Investigation: Prescriptive or Descriptive language?

Outline of my investigation about the use of language

1. Identifying the phenomenon

2. Objectives

3. Contextual framework

4. Theoretical framework

4.1 What is language?

4.2 Descriptive and prescriptive language.

4.3 Language system and language behavior

4.4 Saussure´s concepts: “langue” and “parole”.

4.5 Pronouns of Address

5. Hypothesis

1. Identifying the phenomenon

Differences between the use of formal (prescriptive) language and informal (descriptive) language by middle class young adults and adults.

One prove of this is the difference in the use of tú and usted to address different people that is related to them.

2. Objectives

The purpose is to find out the reasons for young adults and adults to use formal or informal language and also in which situations they choose to use one of them or both.

 Another objective is to discover if there is any connection between the answers of these groups and if there has been a big change from one generation to another.

3. Contextual framework

The research and observation will be made in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters and also with people of my environment such as family, friends which are from the middle class and approximately the same educational level between them.

The young adults are studying their degree and some of them are working, and the adults all of them have finished their degree and are workers or have been involved in that environment; that is really important because the purpose is to find the similarities but also the differences and for these two aspects they must have studied a degree.

Young adults must be between 18 and 24 years old, approximately the ages in which they are studying and the adults between 40 and 50 years old, that is in a certain way the range of ages of their parents.

4. Theoretical framework

First, is necessary to identify which concepts are related to the investigation.

4.1 What is language?

According to Sapir, language is a method used by humans, it is based on oral and written communication. This method was created in order to express humans´ needs.

According to Block and Trager it is a system of vocal symbols that change according to the speech community and people use this system to interact with others.

From Chomsky´s point of view, language consists on a group of sentences but these sentences are not finite, they have length and are compound by a set of infinite elements.

Finally Robins says that language is a system of symbols that a group of people accept and decide to use and that is also arbitrary.

4.2 Descriptive and prescriptive language.

According to Lyons, the prescriptive language is the correct way to speak or to use language; it represents the language that follows all the rules or norms, that is why it is also called normative. Everything in it is defined.

On the other hand, the descriptive language represents the one that is used by the society and follows all the rules that the speech community decided to have in their own language.

4.3 Language system and language behavior

According to Lyons, language behavior is like and activity, it is something that you can see and observe by the people that is involved in this interactions but also by spectators.

This language behavior is interrelated to the concepts of competence and performance. It means that in order to communicate and interact through language, we must know our language and have the cognitive ability to use it. For being able to perform, we must be competent but being competent is not always related to the way in which we perform, there are many other things involved.

4.4 Saussure´s concepts: “langue” and “parole”.

Saussure gave the term “langue” to the language particularly as a system and the term “parole” he used it to refer to the colloquial way of speaking by a specific group of people.

Something that is important to mention is that he realized that the individual behavior has an important role in linguistic changes that come to create the descriptive language or “parole”

4.5 Pronouns of Address

In Spanish language, we use polite (v- usted) and familiar (T- tú) pronouns of address.

The differences started in Latin in the last period of Roman Empire or early Middle Ages. There are some aspects to take on consideration in order to understand the reasons for these differences.

• Power and solidarity
• Non-reciprocal use-difference of status
• A socially superior or more powerful person will address his/her inferiors familiarly but not viceversa
• It is culture dependant.

5. Hypothesis

My hypothesis consists in the assumption of how prescriptive and descriptive languages change in their use and application depending on the age of the people that is using them. And also it hope this research help me to prove that descriptive or informal language is nowadays more used in society by younger people in this case young adults and in many different environments and that prescriptive language is only used in very specific and limited situations in our daily life.