In ‘ Robinson Crusoe’ both Defoe and Crusoe use mostly Latin based English this is because at the time it was more common to use a lot of Latin based English. Crusoe used Latin based English this is because Defoe wanted to portray him as an intelligent man. But now because of the change in education people use this less of it but that doesn’t mean we don’t use is at all.
When Ralph speaks he uses mostly Anglo Saxon based English this is because he is only a young boy. Whereas when Golding narrates he uses a wider range of vocabulary, I think this makes you think that there are two different people who are writing the story. When Defoe narrates he uses mostly French based language because at the time of the novel it was more common to speak using French based English. When Ralph Speaks he uses mostly Anglo Saxon based English this is because he is only 11 years old and not finished his academic years.
Ralph uses a lot of slang, like most boys his age do. He uses words and phrases such as: “sucks to your ________”
“Gosh” “Smashing”
“Wacco” “Doink”
“Golly” “Bong”
Whereas Robinson Crusoe’s language is much more complex with words like: “Expostulating”
“Vicissitudes”
“Precipitate”
“Elopement”
In both of the novels they are both very different because in ‘Robinson Crusoe’ Defoe writes sentences that could be a paragraph now and Golding’s sentences are much shorter than Defoe’s here are some examples I found:
As you can see there is a big difference between both of the columns this is because at the time of ‘Robinson Crusoe’ people wrote longer sentences and paragraphs than they do now. You could say we are the lazier generation.
If Ralph were to write his own good and evil columns it would probably read like this:
Good Evil
I have crashed on an island Luckily I have survived and
With no grownups to look have many other boys with
After me me too.
Here are two extracts from both ‘Robinson Crusoe’ and ‘Lord of the Flies’.
“Being the third son of the family and not bred to any trade. My head began to fill very early with rambling thoughts. I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea, and my inclination to this led me so strongly against the will, nay, the commands of my father, and against my mother and other friends, that there seemed to be something fatal in that propension of nature tending me directly to the life of misery which was to befall me.
In this paragraph we get examples of the language they used in the 1700s as you can already tell this is much more complex and longer than it is now. There are some words in the paragraph that are quite old such as ‘befall’, ‘propension’ and ‘nay’ these are some examples of the words that we rarely use anymore.
Now I will show the extract from ‘Lord of the Flies’ and compare the differences between them.
‘ “This is real exploring,” said Jack “I bet no one has been here before.”
“We ought to draw a map,” said Ralph “only we have no paper.”
“We could make scratches on the bark” said Simon “and rub black stuff in it.”
Again came the solemn communication of shining eyes in the gloom.
“Wacco!”
“Wizard!”
In this extract we can clearly see the difference between the boy’s language and Geldings. We can see that the boys use much more simpler language than Gelding for example Golding uses words like ‘solemn’. Whereas the boys use much more simpler language such as ‘’rub’ and ‘stuff’. I think this is because Golding wanted to emphasise the fact that they were only young boys and they could be capable of such things so Golding chooses language that the boys use because they don’t know any better and they are innocent and he wanted to emphasise that the boys are only young and have done these unspeakable acts.
In conclusion the language has two mane factors as to why they differ so much, these are: the time period they novels were both set and the age difference.
