Лингвистика и межкультурная коммуникация. 2011. № 4 Robert Ilson PLAIDOYER FOR A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF PRESCRIPTIVISM В статье подробно рассматривается понятие “прескриптивизм”. <...> Автор подчеркивает особую ценность исследования прескриптивизма в сопоставительном аспекте. <...> The article considers the notion of Prescriptivism. <...> The author points to the potential value of an investigation of Prescriptivism not limited to the problems specific to a single language. <...> I In this essay I shall be guided by the precept of my colleague John Ayto to be “descriptive about prescriptivism” and by the injunction of Professor Randolph, Lord Quirk, that those working at The Survey Of English Usage at University College London should study not only Use but also Reaction to Use. <...> Prescriptivism is the study of What Should Be by contrast with Descriptivism, the study of What Actually Is. <...> Some years ago Professor Suzanne Romaine of Oxford University gave in London a lecture about her work with pidgin and creole languages, and in particular the pidgin Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea. <...> In the course of this lecture she regaled us with examples of her command of Tok Pisin. <...> After the lecture I asked her whether in her field-work anyone had ever corrected her, saying, for instance: “You speak Tok Pisin very well — but actually we don’t say it that way, we say it this way.” Without hesitation she said No. Prof. <...> Romaine may well have fallen foul of the irksome politesse that inhibits people who know a language from correcting the mistakes of those trying to learn it. <...> He has been Associate Director of the Survey of English Usage at UCL, Convenor of the AILA Commission on Lexicology and Lexicography, Founding Editor of the EURALEX Bulletin and the International Journal of Lexicography, and a member of the Editorial Board of OED2. <...> A former Fulbright ELT consultant, he has also shared awards from the English-Speaking Union for BBI and for The Right Word at the Right Time; e-mail: roberti@dsl.pipex.com 84 Tok Pisin, as a pidgin, had by definition no native speakers. <...> Indeed, as Neo-Melanesian it has become one of the most important languages of Papua New Guinea. <...> The language begets relative clauses, so that “A man was here. <...> It can be <...>