Prescriptive Grammar does more harm than good

>>>General Remarks<<< Language is a means of communication between individuals. This means that any features of a language that we wish to examine should be scrutinized with this ultimate purpose in mind. It would not be rational or reasonable, for example, for me to attempt to debate the proposition "butter is than better margarine", because no one would understand what I was trying to say. Thus the possibility that such utter nonsense sentences might occur without prescriptive grammar is not an acceptable objection to the proposition. It is a safe assumption that anyone using language wishes to communicate something and thus to be intelligible to at least one other individual. While to do so does require a shared grammar between them, I will be arguing that one can arise naturally rather than having to be imposed by grammarians. >>>Part One- On Necessity<<< It would appear that without some kind of organizing force telling people how to use it, language will decay to the point of unintelligibility, or at the very least great and undesirable ambiguity. However, history has shown that in linguistic community where the agreed upon grammar structure is sparse or incomplete, a single generation of children can "fill in the blanks" in such a way that a fully self-consistent and serviceable grammar emerges, with no top down planning or controls at all. Children growing up around incomplete "pidgin" languages acquire it as their native tongue and through this process it becomes as fully grammatically and communicationally competent as already naturalized languages, known as a creole.[1][2] A similar phenomena has been observed in communities of deaf children, who will spontaneously develop a serviceable sign language to use amongst themselves even in the absence of explicit sign language instruction by adults. Such self made "home sign" systems are somewhat grammatically impoverished, but they are certainly serviceable, and extremely impressive given the complete lack of linguistic input these children experience.[2][3] The above examples are often cited in support of Noam Chomsky's theory of Universal Grammar, or UG. They handily support his assertion regarding the "poverty of the stimulus"- namely that the language use children hear is not enough to explain their acquisition of language, so there must be some innate language acquisition device in the brain that helps them to fill in the blanks. [4] This theory, and its supporting evidence, further supports my assertion that a workable grammar arises spontaneously within a linguistic community, and need not be taught or imposed. Given the effective and widespread use of mass communication, the "linguistic community" has grown from what used to be a town or county to the entire world- everyone who speaks a given language can become part of a world-wide linguistic community, simply by using the internet and other media. Because of this, any shifts or grammatical changes that occur will either spread throughout the community, or remain in relative isolation until they die out. >>>An Aside- Note on Linguistic Evolution<<< All languages change over time. Most obviously this is reflected in choice of vocabulary, as new words enter the lexicon and old words acquire new meanings. But these changes can also manifest in grammatical structure. [5] Its important to note several things in this regard. First, that grammatical changes, unlike vocabulary changes, occur exceedingly slowly. Contemporary students have a lot of trouble with Shakespeare's word choices, but very little trouble with his grammatical structure (though it is noticeably different from that used today). Second, that a prescriptive grammar is doomed to constantly be defeated through this evolutionary process. Prescriptive grammarians have been around since the 200 BCE, and they certainly haven't been able to stem the tide of language change. [6] Finally, since languages are continually evolving, no version is more "correct" or "accurate" than any other. Such a claim is completely baseless. >>>Whats the Harm?<<< As noted, prescriptive grammars are a codification of detailed rules as to how a language should be used. Because there is no "officially correct" version of a language, these judgments are inherently arbitrary. They tend to conform to the prejudices of whoever is in a position of power detailing the rules. This is, of course, not a fatal flaw. It is also arbitrary that we drive on the right rather than the left side of the road. Indeed, it is different elsewhere. However, in that case there is no harm being done, and very great harm would likely result if the laws for which side of the road to drive on were abolished. In that case arbitrary convention has a purpose. I hope I have shown in the above section that the arbitrary conventions of prescriptive grammar have no such purpose. Further, prescriptive grammars are downright harmful to some groups. Schools currently teach "Standard English", and both individuals and employers currently view its use as a measure of intelligence. This is fine, except for groups not exposed to standard English at home. The current arrangement serves to bar certain communities, specifically African Americans, from participating fully in public discourse, and from succeeding in school settings, just because they learned a different dialect of English at home. Commonly called African American English, it is theorized to have arisen from the systematic oppression and isolation of blacks, especially before the civil rights movement. Some of the grammatical differences between standard English and African American English include an allowance for double negatives, the deletion of the verb "be" in many sentences that would otherwise be contracted (ie he nice as opposed to he's nice), and the use of the "habitual be" which I will not explain here but is well explained in [6]. As there is no basis for any dialect being correct over any other, the fact that Standard American English is the standard is the result only of the fact that the majority of Americans speak it. By codifying their grammar into the only "correct" form, the majority of Americans are punishing the black minority with lower test scores, and labeling them with learning disabilities, simply because they speak differently.[7] This is patently unfair. Unless my opponent can offer a substantial reason why the linguistic community needs an imposed standard to follow, there is no justification for this continued, though subtle, oppression. African American English is the most obvious example. If you read more of [6], they go into detail regarding prestige dialects in general and other minority dialects in English. There is no reason such groups should be treated as second class citizens because of the way they speak. And yet, that is what prescriptive grammars do- privilege one arbitrary form over another. For this reason, I affirm the resolution: Prescriptive Grammar does more harm than good. Notes on Sources- PDF's available upon request for the two papers. I couldn't find the chapters from the Intro to Language text that I used earlier in the debate online. I apologize for having to cite a book there. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org... [2]Fromkin, Victoria, et al "An Introduction To Language" 8th ed. Boston: Thompson-Wadworth, 2007 [3]http://cat.inist.fr... [4]http://bjps.oxfordjournals.org... [5]http://www.nsf.gov... [6]https://segue.middlebury.edu... [7]http://www.txsha.org...