The Southern Dialect as Seen in the Works of William Faulkner Essays

The grey Dialect as Seen in the Works of William Faulkner In the publications of William Faulkner, the reader may sense that the author has created an entire world, which directly reflects his admit personal experience. Faulkner writes about the area in and around Mississippi, w present he is from, during the post-Civil war stoppage. 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 on the Southeastern United States at a time period when old traditions began to clash with new ideals. This is an era in American chronicle with which most people can quickly identify, whether they are Southern or non. The South in Faulkners works are complete with solely the expected features an agricultural society, Southern belles and gentlemen, racial tensions, and especi ally the common characteristics of Southern speech. Faulkner strays from the normal customs of Northern literature to present a down-to-earth 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 fair speech. Faulkner establishes a unique literary voice which is recognizable due to variances from stock 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 endeavour to represent in w... ...n, 1971. 145-177. 7) Lockyer, Judith. Ordered By Words Language and tale in the Novels of William Faulkner. Southern Illinois University Press, 1991. 8) McDavid, Raven I., Jr. Dialectology Where Linguistics Meet s the People. The Emory University Quarterly twenty-three (Winter, 1967), 219. 9) 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. 10)McDavid, Raven I., Jr., and Virginia McDavid. Kentucky Verb Forms. Montgomery and Bailey, 1986. 264-293. Smith, Alphonso. Cambridge archives of American Literature. New York Macmillan Company, 1951. 11)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.