Pygmalion...........How does Shaw mark the differences between his characters through their speech?

Introduction

Pygmalion is a great play that Bernard Shaw wrote in order to highlight society classes at that time, the play contains a variety of classes of society differentiated using many tools one of which is language as accents, dialects and slangs showed characters' classes.

Body

1.  An example on using language and slangs to point to one's social class is in Act two when Eliza was asked about her name by Higgins and she answered in a way that shows how she comes from a low class of society as the dialogue was :

" HIGGINS. What's your name?

THE FLOWER GIRL. Liza Doolittle.

HIGGINS [declaiming gravely] Eliza, Elizabeth, Betsy and Bess, They went to the woods to get a birds nes': PICKERING. They found a nest with four eggs in it: HIGGINS. They took one apiece, and left three in it.

They laugh heartily at their own wit.

LIZA. Oh, don't be silly.

MRS. PEARCE. You mustn't speak to the gentleman like that."

This dialogue shows how vulgar and rude Eliza is to the extent that she cannot say her name correctly. The dialogue also shows that Mr. Higgins comes from a high class of society who are very interested in correct pronunciation and who make fun of lower people without caring for their feelings. Liza's words "Don't be silly" show how rude she is and that she does not choose words when talking with gentlemen.

Another quote from act two tells that accents tell what class people belong to :

"PICKERING [gently] What is it you want, my girl?

THE FLOWER GIRL. I want to be a lady in a flower shop stead of selling at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. But they won't take me unless I can talk moregenteel. He said he could teach me. Well, here I am ready to pay him—not asking any favor—and he treats me as if I was dirt."

 Her way of pronouncing the word gentle as "genteel" shows that she does not know the correct way of talking or the right English pronunciation which is a feature of low social classes people whose slangs are not as the correct English language that high class people use.

2. The use of slangs distinguish the youth from the old as Eliza for example uses free language which makes Higgins attracted to her because he sees that this is an experiment that he enjoys and likes. Words of the young are usually different from those of older people, for example in act three Eliza was using a new fashionable slang that attracted everyone even Higgins who began to dislike the wayMrs. Higgins talked, this was clear in the way she talked formally with Higgins as she said:

"MRS. HIGGINS. Well, you never fall in love with anyone under forty-five. When will you discover that there are some rather nice-looking young women about?

HIGGINS. Oh, I can't be bothered with young women. My idea of a loveable woman is something as like you as possible. I shall never get into the way of seriously liking young women: some habits lie too deep to be changed. [Rising abruptly and walking about, jingling his money and his keys in his trouser pockets] Besides, they're all idiots.

While Eliza words and slang was showing how youthful she is as when she said:

"LIZA [darkly] My aunt died of influenza: so they said.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [clicks her tongue sympathetically]!!!

LIZA [in the same tragic tone] But it's my belief they done the old woman in.

MRS. HIGGINS [puzzled] Done her in?

LIZA. Y-e-e-e-es, Lord love you! Why should she die of influenza? She come through diphtheria right enough the year before. I saw her with my own eyes. Fairly blue with it, she was. They all thought she was dead; but my father he kept ladling gin down her throat til she came to so sudden that she bit the bowl off the spoon.

3. Characters in Pygmalion have different ways of speaking which distinguishes every character with some specific features of speaking. For example, Higgins used to swear too much with the devil and say Damn which distinguishes him from any other character in the play, he also used to make exclamations by saying words like:" Oh Lord". Doolittle's character was also distinguished by saying short sentences as: "governor", "I never did", "so help me". "Certainly", "I'll come. Liza's way of speaking was also distinguished by words as : "Yeeeeeeeeeeees", "Nah", "Oh", "Ah, ah, ah, Ow, ow, oo".

Conclusion

Language could be used by authors in their works to identify people's characters, social classes and to refer to the character formation, conflicts and attitudes. Bernard Shaw was very successful in Pygmalion as he figured his characters through their language use, the slangs and dialects of each one.