Determining Levels of Prescriptivism in American English Usage Guides

Abstract

Purpose: Prescriptivism–a concept concerned with “correctness in language use” (Tieken-Boon van Ostade, 2019, p. 8)–serves an important purpose when editors and other language professionals apply the findings from empirical linguistic studies to practical communication tasks (Oaks, 2021). Usage guides catalog usage rules, but they treat these rules with varying levels of prescriptivism. Therefore, advice varies across usage guides. This study empirically investigates levels of prescriptivism observed in usage guides. Method: Using a scale from 1 (minimally prescriptive) to 4 (maximally prescriptive), two raters coded the level of prescriptivism observed in entries for eight well-known usage problems (e.g., who/whom and lay/lie) from 11 current usage guides relating to American English. Based on the codes assigned to these entries, an overall prescriptivism index was calculated for each usage problem and usage guide. Results: A range in levels of prescriptivism was observed. Overall, the treatment of usage problems skewed high on the prescriptivism scale with six of the eight being treated as maximally prescriptive by at least two usage guides and six having mean indexes at or above the scale’s midpoint of 2.50. Similarly, seven of the 11 usage guides gave maximally prescriptive advice for at least one usage problem and eight had mean indexes at or above 2.50. While these findings indicate a bias toward prescriptive advice, a noteworthy amount of prescription-breaking advice was also observed. Conclusion: The findings demonstrate that usage guides vary considerably in their levels of prescriptivism; therefore, writers and editors must critically consider which advice to follow.