“The London work-girl is rarely capable of raising herself, or being raised, to a place in life above that to which she was born; she cannot learn how to stand and sit and move like a woman bred to refinement, any more than she can fashion her tongue to graceful speech.” George Gissing

The most famous example of someone changing solely through language might be the play Pygmalion in which professor Higgins is sure he can take a girl from the streets (Eliza Doolittle) and make her a lady by teaching her to speak “proper” English. This story was later popularised by the movie My Fair Lady in which the role of Eliza was played by Audrey Hepburn who could speak the Queen’s English quite well already.

 

This story is set in the late 19th century and this century was extremely class conscious. One could not move out of their class lightly. The quote on top of this page was what started this story. Bernard Shaw wanted to show the world he could do this by having his Eliza Doolittle complete the transformation. He states in his preface: ‘It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him' this indicates the focus Shaw and his contemporaries had on the way people spoke.  The language Eliza uses at first is a language destined to keep her in the gutter. She comes to the professor because she wants a job in a flower shop but they won’t hire her until she “can talk more genteel”. These things make language especially pronunciation, as Shaw describes it, a social determiner and determinant. You cannot equal rights and opportunities for all when language and pronunciation are that important.

 

This story shows us how improving your pronunciation can help you move higher in society but also how it can become something you are not. Your language and accent are a part of you and show the world where you come from and that is not something to be ashamed of. Using bad language is another story.

 

Mugglestone, L. (1993). Shaw, Subjective Inequality, And The Social Meanings Of Language In Pygmalion. The Review of English Studies, XLIV(175), 373-385.