by
Kathryn Page Camp
Writers often create characters who
aren’t native to the story setting. Giving these individuals particular
dialogue traits makes it easy for readers to identify them during a
conversation, but it can also provide hazards for the writer. Then there are
those stories where all the characters come from the same region but the region
itself has a distinctive dialect.
We can create regional characters
by using regional speech patterns. Those patterns contain three components: pronunciation,
grammar, and word usage. All affect dialect.
And each component has its own
pitfalls.
Pronunciation
Some writers (e.g., Mark Twain) portray
dialect sounds very well, but most don’t. You’ve probably read at least one
book where you had to stop and try to figure out what the character was saying.
That takes the reader out of the story, which is a cardinal sin.
In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott ends her chapter on dialogue this way:
One
last thing: dialogue that is written in dialect is very tiring to read. If you
can do it brilliantly, fine. If other writers read your work and rave about
your use of dialect, go for it. But be positive that you do it well, because
otherwise it is a lot of work to read short stories or novels that are written
in dialect. It makes our necks feel funny. We are, as you know, a tense people,
and we have a lot of problems of our own without you adding to them.
But even doing it brilliantly is
not enough. You also need to do it right.
Dialects have their own pronunciation
rules, and if you choose to write a dialect as it sounds, you had better be
aware of those rules. Take Bostonian English, which is considered “r-less.” According
to linguist Natalie Schilling, Bostonians tend to drop final Rs and Rs that
come between a vowel and a consonant, but they never drop initial Rs, Rs that follow
a consonant, and those that are inserted between vowels. For example:
·
THIS:
He missed the pa’ty because he blew a tire when driving around a pa’ked ca’
blocking the road.
·
BUT
NOT THIS: He missed the pa’ty because he blew a ti’e when d’iving a’ound a
pa’ked ca’ blocking the ‘oad.
If you ignore those rules, expect
an onslaught of complaints from the Boston area.
So how can a writer indicate a
character’s regional origins without risking the hazards of bad dialect usage?
Try this:
Hearing
a familiar Southern drawl, I froze. Had Candice returned from vacation already?
From now on, we can identify
Candice as the speaker by throwing in an occasional “y’all” without attempting
to replicate the rest of her speech patterns—at least if she is from Georgia.
People from Kentucky have less of a drawl and are more likely to say “you all”
than “y’all.” (See https://www.quora.com/How-can-you-tell-apart-the-different-Southern-accents and the Kentucky
results from the Harvard Dialect Survey, mentioned below.)
Grammar
Pronunciation and grammar are the ends
of a sliding scale. Is using “git” for “get” primarily pronunciation or
primarily grammar? I’d argue that it can be easily identified as either,
putting it in the middle of the scale.
Most people don’t consider the use
of pa’ty as a grammatical issue, so it fits on the pronunciation end. Then
there are those practices that come down clearly on the grammar side. Take
a-prefixing in Appalachian English, which is the practice of adding “a” before
an “ing” verb (and dropping the “g” at the end)—think “a-goin’ a-fishin’.” As
with Bostonian r-lessness, however, a-prefixing also has rules. An a-prefix can
be attached to “ing” verbs but not to gerunds, adjectives, or objects of
prepositions, even if those words also end with “ing.” (See http://theweek.com/articles/461642/grammar-rules-behind-3-commonly-disparaged-dialects.)
So if you are going to use either pronunciation
or grammar to create a regional character, make sure you know the rules.
Word Usage
When we talk about dialect, we
usually mean pronunciation and sometimes grammar, but word usage is also
important. Do you say “pop” or “soda?” If your character grew up in Michigan
and calls it “soda,” be prepared for another onslaught of complaints from all
those Michiganders who know better.
Using data from the Harvard Dialect
Survey, the graphic at the head of this post shows word differences between people
from Illinois or Michigan (on the left side) and people from Pennsylvania (on
the right side). I didn’t include Indiana because those of us who live in the
northern part of the state talk more like people from Illinois or Michigan
rather than people from the rest of Indiana.*
It’s usually easy to get our own
region’s dialogue right because we know it when we hear it, but other regions
can be filled with booby-traps. So where can a writer go to keep from making
regional errors?
Here are a few resources.
·
Use
this link from the Harvard Dialect Survey to discover usages in the various
states. https://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/states.html. Just click on
the state you want for a breakdown.
·
This
link is for the Atlas of North American
English: http://www.atlas.mouton-content.com/
Finally, and just for fun, take the
Harvard Dialect Survey to see how well your speech reflects your roots. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html?_r=0
__________
* Southern Illinois might align
more with southern Indiana, but the Illinois figures are heavily influenced by
the Chicago results.
__________
Kathryn Page Camp is a licensed
attorney and full-time writer. Writers in
Wonderland: Keeping Your Words Legal was a Kirkus’ Indie Books of the Month Selection for April 2014. The
second edition of Kathryn’s first book, In
God We Trust: How the Supreme Court’s First Amendment Decisions Affect
Organized Religion, was released
on September 30, 2015. You can learn more about Kathryn at
www.kathrynpagecamp.com.
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