There is no such thing as "correct" use of language.
Languages are not prescriptive. Languages don’t tell us how to communicate. We tell languages how we want to communicate.
Having spent most of my academic and professional life learning the grammar rules of several languages to a certain level of complexity and depth, I noticed that the way I perceived grammar rules was totally different depending on the language. Let me elaborate.
In the Spanish school system, we start studying Spanish grammar, syntax, and morphology at an early age. If you choose, as I did, to continue studying applied languages in college, you go deep into semantics and pragmatics. But, the way I remember learning Spanish grammar rules all throughout my academic life was descriptive. Those rules were not telling me how to use the language but describing how people were using it. Of course, as a native speaker hanging out with other native speakers, the Spanish grammar rules were not forcing me to change my speech; those rules were describing my speech (the speech of my group) and were put together as “proper” speech by an institution (Real Academia Española) made of people like me.
It was only when I started learning foreign languages that the grammar rules became prescriptive. And over time, once I was more or less fluent in those languages (i.e. being able to have almost all types of conversations at any level of depth), those rules felt constricting for my speech and in a way, they made me feel excluded.
For example, Spanish grammar rules never felt constrictive to me (as a native speaker), even when I am “leista” and “laista” (using the pronouns “le” and “la” instead of “lo” and “le” respectively.)
– Le he visto (a él), instead of lo he visto
– La dije que viniera (a ella), instead of le dije que viniera
This is an acceptable “mistake” simply because I am a native Spanish speaker from the north/centre of Spain.
Why have I spent years correcting my learners when they used “la” instead of “le”, or “le” instead of “lo”? In the exact same situations I would be using “la” and “le” back home when talking to my friends and family.
It never felt right, to be honest.
A few years back, I decided to be honest with myself and my beliefs around language and stop correcting my learners, because I believe grammar is not prescriptive; it is descriptive. It currently describes the use of the language by the majority, or to be precise, not the majority but the dominant group. I believe that the colonial mindset (and all its ramifications) should be dispensed with. If we want to have a sustainable, inclusive and growing future, I don’t want to uphold nor perpetuate the use of prescriptive grammar for my speech or that of my students.
What do you think about this?
Do you believe grammar is prescriptive or descriptive? Why? To what purpose?
How do you see the future of language? What would you like to see emerge in the future of verbal communication?
