Dialectal Awareness in the Reeves Tale Essay -- Reeves Tale Essays

Dialectal Awareness in the Reeve's Tale Throughout any given period of human history, language has been the highest expression of observable and transmissible culture. Individuals generally affiliate themselves with those of like culture and characteristics and tend to shun those who express qualities and beliefs that are different from what is commonly accepted or familiar. Wedges are often driven in the midst of identical groups of people with common beliefs, simply because one particular dialect of their language is strange to the ear of another group, or is difficult for that other group to understand . The differences between the Northern and Southern Middle English dialects of the late 1300's were, for many valid reasons, so distinct that over time lines of demarcation were conceived, as were stereotypical views of the people who spoke the language of the North. But fourteenth century poet Geoffrey Chaucer saw beyond the divisions to the heart of the matter; he recognized the efficacy and validity of the Northern dialects, considering them as no less proper forms of English than his own native "Londonese"-- a mixture of Southern and East Midlands dialects. It is by capitalizing upon these well-known stereotypical views through his distinct dialectal differences that Chaucer helps Oswald the Reeve get "one up" on the impertinent Miller through his own savvy, satirical Canterbury tale. In order to understand the implications that dialectal differences would have had upon the Southern view of a Northern speaker of Middle English, one must first investigate the individual differences that clearly existed between the two forms of the language. As there was no standardization of the ... ...frey. The Canterbury Tales: Nine Tales and the General Prologue. Ed. V. A. Kolve and Glending Olson. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989. Clark, Cecily. "Another Late Fourteenth-Century Case of Dialect Awareness." Review of English Studies 40 (1989): 504-505. Ellis, Deborah S. "Chaucer's Devilish Reeve." Chaucer Review 27 (1995): 150-161. Geipel, John. The Viking Legacy: The Scandinavian Influence on the English and Gaelic Languages. London: David & Charles, 1971. Hughes, Arthur and Peter Trudgill. English Accents and Dialects : An Introduction to Social and Regional Varieties of British English. Baltimore: University Park P, 1979. Mossà ©, Fernand. "Introduction." A Handbook of Middle English. Trans. James A. Walker. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1952. Woods, William F. "The Logic of Deprivation in The Reeve s Tale." Chaucer Review 30 (1996) : 150-161.