Highclere Castle, filming location for 'Downton Abbey' (Photo: Richard Munckton)
I am apparently the last person in the English-speaking world to watch Downton Abbey, but got a chance to see the first series over the past two evenings. For the unfamiliar, the show takes place in an English country estate around the time of the First World War. Like Mad Men, it is set in a transitional time in a country’s history (in this case, 1910′s Britain), and as such, it is interesting to see how the show deals (or doesn’t) with the dialects of its characters.
Within watching the first few minutes of the program, there is a very obvious dialect divide between the aristocracy (who speak Received Pronunciation), and the servants (who mostly speak with local Yorkshire accents). As with Mad Men, the show’s creators seem to have made striking choices about the speech of the show’s characters, some of which (deliberately) differ from how people actually spoke in the 1910′s.
Most strikingly, the actors who play the wealthy characters eschew older varieties of ‘Upper Crust’ Received Pronunciation for slightly more contemporary varieties of RP. For example, many of the younger actors use some glottal-reinforcement for voiceless plosives like /t/, /p/ and /k/–perfectly normal for modern ‘mainstream’ RP, but probably less so among early-20th-Century aristocrats. Although arguably anachronistic, I think this was a wise move. Because these characters sound more modern, I suspect the choice elicited more natural and unaffected performances from the cast.
(The one brilliant exception to this is Maggie Smith, who plays a Lady Bracknell-ish grandmother with a somewhat more patrician accent; for example, she pronounces ‘off’ as ‘orf’. Smith’s character is of another time, of course, so the fact that her speech is different from that of her progeny is a justifiable choice.)
This is true of the actors who play the servants as well. Most speak with Yorkshire accents (feigned or authentic), but the more inscrutable Yorkshire dialect features are not on display. I admit I’m rather ignorant in this regard: in a country manor a century ago, would the servants have spoken traditional dialects among each other downstairs? Or would standard English have been more typical as a type of lingua franca among staffs that would have no doubt come from a variety of backgrounds?
Perhaps the most fascinating (and ‘meta’) bit of casting in the show is Elizabeth McGovern as the youthful matriarch of the household. McGovern plays an American who married into the British aristocracy and has lived in England for many years; fittingly, McGovern herself moved to England for marriage in the early 90′s and has lived there ever since. This results in the strange situation of an actor with an American accent tinged with British influences (listen to interviews with her on YouTube) adopting an American accent tinged with British influences … from a different time period.
All of this is to say that Downton Abbey is a fascinating show from a linguistic perspective, and I highly recommend it. Any fans wish to comment?
(NOTE: I’m a bit busy in unrelated areas of my life this week, so I may be a bit a light in the comments section.)
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The one show that I would LOVE to hear discussions about dialect and accents is Misfits. Check it out on Hulu, if you haven’t already.
Enlightening, thank you!
Cheers,
Claudia
My grandmother was stationed near Harewood House during the war and knocked about with a lass who came from the village which provided its staff. Yorkshire dialect was used by the staff, though the house staff didn’t use it with the Harewoods or their guests. Outdoor staff such as gamekeepers or gardeners didn’t use anything else, and the upper classes usually fully understood the local dialect (my Nanna even told a story about the last Earl of Harewood using it as a joke when talking to a gamekeeper). A generation earlier, highland aristocracy of English origin were often able to speak Gaelic.
@IVV,
I haven’t seen it yet, but (being a fan of British television) will have to check it out!
@Claudia,
Thanks for the support! Glad you enjoyed it.
@boynamedsue,
That’s quite interesting. I’ve always (probably erroneously) bought into the impression that aristocracies, no matter the country, didn’t speak the language of the commoners.
Semi-OT, but one thing I really like about Downtown Abbey is that it portrays the relationship as a much more collaborative one. Whether accurate or not, it shows how our modern era of social mobility has more tradeoffs than one might expect. The attitudes of these century-old characters may be hopelessly classist, but there was also a loyalty to employees and employers that is perhaps missing in the contemporary society. Perhaps; it is a work of fiction, after all.
I have not watched this programme. From this description, it reminds me of the dialogue in Wuthering Heights. The servant Joseph speaks in the Yorkshire dialect of the time (now changed beyond recognition), whereas the other characters’ speech was written in Standard English.
The dialectologist K.M. Petyt did a study on this and found that Emily Bronte’s representation of the local dialect was very accurate for a non-phonetic text. The Brontes were fairly affluent, so this shows that the upper-classes could still appreciate the local dialect.
One thing to watch out for in Misfits: all the main characters have different accents. In addition, the one accent closest to Estuary is spoken by a Welsh actor.
I too watched Series 1 in a weekend marathon recently, and quickly became addicted. Delighted to see a post about it on this blog! All I could tell about the servants’ accent was that many of them are rhotic; I didn’t know it was Yorkshire! I also love Cora’s “tinged” accent, and Violet is just awesome in general.
I’m curious, how would you characterize Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes’ accents? They don’t sound like the “lower” servants to me.
The choices those two actors made are definitely quite interesting. The actor who plays Carson is actually from Yorkshire, but in many ways, his accent is ‘milder’ than the other staff, suggesting he tries to distance himself from his upbringing (which makes sense: in the episode where it is revealed he was once a music hall performer, it’s made clear how ashamed he is of his past).
The actress who plays Mrs. Hughes is from Scotland, and you can definitely hear some of that in her accent.
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I think there WAS more formality of speech in the 50s and early 60s. Educators, even elementary teachers, clergy, lawyers, doctors all took pains to speak correctly. It was the mark of an educated person, regardless of region. There was an emphasis on avoiding “slang” which of itself seems quaint. Even contractions were avoided in a way that would sound unbearably prissy now. We spent endless time diagramming sentences, competing in spelling bees, and memorizing poetry, and all that had an effect on how we expressed ourselves in daily life. It’s not that every person used exquisite grammar or had no regional or ethnic accent, but speaking “correctly” was something that was aspired to. The big shift to informality really happened in the mid to late 60s, and God help me, I was part of it!