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Linguistic description is often contrasted with linguistic prescription, [8] which is found especially in education and in publishing. [9] [10]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.
In the philosophy of language, the descriptivist theory of proper names (also descriptivist theory of reference) [1] is the view that the meaning or semantic content of a proper name is identical to the descriptions associated with it by speakers, while their referents are determined to be the objects that satisfy these descriptions.
The semantic approach of philosophers like Stephen Neale [3] suggests that the sentence does in fact have the appropriate meaning as to make it true. Such meaning is added to the sentence by the particular context of the speaker—that, say, the context of standing next to a table "completes" the sentence.
Factual texts merely seek to inform, whereas literary texts seek to entertain or otherwise engage the reader by using creative language and imagery. There are many aspects to literary writing, and many ways to analyse it, but four basic categories are descriptive, narrative, expository, and argumentative.
The focus of a description is the scene. Description uses tools such as denotative language, connotative language, figurative language, metaphor, and simile to arrive at a dominant impression. [15] One university essay guide states that "descriptive writing says what happened or what another author has discussed; it provides an account of the ...
Prescriptive approaches to language are often contrasted with the descriptive approach of academic linguistics, which observes and records how language is actually used (while avoiding passing judgment). [6] [7] The basis of linguistic research is text analysis and field study, both of which are descriptive activities. Description may also ...
A linguistic theory that aims for explanatory adequacy is concerned with the internal structure of the device [i.e. grammar]; that is, it aims to provide a principled basis, independent of any particular language, for the selection of the descriptively adequate grammar of each language. [4]
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. [1] [2] [3] The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages), phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular language, and analogous systems of sign languages), and pragmatics ...