norm (n.)

The general sense of this term is used in LINGUISTICS to refer to a standard practice in speech or writing. The ‘norm’ in question may apply to groups of varying size within a SPEECH community, or to the community as a whole. For example, several kinds of scientific English make use of impersonal CONSTRUCTIONS much more frequently than is the case in conversational English, which may be seen as the norm for purposes of STYLISTIC comparison. Often, the norms of different groups conflict, and normative rules may be imposed by one group on another (e.g. stating the ‘correct’ use of whom, shall or will; insisting that PREPOSITIONS should not be used at the end of SENTENCES). A collection of such rules is known as a normative grammar: such GRAMMARS were particularly current in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and this tradition still exercises considerable influence. In contrast with this PRESCRIPTIVE concern to maintain an imagined set of linguistic standards, linguistics emphasizes the description of actual USAGE in the community, and SOCIOLINGUISTICS emphasizes the need to take into account the relative APPROPRIATENESS of different VARIETIES of language in different situations.