Literary dialects in Frank Parker Day's Rockbound and Ernest Buckler's The Mountain and the valley

Abstract

The thesis examines the representations of dialect in these two novels. It examines how Day and Buckler present literary versions of regional dialects in their works and attempts to determine the literary purposes the writers pursued by the integration of dialect into their works. Since the use of dialect in the novels involves the problem of relationship between the language of the dialogue and that of narrative, the place of dialect in the novel structure is explored. The thesis examines the literary versions of the dialects in relation to their linguistic reality; it also tries to identify deviations from standard English. The author identifies regional, ethnic, age, educational and social status differences which the writers distinguish in the speech of their characters, and tries to define how the dialect usage relates to community identity or solidarity.