Dialect Humor

In Literature and Popular Entertainment

In forms of literature and popular entertainment, dialect humor poses the problem of representation. In spoken forms, such as the theater, language that is both spoken and embodied allows both accent and gesture to be included in the stereotypical representation. Within the English-speaking tradition, William Shakespeare used the diversity of British dialects for comic effect in characterization. In contrast with a character like Falstaff, who creates humor through linguistic stylistic effects, the three military men from Wales, Scotland, and Ireland in Henry V are represented as speaking English with influences from their mother tongues. Moving forward in time and across the Atlantic to the United States, early minstrel shows included comic characters in blackface speaking in stereotyped ways associated with African Americans. The written dialect humor that enjoyed a vogue in 19th-century America was often intended to be recited. Into the early 20th century and beyond, comedy routines— beginning in the early vaudeville acts (which used dialect impersonation to represent ethnic identity for comic effect) and later in the movies, continuing into contemporary stand-up comedy—have drawn on dialect imitations to create humor.

With written forms of dialect humor, in contrast, the challenging problem is to represent the dialect in writing without the benefit of sound and gesture to convey a more complete imitation. Shakespeare accomplished this by providing spellings to indicate pronunciation (which actors embellish with a fuller representation of the sound of the dialect), as well as discourse features written into the text (for example, Fluellen saying “look you” periodically in his speeches as a typical discourse marker in Welsh-influenced English). Charles Dickens used typifications of two basic dialects, that is, the standardized London dialect of his time and the Cockney dialect of London, symbolizing nonstandardized language. Dickens used the former dialect for leading characters, typically representing moral good (e.g., Mr. Pickwick). The latter was used for secondary but colorful characters (e.g., Sam Weller). Both typified dialects were modified with markers of different registers (e.g., genteel, occupational) and then elaborated with distinctive features to create unforgettable idiolects. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the humorists of the old Southwest were creating fictional personas that drew on written typifications of particular dialects associated with both ethnic groups (“Dutch” for Germans from Deutsch) and different social levels (e.g., rustic frontiersman Simon Suggs who used the vernacular). Mark Twain's iconic essay “How to Tell a Story” ends with what Twain calls “a negro ghost story” that he often performed on the platform and that was written to represent African American dialect; Twain advises the reader to practice it for oral delivery, paying particular attention to pausing for effect before the punch line.

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