You're telling a friend an amazing story, and you just get to the best part
when suddenly he interrupts, "The alien and I," not "Me and the alien." Most of us would probably be annoyed, but aside from the rude interruption, does your friend have a point? Was your sentence actually
grammatically incorrect? And if he still understood it,
why does it even matter? From the point of view of linguistics, grammar is a set of patterns
for how words are put together to form phrases or clauses, whether spoken or in writing. Different languages
have different patterns. In English, the subject
normally comes first, followed by the verb, and then the object, while in Japanese
and many other languages, the order is subject, object, verb. Some scholars have tried to identify
patterns common to all languages, but apart from some basic features, like having nouns or verbs, few of these so-called
linguistic universals have been found. And while any language needs consistent
patterns to function, the study of these patterns opens up
an ongoing debate between two positions known as prescriptivism
and descriptivism. Grossly simplified, prescriptivists think a given language
should follow consistent rules, while descriptivists see variation
and adaptation as a natural and necessary part of language. For much of history, the vast majority
of language was spoken. But as people became more interconnected
and writing gained importance, written language was standardized
to allow broader communication and ensure that people in different parts
of a realm could understand each other. In many languages, this standard form
came to be considered the only proper one, despite being derived from just one
of many spoken varieties, usually that of the people in power. Language purists worked to establish
and propagate this standard by detailing a set of rules that reflected
the established grammar of their times. And rules for written grammar were applied
to spoken language, as well. Speech patterns that deviated from the
written rules were considered corruptions, or signs of low social status, and many people who had grown up
speaking in these ways were forced to adopt
the standardized form. More recently, however, linguists have understood that speech
is a separate phenomenon from writing with its own regularities and patterns. Most of us learn to speak at such an early
age that we don't even remember it. We form our spoken repertoire through
unconscious habits, not memorized rules. And because speech also uses mood
and intonation for meaning, its structure is often more flexible, adapting to the needs of speakers
and listeners. This could mean avoiding complex clauses
that are hard to parse in real time, making changes to avoid awkward
pronounciation, or removing sounds to make speech faster. The linguistic approach that tries
to understand and map such differences without dictating correct ones
is known as descriptivism. Rather than deciding how language
should be used, it describes how people actually use it, and tracks the innovations
they come up with in the process. But while the debate between prescriptivism
and descriptivism continues, the two are not mutually exclusive. At its best, prescriptivism is useful
for informing people about the most common established
patterns at a given point in time. This is important,
not only for formal contexts, but it also makes communication easier
between non-native speakers from different backgrounds. Descriptivism, on the other hand, gives us insight into how our minds work and the instinctive ways in which we
structure our view of the world. Ultimately, grammar is best thought of
as a set of linguistic habits that are constantly being negotiated
and reinvented by the entire group of language users. Like language itself, it's a wonderful and complex fabric woven through the contributions
of speakers and listeners, writers and readers, prescriptivists and descriptivists, from both near and far.
