Dialect as a Signifier of Social Class in Pygmalion Kruthik Ravikanti 11th Grade

In modern-day, power is an entity that everyone desires but the simplest things such as a person’s language or even the socioeconomic status can change the game. Language consists of many elements within but most are disregarded such as culture while others like dialects and accents are shown more attention nowadays. For example, in some places, language is a crucial token that influences “Everything, even, class in England, whether it’s upper, lower or middle. [But] why should that be?” (Annis). Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw is an amazing representation of a play that discusses the major significance that dialects have on the socioeconomic status of people.

Pygmalion is a play, based on a classical myth, which represents how influential the way a person speaks and behaves is on their social hierarchy in England during the early 1900s. The play focuses on a flower girl named Eliza who doesn’t have enough money and tries to sell her flowers to two highly regarded linguists. These linguistic experts are Higgins and Pickering, one is a scientist in phonetics while the other is a linguist of Indian dialects respectively. Eliza who is overlooked in society because of her dialect decides to ask Higgins to help her become a florist by...