LANGUAGE, PHONETICS AND EXPERIMENTATION IN PYGMALION Andrea Rebonato Guilherme Souza Milena Legroski Suelen Salรงa
LANGUAGE AND SHAW
Shaw • G. Bernard Shaw wrote Pygmalion, a witty study of phonetics as well as a clever treatment of middleclass morality and class distinction in 1912. Based on classical myth, Pygmalion plays on the complex business of human relationships in a social world. Phonetics Professor Henry Higgins tutors the very Cockney Eliza Doolittle, not only in the refinement of speech, but also in the refinement of her manner. When the end result produces a very ladylike Miss Doolittle, the lessons learned become much more far reaching.
Shaw • Pygmalion probes important questions about social class, human behavior, and relations between the sexes. Shaw also plotted to trick his audience out of any prejudicial views they held about the play's content. This he did by assuming their familiarity with the myth of Pygmalion, from the Greek playwright Ovid's Metamorphoses, encouraging them to think that Pygmalion was a classical play.
Shaw • Shaw’s biographic background is easily seen inside the construction of Pygmalion. As a young man, Shaw became aware of the Communist ideals and took these concepts and incorporated them to his personal political agenda. In his conception, people are affected by the class clash because of the differences on each sector of the society. He had a particular view on language, believing that these great differences could be extinct if language was taught properly to each and every one from all of the social circles.
"I, as a Socialist, have had to preach, as much as anyone, the enormous power of the environment. We can change it; we must change it; there is absolutely no other sense in life than the task of changing it. What is the use of writing plays, what is the use of writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds chaos itself into a race of gods." George Bernard Shaw, January 17, 1909.
THE QUEEN’S ENGLISH – THE RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION
Received Pronunciation
• It’s the accent often described as “tipically British”. • It’s the accent on which phonemic transcriptions in dictionaries are based, and its widely used for teaching English as a foreign language.
Received Pronunciation • Has its origins in the sixteenth/seventeenth century, when people start to think that the way the monarchy uses the language should be a model for the speech and for writing. • Became widely famous when Lord Reith, General Manager of the BBC, adopted in 1922 the RP as a broadcasting standard. • Accents usually tell us where a person is from; RP tells us only about a person's social and/or educational background.
Examples: The Queen
The younger royals
•house = hice •off = orf •tower = tar •refined = refained
•really = rairly •milk = miuk •yes = yah •St. Paul’s = St. Pauw’s
Source: http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/QueensEnglish.html
COCKNEY ENGLISH AND LONDON SPEECH CLASS CLASH
• Cockney is the name for the accent and speech from people born or those who live in South East End of London. • It is known as the language of the commom working class Londoners living in the range of hearing the Bow Bells (St. Mary-Le-Bow Church ).
• Cockney’s legend: The horse neighs!
Features of Cockney English • Monophtonguization • Reducing a diphtong to a reduced vowel. • Right – Like – Time (rat / lak / tam) • Boil – Toil (bol / tol) • Mouth (math)
• “Touchstone for distinguishing between "true Cockney" and popular London" (Wells, 1982)
• Glottal Stop • /p/ /t/ /k/ stongly glotalized. A drink of water = A drin' a wa'er A little bit of bread with a bit of butter on it = A li'le bi' of breab wiv a bi' of bu'er on i'.
• Dropped H in the beginning of words: House (‘ouse) Hat ( ‘at) Happy (‘apy)
• TH fronting Th as Thumb (f) Th as They (v)
• Fricatives changed for labiodentals.
• Vowel lowering • ER – Number (numba) / Utter (utta) / Dinner (dinna).
• Chest tone / Rough / Harsh prosody • Rhyming Slangs • Apples and pears = Stairs • Plates and meat = Feet
Eliza’s Speech “ – Nah then, Freddy: look wh’y’ gowin, deah.” ( Now then, Freddy: Look where you’re going dear! ) “ - There’s menners f’yer! Te-oo banches o voylets trod into the mad.” (These manners of yours! Two bunches of violets thrown into the mud!) “ – Ow, eezye-ooa san, is e? Wal, fewd dan y’ de-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel’s flahrzn than ran awy athat pyin. Will ye-oo py me f’them?” (Oh! Is he your son, isn’t he? Well, if you had done your dutty by him as a mother should, he would know better than to spoil a poor girl’s flowers then run away without paying. Will you pay for them?).
THE EXPERIMENT
The Experiment • Shaw’s Creative Evolution. Shaw held that if we desire with passionate strength of will, what we desire will be brought about. And it would be passed to our descendants, therefore, the nations would be ruled in wisdom and virtue. • Shaw believed that the exact representation of sounds would bring the correct pronunciation by everyone and break down class distinctions.
The Experiment Pickering (gently): What is it you want, my girl? The flower girl: I want to be a lady in a flower shop stead of selling at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. But they wont take me unless I can talk more genteel. He said he could teach me. Well, here I am ready to pay him – not asking any favor – and he treats me as if I was dirt. (Pygmalion, p. 14) Pickering: Higgins: I’m interested. What about the ambassador’s garden party? I’ll say youre the greates teacher alive if you make that good. I’ll bet you all the expenses of the experiment you cant do it. And I’ll pay for the lessons. (Pygmalion, p. 16)
the most absorbing experiment I ever tackled (Pygmalion, p. 43)
The Experiment • The problem in Pygmalion, therefore, is like the world-problem of Education. To educate is to give (or at least to offer) new life to those who receive the education, and that new life produces discontent with existing circumstances and creates the desire for a different kind of world. (General Introduction, p. 129)
Shavian Alphabet • Shaw’s will of June 1950 made clear his trust in language as an important factor of social changing. He had left money to establish a Shaw Alphabet with the aim of producing a system with at least 40 letters, as phonetic as possible and an useful way of writing and printing the English language. • A contest for the design of the new alphabet was won by Mr. Ronald Kingsley Read. • Tall Letter ar unvoiced consonants; deep letters, voiced consonants and short letters vowels, liquids(r, l) and nasals.
References • Queen’s English. http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/QueensEnglish.html. 13 mar.2012 • Received Pronunciation. http://www.yaelf.com/rp.shtml . 13.mar.2012 • Received Pronunciation. http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/find-out-more/receivedpronunciation/. 14.mar.2012. • Amy Whinehouse interview. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ISw4yuM4io&feature=fvst . 15.mar.2012. • TimesTalks: Michael Caine: An Accent That Broke Class Barriers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBjp1oEZcwU. 15.mar.2012. • Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess Interview for ONE DAY. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aqJt_vOFEI. 15.mar.2012.
References • The Spelling Society. http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j31/shawpitman.php. 14.mar.2012 • Pygmalion: Events in History at the Time of the Play. http://www.answers.com/topic/pygmalion-events-in-history-at-thetime-of-the-play. 14.mar.2012. • Shaw, B. Pygmalion. London: Longman , 1957. • Shaw, B. Pygmalion. Bover thrift editions, 1994. • Literature > Pygmalion Study Guide http://www.enotes.com/pygmalion. 14.mar.2012.