My Fair Lady* My Fair Lady, a musical version of George Bernard Shaw’s 1912 play Pygmalion, was first performed on Broadway in 1956, and has been in performance all around the world since that instant.

* The story is about how a London phonetics professor: Henry Higgins gives to a

cockney flower seller: Eliza Doolittle, speech lessons in order to convert her in an elegant high class woman. * this brilliant Cinderella story was made into a film in 1964, with Rex Harrison as Higgins and Audrey Hepburn as Eliza.

Cockney:Cockney: an accent of the suburbs of London.

Henry Higgins: The English phonetics teacher. Eliza Doolittle : a flower seller. Colonel Hugh Pickering : Henry’s Friends. Alfred P. Doolittle : Eliza’s father. Zoltan Karpathy: Hungarian phonetic

student. Freddy Eynsford-Hill: Eliza lover

Characters

Character Position in the

sociaty

Behaviour

Higgins claims that his knowledge of ‘simple phonetics’ (a branch of linguistics concerned with the study of the nature, production, and perception of sounds of speech) allows him to deduce a person’s origins to within six miles.

Middle upper class.

rude (and patronizing) to lower class; polite to same or upper class. Language: calls Eliza “you silly girl” and Pickering “my dear man” (an equal and friend).

Henry Higgins

Character Position in

the society.Behaviour

Eliza is a Cockney flower girl, who comes to Professor Henry Higgins asking for  pronunciation lessons, after a chance encounter at  Covent Garden, where she works.Doolittle receives voice coaching and learns the rules of etiquette.

Low Class

Respectful to people of higher class but obstinate.

Language: calls gentleman “sir” and “cap’in” (or captain) which is a compliment.

Eliza Doolittle

Based on the My Fair Lady Movie, we can say

that there are two London’s communities who have different languages. It means that one use high class language and another use low class language.

In this case, the high class language is used by professor Higgins who is from a high social class, an educated person; while the low language is represented by Eliza who is a flower seller on the streets.

Language analysis

Pay attention to the good sentence arrangement, the correct expression, the good pronunciation, the average volume of the speech, the correct stress, and the good intonation when they give their speech.

The ‘rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain’ ”. /ðə ˈreɪn in ˈspeɪn ˈsteɪz ˈmeɪnli in ðə ˈpleɪn/

This part of a harmonic conversation has a basic structure.(five feet alternating unstressed/stressed – and long short syllabes.) And there are, also 5 internal rhymes on /ein/.

High society

This group of people do not really pay attention on the way of speaking such as on sentences arrangement, diction, pronunciation, volume of speech, stress, and intonation. 

Linguistic variable: when they pronounce –ing, they just pronounce it by saying –in’. For example:  “... you wouldn’t let ‘im spoil a poor girl’s flow’rs and then run away without payin’.”

Eliza’s father spoke to Professor Higgins “I am willing to tell ya, I am wanting to tell ya, I am waiting to tell ya”. The use of the “ya” (you) here it refers also to a low class language. 

Low social class

New Word: Loverly. “Oh, wouldn’t it be loverly”: My Fair Lady has a quotation in the OED (OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY) is for ‘loverly’, a cockney pronunciation version of the word ‘lovely’. The citation is from the song Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?.

All I want is a room somewhereFar away from the cold night air

With one enormous chairOh, wouldn't it be loverly?

Pronunciation /ei/: “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain’ ”. /ðə ˈreɪn in ˈspeɪn ˈsteɪz ˈmeɪnli in ðə ˈpleɪn/DIPHTONG: /ei/DIPHTONG: /ai/

Pronunciation of the sound 'h'Tongue twister : In Hertford,Hereford and Hampshire hurricanes hardly ever happen.         /in 'hɑ:tfəd 'herifəd ənd 'hæmʃə 'hʌrikənz 'hɑ:dli 'evə 'hæpən/

/in ‘ɑ:tfəd 'erifəd ənd 'æmʃə 'ʌrikənz 'ɑ:dli 'evə 'æpən/

The End.

The English Studies Book: “An Introduction to

Language, Literature and Culture”. Written by Rob Pope .

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/03/my-fair-lady/

Wwww.youtube.com www.wikipedia.org http://english-pe.over-blog.com/article-

13433281.html

Biography