University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Honors Theses and Capstones Student Scholarship Spring 2019 Constructed Languages and Their Role in Drama Emelie Vandenberg University of New Hampshire Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/honors Part of the Acting Commons, Other Theatre and Performance Studies Commons, Performance Studies Commons, and the Television Commons Recommended Citation Vandenberg, Emelie, "Constructed Languages and Their Role in Drama" (2019). Honors Theses and Capstones. 449. https://scholars.unh.edu/honors/449 This Senior Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses and Capstones by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Constructed Languages and Their Role in Drama By Emelie Vandenberg Advised by: Prof. David Richman Prof. Deborah Kinghorn 12/14/2018 Dialect is the “distinctive vocabulary and grammar of someone’s use of language” that creates a sound so unique to that person that their character and language become one (Crystal and Crystal, 2014, pg. 16). In the recent production of Brian Friel’s masterpiece, Dancing at Lughnasa, at the University of New Hampshire, we see dialect play a significant role in the differentiation between characters, how it shapes them, bonds them, and how it separates them from each other (Friel, 2013). From the ideolects of the sisters to the changed dialect of their brother, Father Jack, and the Welshman hiding from himself, Gerry Evans, we see that character is influenced by dialect and dialect reflects character.