"My Fair Lady"

This is an interesting movie that depicts how languages can tell your social class and change the attitudes of people towards you because of your lack of speaking skills.     In “My Fair lady”  each main character has a different social class and language.  Hence, making their accents different according to the language they speak.  The characters Henry Higgins and Colonel Pickering are both from the upper class society and both speak the English Language.  Higgins is a Phoneticist and Pickering a linguist who has studies in the Indian dialect. Mrs. Pearce another main character which is Mr. Higgins housekeeper is from the middle class society and speaks the English language too. On the other hand, Eliza Doolittle the star of the show is a Cockney flower girl.  Thus, is from the lower class and speaks Cockney which is like a sort of Creole English. Eliza was very successful because she learnt the English accent and language so well that even the Hungarian Phonetician ( a person who investigates your origin) couldn’t decipher who she really was. He even thought she was a “Born Hungarian Princess.”  There are both negative and positive factors about having an accent because it distinguishes a person’s social. Educational and economic background. In the case of an educated person it would be good because it creates admiration and respect towards them, while for an uneducated individual it may cause disrespect, hatred, and prejudice towards them making them feel inferior.In the story it was easier for Eliza to shed her accent and not her vocabulary because an accent is easier to learn since she can learn it by just being in a community that uses such accent a lot.  Thus, is easier to adapt by just mimicking and practicing the accent. While, the vocabulary is much more difficult because she was raised in a community that speaks Cockney. Also, it’s like a baby trying to learn a whole new language. In English the vocabulary is completely different from Cockney.  Henry feels he has the right to speak to Eliza in that fashion because he sees himself as a kindhearted and patient man as he mentions “I’m an ordinary man”, while ideally he is a conceited and misogynistic man. His intelligence and excellent skills in the English language has only made him believe that he knows it all. Also, he thinks that people like Eliza are an infamy to society for her improper language.       Eliza makes it a point to the professor that she is clean and asks Mrs. Pearce to point out to him that she came in a taxi because she detests his snobbish attitude towards her. She wishes to emphasize that her lack of proper language and social status does not make her inferior to him or any different.