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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Who loves prescriptivism and why? Some aspects of language correctness in Latvia

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ABSTRACTTaking into account the crosscultural differences in prescriptive attitudes in various linguistic communities, a theory of three types of prescriptivism – human-oriented, language-oriented, and error-oriented prescriptivism – has been offered [Strelēvica-Osiņa, Dace. [2011] 2012. Kāpēc mēs gribam, lai valoda ir pareiza? Ieskats preskriptīvisma vēsturē, teorijā un praksē [Why Do We Want Language to Be Correct? An Insight into the History, Theory, and Practice of Prescriptivism]. Rīga: LU Latviesu valodas institūts]. This paper presents a synopsis of this theory, with the main emphasis on the situation of Latvia and the attitudes towards language correctness and correction in the Latvian-speaking community. An insight into the historical and political backgrounds of these attitudes is presented as well. We might say that the dominant type of prescriptivism in Latvia is the language-oriented prescriptivism, based on a belief that language needs protection from outside influences and from becoming ‘in...