend the straightforward
things, bigger problems will emerge.
If the users battle of standard English, larger problems will
occur as a secondary cause.
