Southern Dialect in William Faulkner Essay Example For Students

Southern Dialect in William Faulkner Essay In the writings of William Faulkner, the reader may sense that the author has created an entire world which directly reflects his own personal experience. Faulkner writes about the area in and around Mississippi, where he is from, during the post-Civil War period. It is most frequently Northern Mississippi that Faulkner uses for his literary territory, changing Oxford to Jefferson and Lafayette County to Yoknapatawpha County, because it is here that he lived most of his life and wrote of the people he knew. Faulkners stories focus on the Southeastern United States at a time period when old traditions began to clash with new ideals. This is an era in American history with which most people can quickly identify, whether they are Southern or not. The South in Faulkners works are complete with all the expected features: an agricultural society, Southern belles and gentlemen, racial tensions, and especially the common characteristics of Southern speech. Faulkner strays from the normal cus toms of Northern literature to present a realistic portrait of the South that he grew up in. In doing so, he comes up with an excellent sample of the Southern language, including linguistic qualities of both black and white speech. Faulkner establishes a unique literary voice which is recognizable due to variances from standard English in vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammatical form, while juxtaposing speech elements foreign to anyone not familiar with Southern heritage. The works of William Faulkner succeed in creating a literary dialect which is relatively consistent throughout all of his stories. A literary dialect is best defined as an authors attempt to represent in writing a speech that is restricted regionally, socially, or both (Ives 146). In Faulkners writing, this can be described by such traits as an intentional misspelling, like marster for master, or in the use of Miss along with the given first name of a female, as in Miss Corrie. These, amongst countless other examples, are distinctly Southern speech traditions. Anyone not from the South may need explanations of much of Faulkners pronunciations, words, usages, and language customs which the author himself takes for granted. Because Faulkner has employed such a vast and complex Southern dialect in his stories, the language he uses has become a microcosm of Southern language as a whole. As one critic has noted, local forms of speech maintain ones individual dignity in a homogenizing worl d (Burkett vii). In Faulkner, this local speech is a mixture of Southern American and Negro dialogue with all the folklore from Virginia to Louisiana, Florida to Texas (Brown 2). Faulkners dialect is effective both as a literary device and as a link between the American English language and American culture and history, specifically in the Southeast. The South is probably the most linguistically diversified part of the nation. Blacks and whites from Atlanta to Charleston to Nashville speak a different form of standard English in a different version of the Southern accent. Part of this linguistic diversity is reflected in the way that the Southern aristocracy can shift not only vocabulary and pronunciation, but even grammar, according to the audience ((1)McDavid 219). This technique is very much alive in Faulkners work. For example, in The Reivers, the upper-class grandfather character Boss is an educated man of high social standing in the community. Yet, when he is in the company of only his grandson Lucius, as part of a lecture, he says the safe things aint always the best things ((2)Faulkner 117). Throughout the book, Bosss speech moves from the formal to the informal, largely depending on the intimacy he feels with the person or persons to whom he is speaking. Such a case illustrates that Faulkner is well aware of the prestige norms that exist in Southern speech, and he takes advantage of this knowledge. As Feagin points out, in the Southeast, the way in which nonstandard English is employed demonstrates a symbol of intimacy and local loyalty, as well as a gauge of the level of integration into a close-knit network (Feagin 222). Faulkners characters reveal a tendency to speak in a slang-like or non-prescriptive grammar when they converse with other characters that they know well, often apparent in the form of jokes and metaphorical language. Similarly to the aristocratic speaker, the less educated Southern speaker often attempts to improve his or her speech when in a formal setting. McDavid asserts that the common way to do so is by using bigger words and longer sentences, sometimes resulting in the ridiculous ((2)McDavid 265). A good example of such in Faulkner occurs in As I Lay Dying when Anse, a rural, farming man, attempts to sound eloquent at a time of utmost solemnity. During a funeral speech, Anse states the following:The somebody you was young with and you growed old in her and she growed old in you, seeing the old coming on and it was the one somebody you could hear say it dont matter and know it was the truth outen the hard world and all a mans grief and trials((1)Faulkner 511). It is obvious that Anse intends to speak formally in this situation, thus Faulkner follows McDavids rule of Southern speech about the elongation of sentences and its irregular result. This passage is successful in two ways. First, it r eveals a realistic trait common in the Southeast, reflecting the solidarity norm based on local non-standard speech (Feagin 219). Second, it serves as a very powerful literary technique because the oration captures the high level of sincerity in the speaking character. Another highly common form of Southern dialect which is often seen in Faulkners writing is the presence of African American speech features. There are numerous examples of black speech in Faulkner that follow linguistic patterns. However, it is the purpose of this essay to view only a few of the most common. Alphonso Smith defines the most general rule of Southern Negro speech as the tendency to pronounce words like more, store, four, and floor without the /r/ sound, as in mo, sto, fo, and flo (Smith 365). Faulkner holds true to this generalization by narrating similar speech from the black characters in his books. For instance, in As I Lay Dying, the character Cash offers a statement which proves Faulkners conformity to this black English norm when he says, I aint so sho that ere a man has the right to say what is crazy and what aint ((1)Faulkner 221). Further, linguists such as Raven and Virginia McDavid have gathered that the oldest and least educated, as well as many Negro informants in their Southern language studies have demonstrated dominant usage of such ungrammatical verb past tenses as div for dive, growed for grow, and riz for rise ((3)McDavid 264-280). Accordingly, in Faulkners The Sound and the Fury, there is an immense sign on the Negro Second Baptist Church which reads He Is Ris. Faulkner also depicts the vernacular of Southern blacks in his opulent use of repetition and Biblical allusion. It has been noted by researchers of Southern linguistics that a strong relationship exists between the rituals of black churches and everyday black speech customs. Examples of this relationship include religious reference, long pauses, swaying and gesturing, and repetition (Jones-Jackson 115-124 ). Although it is impossible to identify with many of these aspects of black speech while reading words on a page, it is clear that Faulkner takes advantage of those aspects that the readers can detect. For instance, all of his works display abundant uses of the words Jesus, heaven, and crucifixion, and sometimes choir hymns such as all folks talkin bout heaven aint gwine dar appear in the speech of black characters (Brown 19-222). Other Negro language features common in Faulkner are loss of /r/ at the end of words as in betta for better, use of be substituted for all tenses of the word be, as well as the zero copula, or possession indicated without a possessive morpheme (Stewart 57). Much of Faulkners writing has viewed blacks humanely, giving them a significant voice in the Southern American culture. However, for the most part, the literature reflects the general social attitude towards blacks at the time, which renders their language substandard and basically inferior to that of most whites. United nations Essay SummaryFaulkners representation of Southern speech in his writing, follows the actual linguistic parameters of the Southern Lowland dialect very closely, or Southern Proper by Raven McDavids classification. Faulkner makes a strong effort to display the various facets of this dialect even though many of them cannot really be sensed through writing alone. For instance, the only true aspects of language that are excluded in writing are facial and bodily expressions accompanying speech, pauses and changes in pitch or volume, and speed of articulation. Generally speaking, however, these features are secondary in comparison with pronunciation, grammar, and word usage. Faulkners literary dialect is consistent with several of the prevailing trends of Southern speech. For one, it supports the theory of Southern language diversity due to the fact that Faulkners is a distinctly Southern dialect, yet has many differences from other Southern dialects, including the use of p hrases like trade days (days set aside for auctioning) only used in the immediate area (Brown 202). Also, Faulkners writing presents the large quantity of archaic and folk utterances in the Negro dialect, which are the result of years of insufficient educational opportunity. One other trait of Faulkners language that is common to the popular conception of Southern dialects is the occasional loss of postvocalic /r/, as in the words baun for born, and bastud for bastard. These words, along with dozens of others appearing in Faulkners stories, are defined as Southern in nature in the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE). Faulkner, quite simply, delineates a place rich in the tradition and pride of the average Southerner. Consequently, the speech in his text also carries some of the stigmas attached to Southern life itself. First and foremost of these blemishes is the pervading tone of racism, automated by the appearance of the word nigger in practically all of Faulkners works . Although the word does represent the authenticity of Faulkners dialect, it will always carry with it an arresting level of shame and disgrace. The feeling of racism is perpetuated by the fact that most of the Negro speech in Faulkner is slightly less standard than white speech, giving it a hint of inferiority. Although Faulkner explores the issue of racism with an open mind and even attempts to repudiate some of the negative connotations associated with blacks, his genuine Southern tongue cannot completely detach from the very real evils of racial injustice in Southern American history. Finally, the dialect in these stories, in all of its originality, continues to uphold the popular belief that Southern English is, in many instances, bad English employed by less intelligent speakers. This setback is mainly attributable in Faulkners writing to the double negatives, use of aint, and use of third person dont. Contrary to these negative opinions however, most of the cases of bad gramm ar here are actually remnants of archaic proper English rather than unintelligent corruptions of modern English. Thus Faulkners storytelling dialect creates a lasting impression of his Southern world, encompassing both the common and unique, the positive and the negative. In demonstrating his ability to author such a realistic, yet original world, drawing on his own natural dialect, Faulkner insists that life is narrative, based on the preeminence of language in our lives (Lockyer xii). Bibliography:Works CitedBrown, Calvin S. A Glossary of Faulkners South. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976. Burkett, Eva M. American English Dialects in Literature. London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1978. Dictionary of American Regional English. New York: Oxford Press, 1989. (1)Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury. New York: The Modern Library, 1966. (2)Faulkner, William. The Reivers. New York: Random House, 1982. Feagin, Crawford. Competing Norms in the White Speech of Anniston, Alabama. Montgomery and Bailey, 1986. 216-234. Ives, Sumner. A Theory of Literary Dialect. A Various Language. Ed. Williamson and Burke. New York: Hold, Rhinehart, Winston, 1971. 145-177. Jones-Jackson, Patricia. Let the Church Say Amen: The Language of Religious Rituals in Coastal South Carolina. Crucible of Carolina: Essays in the Development of Gullah Language and Culture. Ed. Michael Montgomery. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994. 115-124. Lockyer, Judith. Ordered By Words: Language and Narration in the Novels of William Faulkner. Southern Illinois University Press, 1991. (1)McDavid, Raven I., Jr. Dialectology: Where Linguistics Meets the People. The Emory University Quarterly XXIII (Winter, 1967), 219. (2)McDavid, Raven I., Jr. Go Slow in Ethnic Attribution: Geographic Mobility and Dialect Prejudices. Varieties of Present-Day English. Ed. Richard W. Bailey and Jay L. Robinson. New York: Macmillan Company, 1973. 258-270. (3)McDavid, Raven I., Jr., and Virginia McDavid. Kentucky Verb Forms. Montgomery and Bailey, 1986. 264-293. Smith, Alphonso. Cambridge History of American Literature. New York: Macmillan Company, 1951. Stewart, William A. Observations on the Problem of Defining Negro Dialect. The Florida FL Reporter IX, Nos. 1 and 2 (Spring/Fall, 1971), 47-57.