Dialect and Indexicality in Wuthering Heights and Mary Barton - Essay Example

?Running Head: DIALECT Joseph’s Dialect in Wuthering Heights and Jane Wilson’s Dialect in Mary Barton of the of the Joseph’s Dialect in Wuthering Heights and Jane Wilson’s Dialect in Mary Barton Dialect is a form of language that belongs to a particular region or social set up. The pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and every part of dialect is different from standard language of the society. As far as indexicality is concerned, it can be understood as a fraction of pragmatics. Pragmatics can be explained as study of language. Indexicality deals with usage and outcomes of language. It informs about the methods that are employed in comprehending language and communication as a whole. Wuthering Heights and Mary Barton employ different varieties of dialects as Wuthering Heights has usage of Yorkshire dialect while Mary Barton uses Lancashire dialect. The usage of dialects in both the literary works is crucial as the authors mouthed the dialects to certain characters belonging to lower classes of society. The authors by the usage of dialects gave the literary works a touch of originality as real time characters using common dialects were employed for speaking the dialects. In Wuthering Heights, Joseph’s character is mentionable in using Yorkshire dialect while in Mary Barton, Jane Wilson’s character is mentionable in using Lancashire dialect. This paper will focus on Joseph’s character in Wuthering Heights and Jane Wilson’s character in Mary Barton in terms of their acquisition and usage of Yorkshire and Lancashire dialects respectively. Joseph is portrayed as a pious character who makes use of religion in his day to day life. Being a servant at Wuthering Heights, he is not like other servants and dislikes to work. His personality is not liked by other characters of the literary work because most of the time, he uses cursing and threatening language for delivering his points. His language is not easily comprehensible because of his coarse and raw Yorkshire dialect. His accent is also thick and difficult to interpret, which causes his language to appear more complicated. Joseph does not lead a sympathetic or concerned life and is mostly inconsiderate and believes in his own righteousness. He makes stringent verdicts about people’s going to hell and believes in the supernatural. However, Joseph is sympathetic towards Hareton considering him the future head of the family at Wuthering Heights (Wiltshire 2005, pp. 23-24). Joseph talks about Hareton as 'Thearl' he eiaculated. 'Hareton, thah willn't sup thy porridge tuh neeght; they'll be nowt bud lumps as big as maw nave. Thear, agean! Aw'd fling in bowl un' all, if Aw wer yah! Thear, pale t'guilp off, un' then yah'll hae done wi't. Bang, bang. It's a marcy t'bothom isn't deaved aht!' (Bronte 2001, p. 172). Considering Hareton of some importance, Joseph employs the words of “thah” and “thy” also because he feels some affection for the child. Yorkshire dialect has been used excellently by Emily Bronte in her work Wuthering Heights. Her usage of the dialect represents the dialect used in the region. Joseph’s dialect is quite difficult to understand as it is exactly the same dialect spoken in the Yorkshire region. The usage of the dialect by Emily Bronte brought much criticism because of incomprehensibility of her used dialect. Her written dialect and Joseph’s speeches were somewhat changed by Charlotte Bronte, but because of her sameness of dialect to Yorkshire region, her work was kept as such because of the originality of her work. She portrayed Joseph as a coarse and rough character whose language and manners spoke of his coarseness and roughness (Heywood 1987, p. 186). Using of dialect as it is, is a sensitive matter, however, the understanding of a character depends on his used language and style. Joseph as a character of servitude does not appear ridiculous when he uses Yorkshire dialect. We are able to know him and his class by the usage of his language. His character adds to our interpretation of the literary work. The readers are also able to relate Joseph’s character to the lower classes in Yorkshire region (Jack 1982, p. 326). The character of Joseph as represented by the author is bad tempered, didactic, obdurate and rigid. He is not ready to bring in any change in his personality that is evident from his usage of dialect. He is even hostile towards strangers showing his rejection to change. Literarily, the character of Joseph is difficult to understand fully because of his acquirement of Yorkshire dialect that matches the original dialect. Joseph’s usage of Yorkshire dialect continuously in his speech to other characters also indicates towards his pride that he takes in himself. He is unwilling to make his personality more pleasant for people around him because he wants to be the same as he is (Heywood 1987, p. 189). He is not ready to accept the values and preferences of people other than himself. Nelly Dean is also a servant like Joseph, but she speaks standard language. The usage of Standard English by Nelly emphasizes the fact that Nelly is ready to accept change unlike Joseph who wants to be the same as he is. The author portrays Nelly as a flexible character who accepts change and is able to understand diverse dialects and communication patterns. Nelly as compared to Joseph is manipulative as she takes what suits her. Emily Bronte intentionally uses different speech patterns for Nelly and Joseph showing the change in their personalities (Waddington-Feather 1966, p. 15). In addition, the writer wanted to indicate towards the connection of Joseph with his background. Emily Bronte presented Joseph as a strong user of Yorkshire dialect and his spoken dialect is difficult to comprehend. Being a servant, Joseph should be of little significance in the literary work, but because of his language usage, he is made important. He is the oldest character of the work and his learning of language depends on his past. He is not educated or he may be poorly educated that can be understood as a reason behind his usage of complicated Yorkshire dialect. His language is complicated because it is not standard. He never had any lessons of elocution and he never travelled to different areas that can change his Yorkshire dialect (James 2000, p. 157). Being poor and a servant, he lacks the opportunities of making better his day to day speech. His dialect was understood by the characters of the work to some extent and Joseph was able to deliver his point so he never thought of bringing in any changes. Joseph retains his regional dialect as a source of connection to his region. The readers while reading the literary work feel alienated because of