A Sociolinguistic Analysis: My Fair Lady

My Fair Lady (1964): A Sociolinguistic Analysis

In today 's generation, Language has been constantly been one of the indicators of a class. Every day, unconsciously and consciously, we have expectations that people in our environment in certain social positions will speak in certain ways. The doctors, lawyers, professors, fund managers, and even top civil servants will speak formally; on the other hand, the truck drivers, factory workers, assembly line workers, labourers, waiters, and cleaners will speak informally. But aren 't we curious about who defines that social class? Is it really the case that social class affects the language? And, is there really a direct correlation between language and social class?

In the movie, My Fair Lady (1964) by George Cukor, starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison, we can clearly see how the language determines social class. It was adapted from the play, Pygmalion, which talks about Professor Henry Higgins, who takes a bet from Colonel Pickering that he can change in three months the unrefined, dirty Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle into a lady, and make everyone think that she really is one. He managed to train Doolittle to speak like a princess, dress like a lady, and act as if she belongs to the upper class. He does, and thus young aristocrat Freddy Eynsford-Hill fall in love with her. But when Professor takes the credit and forgets to acknowledge her work, Eliza angrily leaves him for Freddy. At the end, Higgins suddenly realizes that he 's grown accustomed to her face and cannot live without it. The classic movie tried to show how funny and real such sociolinguistic expectations '. My Fair Lady shows how the Cockney dialect, used by Eliza Doolittle (English of the London working class) is negatively branded because of its linguistic deficiencies of which the BBC English speakers, used by Professor Henry Higgins (the English preferred in Great Britain)

Conclusion

Dialects and Accent plays a large role in determining ones ' social class. A lot of factors are needs to be considered in order to belong to particular group, some of them are - Education, Income, Occupation, and Wealth. But on the film, My Fair Lady, it showcase how a particular person can jump from one level to the another. During the dance, were the Upperclass gathered with the Royalties, Professor Higgens test his experiment by placing Doolittle into the play - and it worked. Everyone believed that Doolittle is belong to their class. It shows how the language and they way someone acts ' can manipulate the mindset of its environment. Language indeed,