Who criticized Lowth and Murray for looking down on the working class?

• A. Aitchison
• B. Johnson
• C. Crystal
• D. Kandiah

Answer: (A)

Prescriptive judgments about language often reveal social attitudes toward speakers from different classes. Aitchison is the scholar who argued that Lowth and Murray looked down on the working class, treating their speech as inferior simply because it didn’t fit the elite standard. This critique pushes us to see language variation as natural rather than a defect, highlighting bias in early prescriptivism. The other names are known for different angles: Johnson is tied to early prescriptive tradition, Crystal advocates descriptive linguistics, and Kandiah is associated with other sociolinguistic work. Therefore, the strongest match for this critique is Aitchison.