The_Language_of__The_Heyday_of_Dag__by_Whitehead

First of all, I should say that it's quite difficult to analyze the language of Whitehead's characters (and not only his ones but all the characters in general) if you're not a native-speaker. Probably, sometimes I will be running away analogizing from the context of Russian people and my set of mind. But I'll try to keep to the point. Before starting to speak about "The Heyday of Dag" I'd like to say that my course paper (which I'm going to defend after returning from the USA) is closely connected with language and culture. There I research English phraseology and try to find out the national and cultural specific features of English-speakers. And I must admit that with the help of phraseological units you can really make kind of image of a person. There are a lot of phrases and sayings which belong to one particular nation, to one culture. If you know them, you can learn many new things about this country or its people. I gave one example in my course paper: in Turkish language there is a phrase "to have cow's eyes" which means that a person is good-looking, with very beautiful eyes. However, if you're compared with a cow in Russia, your feelings are hurt. So, I wanted to say that every nation has some set phrases that are understood only by this certain nation, by this country. Almost the same thing I've noticed in the Whitehead's story. There was mentioned "the Rock": children used to tell to each other "I'll race you to the Rock", or the parents used it in their speech: "Don't go past the Rock". So, such geographical names used in the characters' speech have become a kind of set phrases which, in their turn, can give us quite important and useful information about one or another culture. One more point that has immediately striken my eyes while reading this story was its informal style. And, to my mind, that was one of the major things which the author wanted to point out. But, maybe, I've misunderstood the story and I'm wrong. There are a lot of colloquial words used by the characters of the tale. Moreover, the language of their speech is abusive. Almost every saying is attended with an offensive address. However it doesn't declare that the main characters are on bad terms with each other. On the contrary, they are friends. The thing is that they are teenagers. That's why, to my mind, they overuse such a vocabulary. Actually, in my opinion, the youngsters tend to express themselves with some bad and vulgar words (at least, it happens in Russia, but I'm sure it's common to all the young people who have an awkward age). Probably, they try to show their self-confidence and self-esteem in this manner, although sometimes their speeches make no sense (). An awkward age is a period when teenagers try to find their place in the life, try to identify themselves with some culture. They need attention, that's why they want to stand out by starting to use alcohol, cigarettes, drugs and also by using an uncontrolled vocabulary. That's what has happened with the Whitehead's characters, to my mind. Their parents went for a week, the guys stayed alone, they had freedom... Furthermore, all the main characters are boys, and that could be the second reason of using rude words. Looking through the text we can see that the Whitehead's characters often make fun at each other, use some nicknames (Arthur Ashe, Activator). Sometimes this can help the readers to know some extra details about the character's life, their occupation and so on (the explanation in the story why NP called Marcus "Arthur Ashe"). One more feature which is widespread in the character's speech is shortened words - "cuz", "'em", "wearin'" and so on. This is also usual for the young people, especially nowadays. This tendency is becoming more and more popular nowadays. Teenagers use kind of abbreviations, put in their speech some obscene and meaningless words. And the formal (literary) language is disappearing, unfortunately. That way, in my opinion, the author's aim was to draw the reader's attention to the problem of the youngsters' vocabulary.