Communicating Prescriptive & Descriptive Views
Sandi Toksvig communicates her descriptive attidue in 'The Daily Telegraph' potentially in a challenging manner to the likely predisposed prescriptivist audience. She uses positive modifiers to express her open minded view on language change; ''I have a splendid list of all the global ways there are to give seasonal greetings this time of year'' the use of the adjective 'splendid' conveys a sense of excitment and appreciation for the variety of language around the world. This is similarly suggested by her bold statement; ''language is a funny old thing''.
Fraser McAlpine, on the other hand, communicates a prescriptivist view in 'BBC America', though likely a more prescriptivist audience he is shown to play devil's advocate as suggested by the title ''The Brit List: Five Ways Americans Ruined English'' (to an American audience). His strongly communicates his views by dictating right and wrong; ''you've (UK citizens) got to a point where you can very nearly speak English properly, just like we do, except you keep getting it just wrong enough to give us the willies''.
Toksvig presents philosophies; ''the English language has never been either preserved in aspeic or one person's preserve. It has ever been evolving. It is a sign of the times''.
Fraser McAlpine, on the other hand, communicates a prescriptivist view in 'BBC America', though likely a more prescriptivist audience he is shown to play devil's advocate as suggested by the title ''The Brit List: Five Ways Americans Ruined English'' (to an American audience). His strongly communicates his views by dictating right and wrong; ''you've (UK citizens) got to a point where you can very nearly speak English properly, just like we do, except you keep getting it just wrong enough to give us the willies''.
Toksvig presents philosophies; ''the English language has never been either preserved in aspeic or one person's preserve. It has ever been evolving. It is a sign of the times''.
You are starting to compare, which is effective. Choose more comparable aspects to help e.g. use of headlines or use of edjectives or use of lexical field etc. If you say 'uses positive modifiers', you must quote more than one and explore in detail how they suit the GRAPE, referring to more terminology and theory from any of the areas we've studied. Don't forget to evaluate how far a prescriptive attitude fits Aitchison's metaphors.
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