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

squire Western, a typical early 18 th century Tory – lackadaisical, given to huntin‘, shootin‘
and culinary pleasures, and speaking openly his mind. In accordance with his name, he
frequently breaks out in the Somerset dialect of the West Country, which is apt to erupt in
moments of intense passion. His language is forceful and contains numerous expressions
which until recently used to be replaced in English fiction by dashes. Fielding reproduces the
variants of pronunciation (thof instead of though, oum instead of of them, initial z- instead of
s-, and v- instead of f-, – volks, vorty instead of folks, forty &c.) as well as grammar (they be
instead of they are, zeed instead of saw). This linguistic portrait has several functions: first, it
serves as a source of comedy; second, it serves as a means of localisation, placing the
character in a concrete geographical scene; and third, in a novel exploiting the contrast
between the elegant Whig London and rustic Tory provinces, the rambunctious character of
the squire‘s language underlines his bond with the circle of provincial magnates.
This line of characterisation by dialect culminates with Dickens. Sam Weller remains
carved in our memory as an essentially comical figure and his cockney is an inseparable part
of his portrait. His comicality, however, is not of the cheap kind – we laugh with him rather
than at him. He is witty, has a natural gift of looking at things in his own way, and find
solutions – also in his own way. (In many respects he reminds us of Josef Ńvejk – they are
both children of a big city, with little formal education but a lot of natural intelligence, and
life taught them how to find a way out of any situation.) It is worth noting that although his
dialect adds to the comic effect of his remarks – transcribed into standard English they would
lose something of their earthiness – it is, nevertheless, not the source of their humour: they are
humorous in their own right. After all, he gave his name to Wellerisms, those pronouncements
converting a well-known saying to its opposite by adding an idiosyncratic tag: ―It‘s over, and
can‘t be helped, and that‘s one consolation, as they always say in Turkey, ven they cuts the
wrong man‘s head off.‖
In later works Dickens modifies his technique and creates a more complex structure.
Although in The Pickwick Club it is always possible to distinguish between the author‘s
speech and that of the characters, in later works colloquial diction – including dialect –
infiltrates the authorial level through the various forms of indirect speech. While with Sam
Weller dialect is an integral part of the comic effect, in Dickens‘s mature works it operates as
a means of characterisation without necessarily attempting at comedy. It is also worth
noticing (e.g., in the above quotation of Sam Weller) that Dickens does not aim at a
painstaking reproduction of pronunciation and grammar, being rather satisfied with setting a
few impressionistic accents in a position where they count.
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