Assignment One

In our class we are asked the following questions: one, is a leaning towards Prescriptivism indicative of prejudice; two, if one adheres to such a leaning is he or she prejudiced; three, if the aforementioned is indeed prejudice, should it be seen as acceptable; and four, are ‘Gate-keeping’ institutions, irregardless of origin, discriminatory? The answer can only be made clear when one asks the contextual background in which such a situation arises.
But, to address the opponents of Prescriptivism, who hold themselves on the polar end of our argument, I must admit the unfortunate following: first, the literary impetus that lead to an eventual synthesis of ideas that became Prescriptivism, it is highly likely, judging from what I’ve read, that its origins are indeed a product of elitism; secondly, the continuing legacy of Cultural Imperialism, Racism, and prejudice, are still very much alive in our society, and one of the manifestations can be seen as a conditional language Prescriptivism. But, despite a certain affiliation with these deplorable things, Prescriptivism is still a necessity.
Why, you may ask? The reason is because, like many subjects of inquiry and codification that have been manufactured by European intellectuals, it still has value. The response of it being designed by “old, white men” does not depreciate Prescriptivism. There is a manifold of reasons for which I see Prescriptivism as an imperative.
As much as the Descriptivist demands we capitulate to the constant flux of language in our contemporary society, and as much as many of you see this as simple factual, I would like to point out that on the other end, increasingly, in all continents and across all cultures, there is an extinguishing of diversity in language; one can see this as either good or bad, but it is also fact. As an example, there is a huge degree of variance in dialects of Mainland China, but many of these are disappearing. It is not just accentuation that is quickly evaporating – many of the languages that are spoken today will be dead by the end of our lifetime. In each case, one would hope, these variances will be recorded and archived.
A bewildered and reactionary “leftist”, like instinct, will decry the state and educational institutions as being the primary means of this developing homogeneity, but he or she would be dead wrong; mass pop culture – television, radio, ‘zines, blogs, the internet – all of these should be classified as being guilty as well. What would happen to the “minor” languages that have been or are in the process of being overshadowed by the majority do without the Prescriptivist agents (the “Gate-keeping” institutions) that preserve them? Gaelic would never have see its resurgence, Hebrew would still be relegated only to those invested in the literature of Judaism and theology, and the people of the Basque region of Spain would be watching their mother tongue entombed in a slow and painful cultural death.
As a Prescriptivist, being cognizant of both flux and ossification of language as a result of the institutions and societal mechanism that enable change and cohesion, I propagate that present language should be codified for means of the following: one, enabling a distinct method of the transference of meaning; two, providing a uniform mechanism of that transference; and three, maintaining absolute continuity.
It may not be obvious to the many of you, but I place myself very firmly on the left (and that includes the entire toolbox, so to speak) and I do not find that my being in the Prescriptivist camp makes me any less of a leftist. At the very end of it, when an individual is prejudiced, his or her preponderance will show up in how he or she relates to others, and a part of that is language. The question of assimilation as a result of Prescriptivism is a difficult one, yes, and I do not expect individuals who are enabled to speak Standard English give up much of their cultural nuances; merely it should be expected that they are made capable of participation within English speaking society.
As a small note, which I feel compelled to add - it is unacceptable to generalize our response to prejudice in language by saying that judgment and evaluation are inevitable. This does not confront this problem – it simply allocates it to a rather despicable notion that prejudice and racism will always be adjuncts of the human civilization and, as a result, there is no reason to actively oppose them. I implore to you, that this oversimplification is omnipresent in numerous difficult political terrains in our country – a decent human being forces oneself to walk through them.