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4.1.1 Age 5
4.1.2 Gender 6
4.2 Outside Factors 6
4.2.1 Education 6
4.2.2 Social Status 7
4.2.3 Occupation 7
4.2.4 Social Environment (Culture, Economy, Policy) 7
5 Analysis of the Influence of Social Factors in the Film 8
5.1 Pronunciation and Intonation 8
5.2 Vocabulary 9
5.3 Syntax 10
5.4 Style 11
5.4.1 Irony 11
5.4.2 Humor 12
6 Conclusion 13
6.1 A Summary 13
6.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research 13
The Impact of Social Cultural Environment on Speech Acts ---- A Case Study of My Fair Lady
1 Introduction
1.1 Background to the Movie
In the reign of Queen Victoria in the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution changed the whole social structure in Britain. Machinery superseded manual labor and many workers lost their jobs, which aggravated class contradictions and social unrest. In such a social environment, the people of different classes talk with different accents. Therefore, the nobles in England had an intense pursuit of sterling pronunciation of English. They prided themselves on high-prestige accents and look down on the people whose pronunciation was not standard. And then the thoughts of feminists started to pick up some speed. The famous writer George Bernard Shaw foresaw the development of the feminist trend. He realized the serious problem in society and attempted to reinterpret the relation between males and females in the later times.
1.1.1 Pygmalion Effect
Pygmalion was a king of Cyprus in Greek mythology. He was good at carving. He used ivory to carve for himself a beautiful girl statue. He devoted his all vigor, enthusiasm and love to the girl. He dressed her up attentively, named her and prayed to the gods. He wanted to marry her. At last, the goddess of love was moved by the king for his true heart. She gave life to the girl. The story ended with a happy reunion. The Pygmalion effect is that if you have a strong desire for something, it may come true. Bernard Shaw's work is based on this Greek myth as the prototype. And he added new contents to it. The king and Professor Higgins are quite similar in character. They both have created their own ideal women respectively and fell in love with them, but the real life is different from the myth. In fact, Higgins does not create Eliza. He just inspires her and helps her to see her place in the world. In George Bernard Shaw’s play, the myth of Pygmalion is given certain social significance, and reflects social inequality: the language and the way of life of the upper class are regarded as superior to those of the lower class. Actually, language is used as tool to indicate class difference.
1.1.2 Introduction to the Characters
The heroine, Eliza is beautiful and clever but she was born on the wrong side of the tracks. She spoke with a rough accent like many working class people in London. The linguistician Higgins noticed Eliza’s unique voice at a very opportune moment. Higgins was very interested in the use of the language of the girl from the bottom of society. And Eliza also found that Higgins hoped to change her voice. He made a bet with his friend Pickering on changing Eliza’s speech and manners. He said that he could transform her into an elegant lady who had the right to attend the grand banquet. If Eliza’s identity was not found out in the party, Pickering would afford all her tuition fee. In the process of teaching, Higgins was very lofty and hardhearted. But Eliza was stranded and tried not to lose her self-respect. She was unwilling to live under the torment. Because she thought that Higgins was very hypocritical, she could not accept him. She chose to leave, although she had adjusted to the upper class life. She still wanted to have her own life instead of being a foiled person. Pickering played a role contrary to Higgins in personality, but they both had interest in linguistics. Pickering was polite, whereas Higgins had poor manners. Pickering had patience whereas Higgins was rash. Pickering was impulsive and gracious, while Higgins sometimes liked to make jokes.