Speech and language
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Shaw’s views on language
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Read the section ‘Shaw on Language’ on pages vii-viii of the Longman edition of the text.
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Read the second paragraph of the Preface on page 1, starting ‘The English have no respect
for their language’.
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Later in the Preface (p 4), Shaw refers to Henry Sweet, a phonetician he admired. He says,
‘Higgins is not a portrait of Sweet … still, … there are touches of Sweet in the play.’
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Shaw makes it clear that part of his aim in writing the play was to bring the issue of
language to the attention of his audience, ‘if the play makes the public aware that there are
such people as phoneticians, and that they are among the most important people in England
at present, it will serve its turn.’ (Preface, p 4)
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Shaw states that Eliza’s transformation is ‘neither impossible nor uncommon’ (Preface, p 5)
but that anyone wanting to change their accent must be properly taught by a ‘phonetic
expert’.
References to speech and language
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When Eliza first speaks, Shaw tries to show her accent,
‘Ow, eez ye-ooa san, is e?’ (p 9)
and apologises to the reader for ‘this desperate attempt to represent her dialect without a
phonetic alphabet’.
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Examples of Eliza’s accent / dialect:
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‘I can give you change for a tanner, lady.’ (p 9)
‘I ain’t done nothing wrong’. (p 10)
‘You just shew me what you’ve wrote about me.’ (p 11)
‘Ain’t no call to meddle with me, he ain’t’. (p 13)
Higgins boasts about his knowledge of phonetics,
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‘I can place any man within six miles. I can place him within two miles in London.
Sometimes within two streets.’ (p 15)
Higgins says that there is a ‘fat’ living in phonetics because,
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‘This is an age of upstarts. Men begin in Kentish Town with £80 a year, and end in Park
Lane with a hundred thousand. They want to drop Kentish Town; but they give
themselves away every time they open their mouths. Now I can teach them-’. (p 15)
Higgins tells Eliza,
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‘A woman who utters such depressing and disgusting sounds has no right to be anywhere
– no right to live. Remember that … your native language is the language of Shakespeare
and Milton and the Bible …’. (p 16)
The language Higgins uses to describe Eliza is colourful and insulting,
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‘this creature with her kerbstone English’
‘you squashed cabbage leaf’
‘you disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns’
‘you incarnate insult to the English language’ (p 16)
‘this baggage’ (p 23).
Colonel Pickering is also a linguist – he studies Indian dialects and has written a book called
‘Spoken Sanscrit’.
Higgins often uses bad language and Mrs Pearce warns him not to swear in front of Eliza.
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Speech and language
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
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Contrast between speech of Higgins and Doolittle,
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Doolittle: ‘Now, now, look here Governor … Is it fairity to take advantage of a man like
this?’
Higgins: ‘Your daughter had the audacity to come to my house and ask me to teach her
how to speak properly.’
Higgins is a harsh teacher – in Eliza’s first lesson Higgins is described as ‘thundering’
instructions at her and then stops her recitation of the alphabet ‘with the roar of a wounded
lion’ (p 49). He threatens that if she says it incorrectly again she will be ‘dragged around
the room three times by the hair’. The lesson ends with Eliza rushing from the room,
sobbing.
•
‘Small talk’ is necessary at occasions such as Mrs Higgins’ tea-party. Higgins says that he has
no small talk but people do not mind. Mrs Higgins makes a comment about his ‘large talk’,
implying that he says things which are inappropriate. (p 52)
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Higgins’ language is blunt and appears quite rude at the tea-party. When Freddy enters
after his mother and sister, Higgins comments ‘God of Heaven! Another of them.’ (p 55)
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Freddy’s speech sounds very educated and his accent is probably the most upper class of all
of the characters in the play but he is made to sound quite ridiculous by Shaw in the way he
repeats ‘Ahdedo’ (p 57). Shaw was against the idea that simply coming from a privileged
background would mean that a person would be successful in life and the character of
Freddy is a vehicle through which Shaw criticises the lazy and stupid well-to-do people in
society.
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The comedy of the tea-party scene is due to Eliza’s use of language. Although her
pronunciation is perfect she shows little awareness of what details are appropriate to
include in her conversation, ‘Gin was mother’s milk to her.’
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Clara’s willingness to believe that Eliza’s swearing is ‘the new small talk’ (p 60) is another
example of Shaw’s criticism of the middle classes who were always trying to climb the social
ladder.
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Higgins feels that by teaching Eliza to speak like the middle classes he is doing something to
bring some equality to society. He tells his mother,
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‘It’s filling up the deepest gulf that separates class from class and soul from soul.’
(p 64)
At the embassy reception, Eliza’s speech is so convincing that everyone believes that she is
a lady or even a princess (p 71).
When Alfred Doolittle inherits money and becomes a ‘gentleman’ he says,
‘And the next one to touch me will be you, Enry Iggins. I’ll have to learn to speak
middle class language from you, instead of speaking proper English.’ (p 87)
Eliza feels that in losing her accent in some way she has also lost her identity. She tells
Higgins,
‘You told me, you know, that when a child is brought to a foreign country, it picks up
the language in a few weeks, and forgets its own. Well, I am a child in your country. I
have forgotten my own language, and can speak nothing but yours.’ (p 94)
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