Okay, where are the pigs in this play? :)
I have really been enjoying this play. I do tend to form an opinion about a person by their dialect and have been able to place their region of development, but not as succinctly as in Pygmalion. I can tell if one is from South Jersey, North Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, or the South, basics as such, but if I were to be studied enough to recognize a form of speech within a few blocks of where they lived, I would have to play psychic and freak them out just for entertainment.
What really stood out to me was the way he treated the people he met. Those with a more sophistacated dialect he treated with respect, and the street urchin he seemed to be rude to. I honestly hope this is something I don't do and will try to be more aware of it in the future to get an idea.
Hey Kathleen,
ReplyDeleteEven though society has come a long way from shunning people simply due to his or her dialect, it seems that we sometimes innately judge those who speak different than ourselves. Like you said, it’s easy to get a feel for where people are from based on their speech, but it for me personally, it would be difficult to live in a society that is so judgmental on how one speaks. However, thinking about how our world is run, it would be in the best interest of a business owner for example to hire someone who did not speak eloquently and easy for others to understand. Hooray for ranting!
I think society as a whole judges people for numerous thing, one of which happens to be how a person speaks. Personally, I can't recall ever meeting anyone in a position of power who speaks in the colloquial manner. Honestly, it may sound judgmental, but if my doctor spoke in Ebonics or a heavy southern drawl or Creole...I'm not sure I would see her again. So, I feel whether we want to or not we are all conditioned to judge the way people speak.
ReplyDeleteI think, in a lot of cases, people tend to judge books by their covers. That first glance can make a difference between whether you think someone's a prince or a pauper, and that first word can do the very same thing. Certain accents and dialects have stigma attached to them that makes us think one is more or less "intelligent" than the others, though I have to wonder if that's a generational tradition that would be better left behind.
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