Language evolution is good, it improves how we express our ideas and communicate with each other, but when writing for professional purposes it's not the perfect time to get creative. A standardized language is essential for things where clear communication in crucial. The UN General Assembly needs heads of state to, well, state things. A business proposal or a financial report shouldn't include alternative spellings and a poetic grammar. The prescriptivist side of language is necessary for communication to work in such cases. I'd like to see how the peace negotiations with FARC work with made up words and colloquial diction.
While we do need some rules for formal things, for language to be expressive and continue changing for better, informal writing should be approached in a descriptivist way as long as it's words have meanings. The recent texting era has made people change language to words that are shorter, faster to write and sound "cool." I get the point if you're a frustrated teenager seeking to feel popular through your internet personality, but nonsense grammar and short phrases don't communicate much. Overall, I feel that language should be free and approached in a descriptivist way as long as it doesn't start having an evolutionary degeneration. Language evolution has been considered good so far as it has made expression complex in a good way, but if it becomes something that destroys communication, I'd go for the prescriptivist side of the debate.
-----------------------------
Descriptivist: Someone who describes language as it is used (generally more accepting in how it can be used).
Prescriptivist: Someone who focuses on how language should be used (generally less accepting in the proper use of language).
No comments:
Post a Comment