Department of British and American Studies at the - Univerzita ...

Dialect in Fiction
Ján Vilikovský
Comenius University, Bratislava
Dialect is one of the oldest and most frequently used non-standard linguistic elements
to be found in creative literature.
This paper deals primarily with the use of regional or urban dialects; social dialects,
slang, argot &c. are of marginal interest only.
Dialects, of course, are the elements entering into the formation of a national
language, either by one of them attaining a dominant position (as in Slovak), or by
amalgamation. The classical Greek koiné is the best known case of the latter, but there are
other examples of this process – e.g. the Danish-Norwegian koiné, which became the basis of
Norwegian Bokmål, Friulian in Italy (Furlan), and some scholars would also include Scots
English or Quebec French under this heading.
Obviously, this process is gradual and slow. Nevertheless, its result is the existence of
two levels of language – the first being the standard or codified variety, and the second a
subordinate one, covering a number of usages. As we know from semiotics, if this distinction
is to be used for literary purposes, there has to be a definite and well-marked opposition
between the two levels, and in the case of the language of literature there must exist
systematic and unambiguous conventions allowing a ready identification of the various forms.
The primary functions of dialect in a literary work are localisation and
characterisation. Localisation serves to identify a character or action with a certain
neighbourhood or milieu, placing them in a given space through linguistic means, an
association or allusion, instead of explicit geographical designation. Characterisation is a
more complex process, since dialect is used here both as an attribute of belonging to a certain
class or group, and as a symbolic means exploiting our tendency to generalise and associate
certain types of behaviour with particular properties. Moreover, book learning stigmatizes the
use of non-standard linguistic elements and uses them as a means of foregrounding
(estrangement). We see that this is a multipurpose approach offering numerous possibilities,
depending on the authorial intent.
Slovak Studies in English, Vol. 3, 2011 – Identity in Intercultural Communication
HONORARY CONTRIBUTIONS
Non-standard and dialect elements appear in literary language from very early times.
As far back as the first century B.C. we find, side by side with classical Ciceronian Latin,
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