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So language. Very Prescribe. Wow.

Glackin, Shane N. (2019) So language. Very Prescribe. Wow. Revista Sofia.

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Abstract

The philosophical dispute about linguistic normativity is one battlefield in a larger war over the nature of language as an object of scientific study. For those influenced by Wittgenstein, language involves following – or failing to follow – public, prescriptive rules; for Chomsky and his followers, language is a property of individual minds and brains, and the grammatical judgements of any mature individual speaker – her competence – cannot be, in any linguistic sense, ‘wrong’. As I argue here, the recent ‘doge meme’ internet fad provides surprising evidence for the prescriptivist view. Normative attitudes towards linguistic practices are a ubiquitous feature of those practices, and there is no principled basis on which to regard them as non-linguistic.


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Item Type: Published Article or Volume
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Glackin, Shane N.s.n.glackin@exeter.ac.uk0000-0002-8346-8666
Keywords: Chomsky; Doge; I-Language; Normativity; Prescriptivism
Depositing User: Dr Shane N. Glackin
Date Deposited: 28 Aug 2019 03:04
Last Modified: 28 Aug 2019 03:04
Item ID: 16280
Journal or Publication Title: Revista Sofia
Date: 30 July 2019
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/16280

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