course, the term values is uncomfortably broad. In this introduction and in this volume, we use the term to encompass a number of senses. Perhaps the most salient sense, however, is sense 6.D. from the OED: ‘The principles or moral standards held by a person or social group; the generally accepted or personally held judgement of what is valuable and important in life’ (Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. ‘value’). In this regard, values are closely connected to a person’s connections to social groups or decisions on how to conduct life. The ‘principles or moral standards’ are highly dependent on individual interpretation and are constantly shifting, transforming and being reinterpreted. This deep personal dimension to values includes personal beliefs and social identifications that won’t be adequately represented by broad, binary labels. Yet the same deep personal dimension of values may at the same time reinforce the binaries as individuals make assumptions that there are only two options: an object is valuable or worthless; a political idea has value or no merit; a moral standard is accepted as valuable in a community or it is discarded. Paradoxically, the notion of values may well be responsible for both the tendency towards binaries and the inadequacy of them.
As undergirding for the prescriptive impulse itself – certain linguistic variants are to be valued or deemed ‘correct’ or ‘good’ more than others – values can be seen to lead to the most conspicuous binaries. Whatever the reason for valorizing a particular linguistic variant (it is more elegant, clearer, more traditional, easier to analyze), the commitment to those values is what leads proponents to the proposition that only one form can be acceptable, while the others must not be. Similarly, the commitment to values is likely a major factor for the two-party system we find in discussions of prescriptivism, where one is characterized as being either a prescriptivist or a descriptivist. More than anything, the discussion around these two terms characterizes individuals as having more or less of a commitment to the value of the prescriptive regulation of language. In this binary, prescriptivism and descriptivism fundamentally (and often irreconcilably) differ as to whether, how and why some linguistic forms should be privileged over others, and how those privileges should be extended across borders and through different communities.
In recent years, academics have become more willing to engage directly with the binaries of prescriptivism/descriptivism in ‘a more balanced approach’ (Pillière et al., 2018: 8). This approach more fully recognizes the values of the many parties interested in linguistic prescriptivism: linguists, practitioners, governments, the media and the public. The chapters in this volume address the values and binaries in language prescription. The chapters converge on the ways in which values both enable and undermine the binaries we find in prescriptivism. The chapters treat this topic from various angles. Some chapters treat this topic explicitly, questioning the utility of reducing all choices to two or whether descriptivism and prescriptivism can even really be separated from each other. Other chapters treat the topic more obliquely, as they investigate more specific questions, such as the role of national or religious identities in forming attitudes toward usage or the values encapsulated in mechanisms of regulation like handbooks or editing practices. While many of the chapters address these topics in the English tradition, some also examine the binaries in American German, Dutch, Hobongan and Lithuanian.
What emerge from the combined chapters are many stimulating points of view that ultimately question the value of binaries by examining those binaries in connection with identities and values. The connections render traditional theoretical binaries inadequate and show that those binaries not only oversimplify the issues, but also prove detrimental to academic inquiry into language. This volume’s recurring central theme is exploring ways to examine and break down the binaries associated with prescriptivism to open new avenues for research into the complexities of language.
2 The Chapters
The chapters in this volume are organized into four broad sections, each of which confronts a different binary. In the first section, the chapters address the two-party system of prescriptivism vs descriptivism that has come to define the field of language prescription. In the second section, the focus shifts to the broader binary of prescriptivism and linguistics, particularly in the context of how advanced research methods lead to a breakdown of traditional binaries. The third section connects societal attitudes toward language prescription to the personal values of the people within those societies. The fourth and final section addresses the values and actual practices of practitioners – editors and style guide authors. Together these four sections provide a deeper, more complex view of the questions surrounding language prescription and work to break down the barriers between the different linguistic camps.
2.1 Part 1: Prescriptivism vs Descriptivism: An Untenable Binary
In the first section of this volume, the authors reflect on the inadequacies of allowing the contest between prescriptivism and descriptivism to frame discussions of language variation. John Joseph sets the tone in Chapter 2 with his examination of the difficulties of separating descriptivism from prescriptivism. Descriptivism is about describing language as it is, but that description very easily slips into defining what language ought to be. Any attempt to accurately describe natural language involves value judgements, in what linguists consider normal, in the methods used to collect language data and in the discussion and use of the findings. Joseph lays out several points that show the inadequacy of a conception of language study as being either prescriptivist or descriptivist. He is not claiming that self-conscious regulation is superior to the goals of description in linguistics, but he does argue that anti-prescriptivism is based on a false binary. Pure descriptivism is likely impossible to achieve, and the contest between prescriptivism and descriptivism is inadequate and can get in the way of language documentation and revitalization.
These themes are picked up in Chapter 3, where Marla Perkins discusses the way ‘pure descriptivism’ is supposed to work in her documentation of Hobongan, an Indonesian language, and then shows how it actually works as an often messy combination of descriptive documentation and prescriptive decisions. Perkins notes the value of providing a description of the language to help the speakers gain group recognition from the Indonesian government. She argues, however, that any description of a language will necessarily exclude some variants. The language description cannot be value neutral because the values of the speakers will drive them in their decisions. Therefore, she illustrates Joseph’s argument that prescriptivism lies in use, not intent. In the attempt to describe the natural state of an endangered language, linguists can reify that language and privilege the points they reify.
In Chapter 4, Don Chapman addresses the prescriptivism/descriptivism binary directly through an examination of the basic meanings of the two words, the values associated with them and the underlying assumptions in discussions of this binary. Most importantly, Chapman shows that there are a fuller range of values that are hidden by a slogan-level use of the prescriptivism/descriptivism binary. While there is some value in having contrastive terms, the terms themselves oversimplify the complex values that are packed into the language. Chapman unpacks the term descriptivism to go beyond its simple uses as anti-prescriptivism or non-prescriptivism to allow for a more nuanced view of the complexities of language variation.
The primary theme of this first section is to set the stage for the rest of the volume by examining and deconstructing the overarching binary in discussions of language prescription. Recognizing the complex values and nuanced meanings that are used to construct the binary allows for a deeper inquiry into additional binaries and their effects on linguistics research, language use, government policy and practical application.
2.2 Part 2: Prescriptivism vs Linguistics: An Unnecessary Binary
The second section of this volume examines the broader binary of linguistics vs prescriptivism. While there is a notion that the study (and practice) of prescriptivism is antithetical to the study of linguistics, these authors show that binary to be unnecessary and unsustainable when the issues are examined using advanced research methods. In Chapter 5, Lieselotte Anderwald examines the influence of prescriptive rules on language change. Using quantitative methods, Anderwald shows that the binary of good/bad, standard/nonstandard
