Dialectal Awareness in the Reeve's Tale

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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 ...

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