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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.
The purpose of description is to re-create, invent, or visually present a person, place, event, or action so that the reader can picture that which is being described. Descriptive writing can be found in the other rhetorical modes. A descriptive essay aims to make vivid a place, an object, a character, or a group. It acts as an imaginative ...
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 pragmatics (how the context of use contributes to ...
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 ...
For example, descriptive linguistics examines the grammar of single languages, theoretical linguistics develops theories on how best to conceptualize and define the nature of language based on data from the various extant human languages, sociolinguistics studies how languages are used for social purposes informing in turn the study of the ...
Epithet – a term used as a descriptive and qualifying substitute for the name of a person, place or thing. Epizeuxis – emphasizing an idea by repeating a single word. Eristic – communicating with the aim of winning the argument regardless of truth. Erotema – rhetorical question; a question is asked to which an answer is not expected. [1]
Descriptive linguistics – describing how a particular language is used Anthropological linguistics – the place of language in its wider social and cultural context, and its role in making and maintaining cultural practices and societal structures; Historical linguistics – study of historical language change over time
Saussure approaches the essence of language from two sides. For the one, he borrows ideas from Steinthal [31] and Durkheim, concluding that language is a 'social fact'. For the other, he creates a theory of language as a system in and for itself which arises from the association of concepts and words or expressions. Thus, language is a dual ...