On the Use of Dialect as Defensive Communication in D. H. Lawrence

J. C. Green: D. H. Lawrence Portrait

(Pencil, pen, and acrylic on paper)
behance.net

 

 

Whilst it's debatable to what degree Lawrence might be considered a sophisticated dialectician, he was, according to James Walker, a master of dialect and his use of pit talk delivered in a broad East Midlands accent "frightened the life out of middle class Edwardian critics" [1]. 

 

Walker suggests that Lawrence primarily used dialect and "multiple variations of speech patterns" in order to help readers understand a character's social background, education, and intelligence. And I don't disagree with that. 

 

However, I also think Lawrence used dialect as an aggressive form of defensive communication, that is to say, verbally reactive behaviour adopted by individuals feeling anxious and self-conscious in a social context that differs from ones with which they are familiar and in which they feel more at ease. 

 

Freud was one of the first to research defensive communication from the perspective of his psychodynamic theory. But you don't need to be a qualified therapist to recognise that no one likes to feel insecure, inferior, or judged. Unfortunately, defensiveness doesn't help matters and often serves to further impede interaction. 

 

We see this, for example, when Oliver Mellors meets Connie's sister, Hilda, and doesn't quite know what to say or how best to behave and so gets defensive, slipping in and out of his expletive-laden vernacular in a manner that is almost a little insane and which comes across as affected and a form of play acting [2].  

 

Ultimately, it could be argued that his passive aggressive technique of using dialect in order to confuse and intimidate, is as ill-mannered as someone from a highly privileged background - such as Clifford - casually slipping in and out of Latin or ancient Greek when talking to someone who didn't have the good fortune to study classics at Cambridge [3].     

 

 

Notes

 

[1] James Walker, 'Tongue and Talk: Dialect poetry featuring D. H. Lawrence', a blog post on D. H. Lawrence: A Digital Pilgrimage (14 May 2018): click here. Although Walker doesn't tell us why it's a good thing to terrify people, he clearly approves and seems to personally resent the fact that these critics found Lawrence's use of dialect ugly and dismissed his plays set in the mining community from which he came as sordid representations of lower class life.   

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterey's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), chapter XVI. 

 

[3] Of course, there is a difference; the former being defensive behaviour by someone socially disadvantaged and the latter being offensive behaviour by someone in a socially superior position. Nevertheless, both types of behaviour involve an element of bullying and if the latter is snobbish, the former is, arguably, only an inverted snobbery. Being able to slip into a regional dialect or cant slang doesn't necessarily make you a better - more authentic - human being than someone who prefers to speak the Queen's English; the vernacular is not some sort of elementary language enabling a uniquely powerful expression of Dasein. 

 

 

For a follow up post to this one on the use of dialect in D. H. Lawrence as an erotico-elementary language, click here.