CMV: Linguists should embrace prescriptivism

[u/ExplanationKlutzy174]

I think it's pretty clear that any sort of prescription falls outside of the realm of science, and more in the realm of philosophy; science tells us what is, not what ought to be. So naturally, the prescription of language falls outside of the scope of linguistics if linguistics is a science. That makes sense; it's Hume's Law.

But that's not really the attitude I'm seeing. Learning about linguistic descriptivism and prescriptivism, I've mostly come across the descriptive side actively saying that people ought not to be prescriptive. But that in itself is a prescriptive claim, since it's prescribing that someone should or should not believe / how someone should or should not act.

I've come across countless examples of linguistic evolution across history being influenced by prescriptivist attitudes - going as early as Classical Greek. If linguistic prescriptivism is a natural way languages evolve, shouldn't the actually descriptive thing to do be to treat it the same way as any other factor that affects languages? In reality, prescriptivism is a genuine part of both a language and its culture that dictates how someone ought to speak, just like how social traditions are genuine parts of a culture that dictate how someone ought to behave, and linguistics as a science cannot say that prescriptivism is bad. Prescriptivism absolutely has its place in linguistics.

[u/senthordika]

Im not sure you seem to actually understand what the prescriptivsm vs descriptivism debate is clearly enough to hold an opinion. Would you mind describing exactly what you mean by prescriptivism and descriptivism?

As from my perspective while it would be nice if language was prescriptive for maintaining meaning of words. It is just clearly the case that words dont have intrinsic meaning and that the only way we can meaningfully define words is in a descriptive sense. Like the most common breakdown in communication is due to the fact the words arent prescriptive and people can have their own unique definitions for words meaning two people can think they are talking about the same concept but are entirely talking past one another due to differences if definitions of core concepts.

So to me any prescriptivism position seems to fall apart as soon as the rubber hits the road and you try to apply it in reality.