review of film my fair lady窈窕淑女影评

Review of Film My Fair LadyLanguage plays a very important role in people’s life. It is not only a way of exchanging ideas between people but also a sign of status people belong to. People in different social classes speak differently and men speak differently from women. We can see this language function from film “My Fair Lady”.M y Fair Lady is a movie about how a poor flower girl named Eliza changes her life by changing her language at the help of a famous linguist Professor Higgins. Eliza is a lower - class flower girl selling flowers on the streets who speaks “terrible English”. Higgins boasts to his friend Pickering that he could turn this girl into a real lady in six months simply by teaching her Standard English. Eliza also wants to become genteel so that she could find a job in a flower shop, therefore she goes to Higgins for help. After 6 months, Eliza successfully turns into a lady, dancing in the Embassy Ball with Transylvanian prince and everyone thinks her is a princess. This story describes what is common in many societies. Pronunciations and accent can identify our class and social status. Now I try to analyze the movie from a sociolinguistic angle, mainly focusing on language difference caused by socialclass and gender difference.When Eliza meets Higgins for the first time, she speaks non-standard English with an accent, for examples below, Eliza：I ain’t done nothing wrong by speaking to the gentleman⋯Eliza：On my Bible oath．I never said a word～Higgins：Oh，shut up，shut up．Do I look like a policeman?Eliza：Oh．It’s’cause I called him“captain．”⋯At this moment Eliza’s pronunciation, words and expression way are all not standard. She uses /in/ instead of /ing/. She also can not pronounce some vowels properly. She pronounces /ai/ instead of /ei/, /au/instead of /ou/. She also uses lots of slangs when speaking, for example, block, etc. When she tries to clarify her innocence, she says “I ain’t done nothing wrong”instead of “I have done nothing wrong”. She usually uses strange interjection to express her strong feeling which Higgins can not bear. She also has problem in pronouncing /H/ and always misses this character in pronounce words with /H/. Her language is typically for lower class.About difference between man and woman, we also can see this from conversation between Eliza and Higgins. When Eliza clarifies her innocence, Higgins interrupts her without mercy“shut up, shut up”, while Eliza is always obsequious and with great care. This shows that Higgins takes a leading position in conversation. Higgins addresses Eliza “you silly girl”“a prisoner of gutters”, while Eliza calls Higgins “sir”“gentleman”. Higgins’s superiority is so evident comparing with Eliza. All of this is showing that how much social class and gender affect language.After several months, Eliza is able to speak Standard English, but her topic is limited to weather and health. Even the pronunciation is perfect, without good content, one’s language is also not decent. For example, when Eliza goes to race course to test her English, she talks with Higgins’s mother and other upper class people.Mrs．Higgins：Will it rain，do you think?Eliza：The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain．But in Henford，Hereford and Hampshire，hurricanes hardly ever happen．⋯My aunt died of influenza, So they said．But it's my belief they done the old woman in．At this moment, Eliza can talk with standard pronunciation but her words and content is also belongs to lower class. When she refers to her aunt was murdered, she uses phrase “dosomebody in”, and this is expression by lower class. That’s why Mrs. Hill questioned the meaning of this phrase. After the race starts, she says loudly “Come on, Dover! Move your bloomin’s ass”. This is not what people from upper class would say.After six months’training, Eliza can speak very fluently Standard English and also learns how to act properly. In the embassy ball, she successfully accomplishes her task and everybody in the ball thinks that she is a Hungary princess.From gender angle, Higgins is still that arrogant person and speaks to Eliza with a scornful attitude. He always calls Eliza “your impudent hussy”“you brazen hussy”. Though Eliza speaks Standard English, in Higgins’s opinion, Eliza is still a flower girl in lower class. Higgins usually speaks with some informal language. For example, after Eliza leaves him, he curses “Dame, damn, damn”. At that time, this word is taboo word for women, but for men, they can use it to express their feeling. This is also language difference between male and female.To sum up, we can see that language difference is great between male and female and also between different social classes. One even can be one of upper class from lower class through changing his pronunciation and talking method likeEliza. But I have to say that language itself do esn’t have social class but people impose to it. So we should pay much attention to our language, not only to speak it but to speak it well and standard. However we shouldn’t class people through their language.。