Linguistics and Descriptive Approach - Essay Example

The descriptive approach suggests that people should study language as it is rather than taking the models of language and enforcing them on people (Rogers, p. 56).  This paper will describe how to argue why linguistics should take a descriptive approach since it tries to explain things as they are not what they wish them to be as it is with the prescriptive approach.

As linguists affirm that the need of updating language manuals and dictionaries is becoming more vital. This materializes since new technologies, ideas, concepts, and new styles of communication and words shape themselves within the people and supplant older ones. Industries and sciences develop new concepts and technologies daily (Kroch, p. 32). Therefore, they ought to be and are being mirrored in our day-to-day language, and acknowledged in our daily life. Particular words change their connotation; some become obsolete, and others gain new meanings which are diverse from earlier ones. Alterations such as the creation of new words, concepts, and ideas are not happening in some specific language, but in most of the languages in the world. Descriptions suggest there is a need to study and understand words and languages or in other words describe them (Rogers, p. 81).

Supporters of the descriptive approach claim that it is imperative to know them, notice, contemplate, and become used to the vicissitudes. Not only does the industry influence the language, but the language is also influenced by it too. In his graft David Crystal explicated this portent as follows: "This would form a fragment of a much broader economic perspective, in which the traditional view, that the economy influences language, is supplemented by the notion that language exercises a strong influence on the economy. There are several domains in which languages play an important role, and thus contribute to their economic success" (Crystal, p. 172).

As prescripts argue that there is a need for people to learn how to pronounce words and speak the languages since new and alternative words appear to name new things and processes, new idiomatic expressions, metaphors, similes, and spellings appear to express older ones which are progressively getting out of use. Therefore, prescripts claim that these innovations sometimes stay undetected or that not much responsiveness is paid to them. They become parts of our day-to-day communication and are used as though there is nothing new in them and hence there is more to be done than just describing them (Renouf & Kehoe, p. 31). Nonetheless, supporters of the descriptive approach claim that if the change is recognized, it can face two likely reactions. The first one entails noting them, trying to describe and categorize them, determining whether to take them or not, or merely accommodating them without any reservations. This is what is involved in the descriptive approach. The approach intends to clearly and precisely define how some features of the language are made use of in communication (Kroch, p. 90).

On the other hand, this may result in the comprehension that all the etymological units have same the features and may be categorized similarly. Contemporary linguists have a preference for applying the descriptive approach to the language since it does not necessitate them to decide what the language must look like or recommend what particular rules must be used. The descriptive approach obliges them only to define what language is, what fresh changes have surfaced, what their basic qualities are, and in what way are they used in communication (Kroch, p. 57). Rather than developing new rules, this approach allows unfolding and bringing to broad use those instructions, which individuals have already devised and used to create words and sentences. Certainly, there are certain descriptive rules in English that are essential to follow. For instance, the object follows the verb, the subject precedes the verb, and the plural of a noun is formed by adding '-s', and auxiliary verbs precede the subject in question (Bennett, p. 142).

Conclusion

Having said this, there is more to language than just a neutral way of conveying information. Hence, the resistance descriptive approach is illogical. You do not have to consent to this assumption yourself to see that the language one possesses encompasses deep inquiries of who we are and how we imagine our association with society at large. As a result, pronouncements about language can inflame strong retorts. When somebody tells us that our use of language understanding is derisory, it is merely normal to bristle.

Language has lapped over us like a river incessantly since natal. We use it often. It defines who we are. Language and identity twine around each other firmly and they are difficult to isolate. Language works as a symbol of group distinctiveness.  With the use of allegory, catachresis, alliteration in our speeches, and how we pronounce words, we convey signals to others, unconsciously or consciously, on where we come from and how we perceive ourselves. In accordance with this viewpoint, the main thread binding a diverse culture together is morphology.