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34.1 Introduction 34.1 Introduction
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34.2 The Nature of Authority 34.2 The Nature of Authority
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34.3 Control and Correctness 34.3 Control and Correctness
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34.4 Patrolling the Borders 34.4 Patrolling the Borders
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34.5 The Sources of Evidence 34.5 The Sources of Evidence
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34.6 Acts of Interpretation 34.6 Acts of Interpretation
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Archival Documents Archival Documents
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37 National Dictionaries and Cultural Identity: Insights from Austrian, German, and Canadian English
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34 Description and Prescription in Dictionaries
Get accessLynda Mugglestoneis Professor of History of English at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. She has published widely on the history of the English, and on the social, cultural, and ideological issues that dictionary-making can reveal). Recent books include Lexicography and the OED. Pioneers in the Untrodden Forest (Oxford University Press, 2002), ‘Talking Proper’. The Rise of Accent as Social Symbol (Oxford University Press, 2007), Lost for Words. The Hidden History of the Oxford English Dictionary (Yale University Press, 2005), The Oxford History of English _(Oxford University Press, 2008) and Dictionaries. A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press 2011). She is currently writing a book on Samuel Johnson.
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Published:07 March 2016
Cite
Abstract
In linguistics, descriptivism and prescriptivism are commonly depicted as antonyms. Dyads of objectivity and subjectivity, evidence-based analysis vs. the pull of opinion, and impartial engagement vs. the idiosyncrasies of individual response recur repeatedly. Yet prescription and description can be placed in markedly asymmetric relation. Being descriptive is made part of the legitimate practice of linguistic response. Prescriptivism is both delegitimized and devalorized. Such demarcations prove interestingly complex in lexicography, where descriptive and prescriptive can co-exist within a single work (or even a single entry). The point at which descriptivism shades into prescriptivism can be difficult to locate. Descriptive processes of collection and evaluation of evidence can be accompanied by prescriptive (and proscriptive) reservation. While a historical trajectory from prescriptive to descriptive can be identified, this exhibits unexpected configurations, especially if moral and cultural prescriptivism are considered. These issues are examined as reflected in English dictionaries, especially the Oxford English Dictionary.
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