The importance of understanding descriptive grammar in L2: A corpus-based study

There is often a discrepancy between what is considered grammatically correct under prescriptive rules of Standard English (SE) and how native-speakers use English contemporarily, resulting in a dichotomy in grammar instruction choices for English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in the classroom. This study is basically a corpus study which investigates the actual use of certain English structures considered ungrammatical by the prescriptive grammarians, i.e. split infinitives, preposition stranding, double negatives, and like as a conjunction. In addition, it explores EFL teachers' views about the notion of SE. 33 Turkish EFL teachers in a foundation university in Turkey were surveyed in terms of their awareness of the contemporary use of English and 10 of them were also interviewed in order to understand their prioritization of whether prescriptive norms or contemporary usage of the language in their grammar instruction. The main aim of this paper is to show the superiority of descriptive grammars through the natural uses of the above forms in English and to inform EFL teachers about the contemporary usage of the relevant constructions through corpus research and encourage them to integrate greater awareness of the present-day English by keeping themselves up-to-date with the help of corpora in their teaching practices. Key Words: Prescriptivism, Descriptivism, Standard English, English as a Foreign Language, Corpus