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  3. It is not easy to be systematic and objective about language study. Popular linguistic debate regularly deteriorates into invect

It is not easy to be systematic and objective about language study. Popular linguistic debate regularly deteriorates into invect

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问题     It is not easy to be systematic and objective about language study. Popular linguistic debate regularly deteriorates into invective and polemic. Language belongs to everyone, so most people feel they have a right to hold an opinion about it. And when opinions differ, emotions can run high. Arguments can start as easily over minor points of usage as over major policies of linguistic education.
    Language, moreover, is a very public behavior, so it is easy for different usages to be noted and criticized. No part of society or social behavior is exempt: linguistic factors influence how we judge personality, intelligence, social status, educational standards, job aptitude, and many other areas of identity and social survival.【R1】________.
    In its most general sense, prescriptivism is the view that one variety of language has an inherently higher value than others, and that this ought to be imposed on the whole of the speech community. 【R2】________. The variety which is favored, in this account, is usually a version of the "standard" written language. Especially as encountered in literature, or in the formal spoken language which most closely reflects this style. Adherents to this variety are said to speak or write "correctly"; deviations from it are said to be "incorrect".
    All the main languages have been studied prescriptively, especially in the 18th century approach to the writing of grammars and dictionaries. The aims of these early grammarians were threefold: (a) they wanted to codify the principles of their languages, to show that there was a system beneath the apparent chaos of usage; (b) they wanted a means of setting disputes over usage, and (c) they wanted to point out what they felt to be common errors, in order to "improve" the language.【R3】________Some usages are "prescribed", to be learnt and followed accurately; others are "proscribed", to be avoided. In this early period, there were no half-measures: usage was either right or wrong, and it was the task of the grammarian not simply to record alternatives, but to pronounce judgment upon them.
    【R4】________Nevertheless, there is an alternative point of view that is concerned less with standards than with the facts of linguistic usage. This approach is summarized in the statement that it is the task of the grammarian to describe, not prescribe—to record the facts of linguistic diversity, and not to attempt the impossible tasks of evaluating language variation or halting language change. In the second half of the 18th century, we already find advocates of this view, such as Joseph Priestley, whose Rudiments of English Grammar (1761) insists that the custom of speaking is the original and only just standard of any language: Linguistic issues, it is argued, cannot be solved by logic and legislation. And this view has become the tenet of the modern linguistic approach to grammatical analysis.
    In our own time, the opposition between "descriptivists" and "prescriptivists" has often become extreme, with both sides painting unreal pictures of the other. Descriptive grammarians have been presented as people who do not care about standards, because of the way they see all forms of usage as equally valid.【R5】________. The opposition has even been presented in quasi-political terms—of radical liberalism vs elitist conservatism.
    [A] These attitudes are still with us and they motivate a widespread concern that linguistic standards should be maintained.
    [B] As a result, it is easy to hurt, and to be hurt, when language use is unfeelingly attacked.
    [C] The view is propounded especially in relation to grammar and vocabulary, and frequently with reference to pronunciation.
    [D] Prescriptive grammarians have been presented as blind adherents to a historical tradition.
    [E] The authoritarian nature of the approach is best characterized by its reliance on "rules" of grammar.
【R5】
选项
答案D
解析 本段主要讲描述派语法学家和规定派语法学家之间的对立和误解。本空前一句是对描述派语法学家的误解，由空后的the opposition可知，本空应该是对规定派语法学家的误解，D项符合文意，故为答案。
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