Pygmalion...What?

Eliza Doolittle is a flower girl. She is not a rich woman and she speaks a bit rudely. One night, she meets Henry Higgins accidentally. This meeting happens when Eliza mistakes Henry Higgins for a policeman and then Higgins protests her innocence on this. Higgins is a linguist. He is with his friend, named Pickering, when the accidentally meeting happens. Higgins, then, says to Pickering that he can make Eliza looks like a duchess only in six months. On the next day, Higgins and Pickering are in Higgins’ laboratory to teach Eliza delivering speech. Pickering, then, bets Higgins that he cannot turn Eliza into a duchess, and Higgins takes the bet. Higgins teaches her by insisting the fluency based on the script. So, Eliza is just like imitating what Higgins says; she does drilling of some phrases.

As time goes by, Higgins asks his mother for help to turn Eliza into duchess by letting her interact with other people in the party that will be held by Mrs. Higgins on that day. The mother objects this, but then Eliza appears. She greets everyone in that room. Her speech is quite fluent; her fluency is flawless but the grammar is terrible. So, everyone in the room gets confused on what Eliza says. However, it is a bit amusing for the attendance. Avoiding worse thing that might happen, Higgins gives Eliza signal to leave that room. After the party is over, Higgins’ mother warns her son and Colonel Pickering about the possible consequence of their experiment to turn Eliza become likely duchess.

Higgins teaches Eliza again and again until she feels depressed. He teaches how to greet the ambassador, the queen, and so on. On the other opportunity, Higgins asks Eliza to attend a great party in which the duchess and other high class people gather. Eliza greets people politely, like a princess. She speaks tenderly so that The Queen gets amazed on her. Higgins seems to win the bet. After getting home, Eliza looks not good. When Higgins will go to bed, Eliza throws him his slippers. She is upset because of her life now. Then, they argue. Higgins gets angry and slaps Eliza. In the next day, Higgins wakes up and gets surprised because Eliza has gone. He tries to find her. He goes to his mother’s house and tells her what happens. After talking for a long time, Eliza appears. She goes down and says that she decides her own future. She says that she might marry Freddy or becomes phonetics teacher. Eliza, then, says goodbye for what she say in the last time. However, Higgins is sure that she will be back to him.

The episode that I like most is when Eliza comes to the party which is held by Mrs. Higgins. There, she speaks fluently but poorly in meaning. She just says what she has learnt by memorizing the phrases, the way she pronounces, and the way she talks. I like this part because I can find the effect of language learning which focused on fluency is not effective. Eliza can speak fluently but actually what she says does not respond the question or the previous statement given by others. For example, when Mrs. Higgins asks whether it will rain, Eliza responds by saying what she has memorized before, “The rain in Spain, they say, stays mainly in the plains.” Moreover, when Freddy asks her, “…would you be walking across the park?”, Eliza responds him by saying, “Walk? Not bloody likely. I’m going in a taxi.” It’s amusing for me because the response is not appropriate. That’s why I like this part.

The message in general that I learn from the film/ story is that insisting someone to be good in pronunciation need hard work. It cannot be instant since learning language for adults is different with children. Adults learn the language but children acquire the language. In this film, actually, I see that Eliza is a flower woman who will be turned into duchess. It means that Professor Higgins has to work hard in teaching her to speak as well as duchess, especially the accent. Here, Professor Higgins teaches Eliza by doing some drills. Eliza tries to speak as well as Higgins does. Drilling is quite effective to practice pronunciation with the target accent of speech, but it does not mean that it is effective to practice the accuracy of speaking. Moreover, Eliza tends to memorize what she has learnt. Consequently, she also tends to speak what she memorizes even though it is not appropriate to respond the other person’s speech. Furthermore, Eliza just thinks about her achievement; That is can speak as fluent as duchess, as Higgins wants to insist. She does not think about what she actually learns and conveys.

            In brief, to turn someone into the other style of speaking is not easy and instant. It needs a lot of effort and time, and it is not enough to teach by asking her/his to memorize the phrases, the pronunciation and accent, or the way of delivering speech. Perhaps it will be helpful for the fluency, but not for the accuracy or meaning. It is like what Eliza does, she speaks fluently but meaningless. For example, when she says, ”Done her in.”

The message that I learn from the film/ story after I learn some theories on SLA is that adults will be more difficult to have good pronunciation and accent. It happens because adults have passed the critical period. In the critical period, children usually acquire language, especially the way they pronounce words and the accent, optimally. So, it is true if children who acquire language during the critical period will have better pronunciation and accent, especially in the second language. It is different with adults. Adults will find some trouble in learning the language so that they are getting hard to pronounce some words correctly in the target accent. For example, when Eliza tries to pronounce the word ‘Higgins’ with duchess accent, she gets difficulty in pronouncing the glide /h/.

Moreover, it is about the environment. What enables human beings to acquire first language, second language, or may be third language? Of course, it is the environment. The environment helps human to acquire language. As I see in the film, Professor Higgins takes Eliza to the party which s held by his mother and then to the party in which the duchess and other high level people gather. Professor Higgins does this because he wants Eliza to speak in the environment where people there speak with duke/ duchess accent. It will make Eliza tends to speak like a duchess. So, the environment helps the learner to speak as well as the other people in the environment do.