Culture, context and discourse - My Fair Lady

1.      Eliza is being humiliated by the professor because of her language and status as a floweriest. He is stated as a person in the high society and having more knowledge about the language then her and the rest of the people around him. He believes that ridicule the English language by the way they use the language. As they have no respect of the language as they have in for example France. He wonders why there can’t be more respect. He believes that he can change her status in the society by changing her way of speaking the language in the right class.  

2.      He acts like he is language detective, and judge people from how they speak while connecting them to a geographic area. He believes that by using the language correctly, one can gain whatever one wants in life.

3.      The communication is very asymmetrical, as he is the one who is higher stated and his way of using the language is more correct then she is. It seems like he has more power than her because he is the teacher and all of the listeners are students and that is in itself gives more power to the teacher. But the question is, is he really better. Compared to following link: http://www.ted.com/talks/jamila_lyiscott_3_ways_to_speak_english

4.      Eliza says: “Why’d ya take down me word? Ow do I know you took me down right”…. “Ought to be ashamed of ‘imself unmanly coward”. The professor answers: “Cease this detestable boohooing instantly or else seek the shelter of some other place of worship”.  The professor is very correct in this use of words, and pronounces the words very clearly. She drags the word together and her dialect is very different from what is correct English. 

5. We can compare the story to fairytales like Cinderella; the professor is the good mother and the prince. As soon as she is put into a dress, the man realizes he can’t live without her. We react on the same way today when hearing this kind of story like we did 100 years ago. That is cultural interesting.