“LANGUAGE AND RHETORIC”

When we consider the use of language in plays, we always concerned with the dramatic effectiveness of the playwright’s intentions. There is no plain or fancy description: there is first and only dialogue and our analysis of the language of play is therefore no more than a surveys of how certain characters speak.

Language characterization and humor:  While dialogue in plays first and foremost defines the characters as they speak, dialogue also is tantamount to the definition of relationships within the play. The language that a particular character uses when talking to one person in the play will be altogether different from the language he uses when talking to another character.

 As we see different kinds of language employed by the same character throughout the play, we slowly are led both to an understanding of the rounded personality of that character and to an understanding of the relationships he has with other characters. So, the student should be able to take any extended dialogue between two or more characters and show the ways in which the language used in the dialogue define the relationships of the play.

Figurative language: All playwrights make use of figurative language, that is, the playwrights state things in other than literal ways. An analogy points up the similarity between one thing and another. In examining the speeches the student should pay attention to:

                                i.            Alliteration – the repetition of the similar words placed closely together. A character often delivers a long line in which every word starts with the same letter or sound.

                              ii.            Antithesis – the use of opposite terms very closely together in order to create humor or tension. This is very common in Elizabethan and Restoration plays.

                            iii.            Cacophony – the presentation of harshly blending sound, this is really another word for “dissonance”.

                            iv.            Epithet – the word or phrase used to characterize someone in the briefest possible way. This used describe a particular character in light by what other characters said about him.

                              v.            Euphemism – the elaborate way in saying something. Sometimes characters use embellishing language, making everything seem more romantic or wondrous than in reality.

                            vi.            Euphony – the use of sweetly agreeing sounds in speech or harmonious sounds which are pleasing.

                          vii.            Images – the imaginative ways of describing people and objects. Instead of simply presenting the literal description, the playwright associates the thing described with other thing.

                        viii.            Paradox – the use of self contradictory ideas, words, or images that used to emphasize or draw the attention to some particular aspect of an object or person.

                            ix.            Periphrases – or the circumlocution, the longwinded roundabout way of saying something, this usually done by “stretching out” the remarks for dramatic effect.

                              x.            Personification – the attribution of lifelike or human attributes to inanimate objects or ideas, each instance bestowing life on the inhuman.

High and low language: We are able to determine the play whether the language on the whole is “high” or “low”. The use of allusion mention the faraway exotic-sounding places transports the audience quickly into a higher realm; the allusion to places the people presents a sense of grandeur and elevates the import of a speech.

One aspect of low style is the use of colloquial or vernacular language; the colloquial writing is that which uses the rude language. It is important to identify the range of the language because we need to determine the conventions within which the playwright is working and one of our tasks is to define the world of play.

Convention of dramatic language: One of the considerations when approaching the language of any play is whether or not the language of any particular character is appropriate to his type. Playwrights tend to conform to the conventions of dramatic language and thus some of their preliminary work is done for them. Each kind of play is itself a convention. Certain kinds of characters in certain kinds of plays must speak in certain kinds of language. Audience expectations are one of the dramatists’ tools, but the dramatists’ do not need to enter an ending that logically the result of all plots. Language itself is a plurality of modes of expression and the playwrights really have no excuse not to have characters of different kinds easily talking in different way.