the Yorkshire dialect used by Joseph, but his character also puts a light on his social class and belonging (Wiltshire 2005, p. 28). The readers also gain awareness about originality employed by the author by making use of regional dialect. The user is a servant and is part of the Yorkshire region. His employed dialect represents his connection with his land. Like Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell also employed regional dialect for giving power and strength to her characters in her literary work, Mary Barton. Especially, the character of Jane Wilson, a factory worker belonging to poor class and always suffering is shown using Lancashire dialect representing the dialect of the region. Jane Wilson is George Wilson’s wife and is misfortunate as just before marriage, she had a factory accident and when she was on the altar, she was pale and limping (Gravil 2007, p. 65). She while informing Mary about her physical condition said that she was a wretched creature when she married George. Belonging to the lower and working class, she is a representative of her class. Gaskell employed Lancashire dialect and chose Jane Wilson to use this dialect and represent before readers. Gaskell not only used a regional dialect, but also provided footnotes for assistance of readers to comprehend the written dialect easily (Gravil 2007). Gaskell used the Lancashire dialect purposefully as she wanted the readers to know about the regional language. There are many words that are used by many characters of the working class showing Lancashire dialect. Jane Wilson and other characters use the word “clem” as a word of Lancashire dialect for indicating towards hunger faced by the poor and “frabbit” to indicate peevish. She is a suffering creature and faces a lot in the whole narration. Her usage of language shows her linkage with the lower social class (Alexander 2007, p. 78). Jane Wilson laments over the arrest of her son Jem and says in Lancashire dialect, “Am I to leave him now to dree all the cruel slander they’ll put upon him?” (Gaskell & Foster 2006, p. 125) Jane Wilson’s language appears somewhat vague to the readers as she uses words from Lancashire dialect in her speech, however, Gaskell has given footnotes for all the Lancashire dialectical words that can be used as a guide for understanding the dialect. Gaskell uses the character of Jane Wilson as a real life character. Like Jane Wilson, many young girls started to go for working in factories because of economic instability of poor families (Wilkes 2007, p.151). Jane Wilson being a part of poor family started working at a factory and adopted whatever she learned as a young girl. Her usage of Lancashire dialect depicts her association to the dialect. She must have used the same dialect while working with her colleagues. Gaskell’s usage of Lancashire dialect is a sort of bringing reality in her work as her approach is realistic in using an original dialect being spoken by working class people of Lancashire region (Ingham 1986, p. 521). Jane Wilson and Joseph, both are unique characters and are quite different from one another, even their usage of dialect is different as Joseph speaks Yorkshire dialect while Jane Wilson speaks Lancashire dialect. Joseph and Jane, both belong to lower social class and have an uneducated and poor background due to which, they are so close to their respective dialects. Indexicality of their dialects shows that their dialects are comprehensible to other characters of their works. People understand them from whatever they speak as people form an opinion about their characters and personalities. Joseph appears rigid and inflexible while Jane Wilson appears as always suffering. The communication and discourses of the two characters put an impact on their day to day conversation to other people. Joseph and Jane use different dialects according to their working environments and their social settings. They are able to make their space in their specific societies. They are part of the society with their respective dialects. Other characters of the literary works understand them and try to use some parts of their dialects as well. The usage of dialect by different characters brings originality in the work and that was realized by Gaskell as well as Bronte. Both of them used different dialects just for bringing in originality in their works and for showing the importance of dialects for lower social classes. Gaskell considered some dialectical words better than standard English language showing her concern and regard for diverse dialects. Similarly, Bronte’s usage of dialect shows her importance that she gives to dialects. Both of the authors, Bronte and Gaskell used different dialects beautifully, but their chosen characters for speaking the dialects were not from educated or rich social class. They were from the working lower class, the labourers. Joseph was a servant at Wuthering Heights and used to speak Yorkshire dialect while Jane Wilson was a factory worker and used to speak Lancashire dialect. Both of the characters showed their linkage with their respective regions. Also, both of them represented their class and social status with the usage of their different dialects. Their dialects create some problem for the readers to understand, but they also fill in colours in the literary works. The authors of the literary works, Wuthering Heights and Mary Barton used different dialects purposefully as they considered them important for the society and representation of certain regions. Bibliography Alexander, L. (2007). Sociological Stylistics: The Politics of Dialect in Early Nineteenth-Century British Fiction. Bronte, E. 2001. Wuthering Heights. Broadview Press. Gaskell, E., & Foster, S. (Eds.). (2006). Mary Barton. Oxford University Press. Gravil, R. (2007). Elizabeth Gaskell:' Mary Barton'. Humanities-Ebooks. Heywood, C. 1987. Yorkshire Slavery in Wuthering Heights. The Review of English Studies, 38(150), 184-198. Ingham, P. (1986). Dialect as' Realism': Hard Times and the Industrial Novel. The Review of English Studies, 37(148), 518-527. Jack, I. (1982). Novels and those ‘Necessary Evils’: Annotating the Bronte’s. Essays in Criticism, 32(4), 321-337. James, S. E. 2000. Wuthering Heights for Children: Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden. Connotations, 10 (1). Waddington-Feather, J. 1966. Emily Bronte’s Use of Dialect in “Wuthering Heights”. Bronte Society Transactions: The Journal of Bronte Studies, 15(1), 12-19. Wilkes, J. (2007). Have At The Masters"?: Literary Allusions In Elizabeth Gaskell's" Mary Barton. Studies in the Novel, 39(2), 147-160. Wiltshire, I. 2005. Speech in Wuthering Heights: Joseph's Dialect and Charlotte's Emendations. Bronte Studies, 30 (1), 19-29. Read More