According to Morrow (2003), Pygmalion articulates one of Shaw's theories about language--that the poor lack social mobility, at least in part, because of their inability to pronounce or use English well. Being almost entirely self-taught, Shaw sympathized with those who tried to teach themselves by reading. Hence, Shaw made such a remark in the preface.
People in the lower class are conscious of the association of Standard English with the upper class and some of them have made an effort to speak like the upper class. Labov’s findings from his investigation on the New York City speakers indicate that the lower middle class group uses a higher proportion of postvocalic /r/ in the more formal reading situations than speakers in the social group above them. Labov (1968) interpreted this result as the people in the lower-middle-class group is conscious of the prestige value of the postvocalic /r/ pronunciation in their society and were anxious to show this awareness and paid more attention to their speech. Labov (1968) attributed such behaviors to the insecurity of the lower-middle-class group and they yearned to be accepted and recognized as members of the upper middle class. Although this test is conducted in New York City, America, it can be relevant to people in England or other countries as all countries would constitute of people from lower class to upper class. From this, we can see that how association of dialect and accent with class has affected some lower class people and they try to speak in the way the upper class people spoke so that they will not be despise by the upper class people.
The category of social class is said to be rather broad and vague because it includes a range of different people. Labov’s New York City findings also suggest that it was the lower-middle-class women who were the main influence of the /r/ pronunciation in their community. Labov (1968) argued that these women were particularly conscious of the prestige value of /r/ and that they worked hardest to assimilate upper-middle-class speech. Trudgill (1983) highlighted that the single most consistent finding to emerge from sociolinguistic work in the past two decades is that in every social class, men use more non-standard forms than women. It has been suggested that men use more non standard forms as it presented a more masculine, tough and rebellious image. Women tend to conform more to social norms and model acceptable behavior and are more status conscious than men (Graddol, Leith, Swann, Rhys & Gillen). Women probably want to belong into the upper class so that they may marry to a man of the upper class and live in luxury instead of being in the lower class group and despised by others for all her life. Therefore, they conform more to the acceptable dialect and accent of the upper class group.
RP has also influenced a number of ethnic groups in England. In “An English accent” video clip, Professor Jack Aitken mentioned that RP is a power in the Scottish society during the eighteen century. Since the middle of eighteen century, Scottish aristocrats send their children to the schools in England since Scotland do not have many good public schools. The children of these aristocrats learnt RP and eventually became the leaders of Scotland. Thus, the people in Scotland associate RP to power. This causes many Scotts to model RP. They may abandon their own Scottish English altogether since Standard English is preferred and this may cause Scottish English to go into ‘extinction’. Therefore, an Englishman of Scott ethnicity may despise Englishmen who only speak in RP. Some Scotts may not model RP well enough and when they speak, they might be despised by other Englishmen due to their inaccurate or RP-mixed-Scottish pronunciation.
The main underlying factor of a new dialect or accent formation is age – adolescent. In the Milton Keynes study, Kerswill (1994) found out that it is the older children who do most of the sociolinguistics ‘work’ in the new dialect formation. It is evidential that Dialect leveling has occurred in Milton Keynes because the children of Milton Keynes spoke differently from their parents and people of the nearby towns. Since Milton Keynes is a relatively new town, it comprises of immigrants from London, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and rest of England and United Kingdom. As we all know, people from different town has their own distinct accent and dialect. When these people come together, dialect leveling will take place and it is observed in the children of Milton Keynes. The study shows that young children still spoke in a similar accent and dialect as their parents. However, older children, who started going to school and mingling with children of people who came from other towns, start to speak differently from their parents. It is due to the pressure to conform to their peers and a new dialect has formed altogether. Older people have fewer tendencies to change their dialect or accent and this may be because they do not want to lose their national identity. Therefore, in the Milton Keynes context, an elderly person from Buckinghamshire, may despise a teenager whose parents came from Buckinghamshire because the teenager is speaking in a new dialect and accent and to this elderly person, the teenager has loses his Buckinghamshire identity.
There are simply too many dialects in England herself since each town seems to have their own distinct dialect. People associate certain dialect and accent like the RP to prestige and power. Women have more tendencies to conform to the language of prestige while adolescents do not like to conform to the accepted dialect and make changes to it. Certain ethnic language may be threatened by Standard English since Standard English is the language most sought after. In conclusion, I have proven Shaw’s statement, “It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman despise him.” to be true and valid because there are many dialects and accents in England and some people, based on their class, gender, ethnicity and age, may have prejudices and biasness to a certain dialect and accent.
(1,317 words)
Bibliography
Books
David Graddol, Dick Leith, Joan Swann, Martin Rhys and Julia Gillen. Changing English. (2007). United Kingdom: Routledge.
Internet Sources
“Englishman.” Dictionary.com. Retrieved 20 August 2009, from
< >
Morrow, Laurie. “The Playwright in Spite of Himself: George Bernard Shaw: Man, Superman and Socialism.” TheWorld and I. Retrieved 25 August 2009, from
< >
Video
“An English Accent.” ELG203 Changing English, ELG205 Using English. DVD rom. SIM University.
“Accent in Milton Keynes.” ELG203 Changing English, ELG205 Using English. DVD rom. SIM University.
