For this week…

• Respond to the discussion board post by 11:59pm on Friday, 16 Feb.

For next week…

• Read pp.21–33 in David Crystal’s book and pp.124–127 in 5 Minute Linguist. There will be a quiz on these readings at the start of class.
• Post Blog Post 1 by 6:30pm on Tuesday, February 20th. Be sure to choose “Blog Post 1” at the category for your post. Let me know as soon as possible if you cannot post to our class site. Your response should be at least 150 words long. Do not use ChatGPT or any other AI platform to help craft your answer. Your post should respond to the following prompt:
  In this week’s readings, you’re introduced to a topic that you may not have previously encountered: prescriptivism, the perspective that educators and society at large – the “linguistic gatekeepers” that Dennis R. Preston talks about – should play an active role in shaping how people use their language, on the one hand; and descriptivism, the perspective that we as linguists have a duty to describe language as it is, rather than to prescribe or control how it “should” be used. Linguists like myself are generally quite dubious of prescriptivism.
  With this in mind, I’d like you to reflect on past classes that you’ve had, from any time (pre-K through the current semester). What were some of the prescriptive rules that you were taught? Were you told that “ain’t” was less valid than “aren’t”? Were you taught not to use the “double negative”? What reasons were provided for why these forms were “wrong”? And did you stop using these forms in your everyday life?