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Language Variation: Dialect
Task C - our answer to question 1
What dialect does Isabella write in and what dialect is
Joseph represented as speaking?
Isabella appears to use a fairly formal Standard English. This will be
appropriate to her social status as mistress of the household and an educated
woman (many women would not have been able to write at this time). Joseph
is an uneducated Yorkshire man, and so is given a dialect representation.
The variation between the Standard English of the novel's narration (and
also Isabella's letter here) and the dialect-indicating devices for Joseph
help us to imagine him more vividly. The fact that he speaks in the way
that he does helps us to picture him as rough, uneducated, dressed in
working clothes, and so on.
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