I just recently came across the word dispreferred in a linguistic document. I have never heard the word used before, rather I generally hear something like "preferred something else" in everyday conversation. Is dispreferred a linguistics/language specific term or does it have more widespread usage in non-technical conversations? As I type the word dispreferred, I see a red underline indicating that I have entered a misspelled word.
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2I've also never heard it before. My advice, if you can avoid using it, by all means do.– Mr ListerCommented Dec 27, 2012 at 20:49
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The simple answer seems to be no it isn't. It's not in OED (Oxford English Dictionary).– spiceyokookoCommented Dec 27, 2012 at 20:59
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8Google Books shows that Dispreferred arose around 1975 and has been almost entirely a linguistics term except for a brief vogue in economics, sociology and public-policy studies in the 70s and 80s.– StoneyB on hiatusCommented Dec 27, 2012 at 21:36
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3I prefer dispreferred to unpreferred.– MikeMCommented Dec 27, 2012 at 23:03
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1Disfavor is probably the most natural synonym outside of linguistics.– Stuart FCommented Sep 18 at 15:23
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4 Answers
It's not in my Merriam-Webster or dictionary.reference.com, and I've never heard of it.
LanguageLog has some citations for it, but the article seems to confirm, if anything, that it's linguists' jargon.
'Mainstream', No. 'Word', Yes.
It's more of a domain-specific term defined in linguistics, although it does seem to appear in general English writing in a few instances. [Of course some people will love (or hate) the heightened suspense or the "gambling thrill," more of which is possible in the multistage lottery, and will prefer (or dis- prefer) it to a simple lottery.]a
It also seems to appear in linguistics literature in its general English sense apart from reference by its DSL-definition. [If "preferred'V'dispreferred" refer not to tastes/desires of the participants but to the sequential practices and ... And how do these different practices for preferred and dispreferred responses help us understand an important aggregate] [b]
See definition and some discussion on disprefer on Wiktionary:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/disprefer
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Talk:disprefer
I just come across this term in a Wikipedia article and thought it must have been an error…
In most areas of linguistics, but especially in syntax, a question mark in front of a word, phrase or sentence indicates that the form in question is strongly dispreferred, "questionable" or "strange", but not outright ungrammatical. (The asterisk is used to indicate outright ungrammaticality.
The verb disprefer appears to have been listed in Wiktionary since 13 January 2009 and was first claimed to be chiefly used in linguistics in June 2013.
In the academic field of Conversation Analysis (CA) this is a specific term for describing a type of statement or turn in a conversation. If, as you describe, this is a document in the field of linguistics then dispreferred may be the only accurate word to use.
