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CTET Linguistic Prescription — practice questions

Explore 51 free Linguistic Prescription questions in CTET Language I. Open each question or exercise to read its content, reference answers and available explanation.

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Linguistic Prescription questions and exercises with answers

Showing questions 1–30 of 51.

What does linguistic prescription establish?Read the answer and worked solution →Which approach to language records actual usage while avoiding judgment?Read the answer and worked solution →On which activities is linguistic research basically founded?Read the answer and worked solution →Linguistic prescription forms part of which wider process?Read the answer and worked solution →What is the chief aim of linguistic prescription?Read the answer and worked solution →Why is a standardized idiom useful in broadcasting?Read the answer and worked solution →Foreign language instruction is considered a form of what?Read the answer and worked solution →Around whose language was prescription historically created?Read the answer and worked solution →Which work was long the authority on British English usage?Read the answer and worked solution →Which usage guide became a standard authority for American English?Read the answer and worked solution →The Duden grammar holds an authority status for which language?Read the answer and worked solution →Lexicographers often see their dictionary work as purely what?Read the answer and worked solution →When do Merriam-Webster and the OED add a new word?Read the answer and worked solution →Whose usage is preserved as the standard language in a stratified society?Read the answer and worked solution →Departures from the standard language in a stratified society may jeopardize what?Read the answer and worked solution →Government bureaucracy tends toward prescriptivism to enforce what?Read the answer and worked solution →Critics say favouring one class's dialect works against what?Read the answer and worked solution →Received Pronunciation is an example of a standard linked to which group?Read the answer and worked solution →What does prescription often do to non-standard dialects?Read the answer and worked solution →Why do prescriptive rules often seem outdated?Read the answer and worked solution →An 1834 writer advised against which now-standard construction?Read the answer and worked solution →What problem arises in deciding which forms are standard?Read the answer and worked solution →Which prescriptive judgments are easier to defend?Read the answer and worked solution →Cautious advice on a colloquial form may harden into what?Read the answer and worked solution →Samuel Johnson doubted that a dictionary could do what?Read the answer and worked solution →What do linguists say popular usage books by journalists often get wrong?Read the answer and worked solution →Why does effective prescription depend on description?Read the answer and worked solution →Which kind of linguistics did Larry Andrews say declares what a language should be like?Read the answer and worked solution →According to Larry Andrews, which approach do most school teachers tend to take?Read the answer and worked solution →Modern descriptive linguistics rests on a structural approach shown in whose work?Read the answer and worked solution →

Worked practice questions

What does linguistic prescription establish?

  1. Records of how each dialect is spoken
  2. Counts of word frequency in a corpus
  3. Theories of how children learn speech
  4. Rules defining publicly preferred usage
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Correct answer: D. Rules defining publicly preferred usage

1. Prescription is the setting of rules for publicly preferred usage, including spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. 2. So the rules for preferred usage are the answer. 3. Recording every dialect and counting words are descriptive work, and child acquisition belongs to psychology. _Source: Wikipedia, Linguistic prescription, Lead section_

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Which approach to language records actual usage while avoiding judgment?

  1. Prescriptive
  2. Normative
  3. Standardising
  4. Descriptive
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Correct answer: D. Descriptive

1. The descriptive approach observes and records how language is actually used. 2. It avoids passing judgment on forms. 3. Prescriptive, normative and standardising approaches lay down how language ought to be used. _Source: Wikipedia, Linguistic prescription, Lead section_

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On which activities is linguistic research basically founded?

  1. Rulings of language academies
  2. Usage guides and style manuals
  3. Dictionaries of correct usage
  4. Corpus analysis and field study
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Correct answer: D. Corpus analysis and field study

1. The basis of linguistic research is text (corpus) analysis and field study. 2. Both are descriptive activities. 3. Usage guides, dictionaries and academies are sources of prescription, not the base of research. _Source: Wikipedia, Linguistic prescription, Lead section_

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More Language I topics

Principles of Language TeachingLanguage ComprehensionLanguage EducationLearning and AcquisitionRole of Listening and Speaking; Function of LanguageError Analysis (Linguistics)Remedial Education