Prescriptivism and Determinism

I want to be sure that you and me are on the same page. When you ask how I feel about grammar, you are begging the question, Are you a prescriptivist or a descriptivist? (1) 

When looking at grammar and linguistics there are two main approaches as mentioned above. Prescriptivism (also known as normative linguistics or linguistic purism) is based on the belief that there are rules within English that should not be broken. It often tries to force a person to a particular way of speaking. For example in the first sentence 'me and you' would/ should be 'you and I' if you are a follower of prescriptivist beliefs and you would be 'wrong'' to think otherwise. These rulings are frequently determined on the social class of a person and the common usage - how things 'ought' to be. It is because of this preference for a particular way of speaking that it can lead to criticising and discriminating any non standard English including creoles, accents and dialects.

In contrast to prescriptivism, descriptivism is inclusive of deviations from Standard  English and attempts to look at facts within language such as the way it has been spoken or is currently being spoken a posed to the rules it 'should' run by. 

Linguists within prescriptivism: 

1. Henry Watson Fowle -A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926)
2. Alexis Manasta Ramer - Who is a founder of the ACL special interest group on mathmatical linguistics.

Linguists within descriptivism:

1. Leonard Bloomfield 
2. Ferdinand de Saussure
3. William Stokoe