Editing Linguistic description (section)

==Descriptive versus prescriptive linguistics==
Linguistic description is often contrasted with [[linguistic prescription]],<ref name="McArthur1992p286">{{cite book|editor-last=McArthur|editor-first=Tom|year=1992|title=The Oxford Companion to the English Language|publisher=Oxford University Press}} — entry for "Descriptivism and prescriptivism" quotation: "Contrasting terms in linguistics." (p.286)</ref> which is found especially in [[education]] and in [[publishing]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Robert Lawrence Trask|title=Key Concepts in Language and Linguistics|pages=[https://archive.org/details/keyconceptsinlan0000tras/page/47 47]–48|year=1999|publisher=Routledge|url=https://archive.org/details/keyconceptsinlan0000tras|url-access=registration|isbn=9780415157414|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Nils Langer|title=Linguistic Purism in Action: How auxiliary tun was stigmatized in Early New High German|year=2013|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=9783110881103|pages=223|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IZUiAAAAQBAJ|language=en}}</ref>

As English-linguist Larry Andrews describes it, descriptive grammar is the linguistic approach which studies what a language is like, as opposed to prescriptive, which declares what a language should be like.<ref name="Andrews">{{cite book|last=Andrews|first=Larry|title=Language Exploration and Awareness: A Resource Book for Teachers|date=2006|publisher=Lawrence Earlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers|location=Mahwah, NJ|isbn=0-8058-4308-6}}</ref>{{rp|25}} In other words, descriptive grammarians focus analysis on how all kinds of people in all sorts of environments, usually in more casual, everyday settings, communicate, whereas prescriptive grammarians focus on the grammatical rules and structures predetermined by linguistic registers and figures of power. An example that Andrews uses in his book is ''fewer than'' vs ''less than''.<ref name="Andrews"/>{{rp|26}} A descriptive grammarian would state that both statements are equally valid, as long as the meaning behind the statement can be understood. A prescriptive grammarian would analyze the rules and conventions behind both statements to determine which statement is correct or otherwise preferable. Andrews also believes that, although most linguists would be descriptive grammarians, most public school teachers tend to be prescriptive.<ref name="Andrews"/>{{rp|26}}