In particular, The Commitements use dialogue as the driving force. In the so called Barrytown Trilogy Roddy Doyle first and foremost focuses on dialogue (Ghassempur 2009, 5). In the following I will discuss these characteristics by reference to selected examples and reason why and how they contribute to create authenticity and facilitate reader identification. Moreover, the language used allows the reader to draw inferences about the characters.

Thus, in particular spelling and vocabulary tremendously differ from what readers normally expect to find in a novel. Therefore, Doyle chooses to use vernacular rather than Standard English.

Since dialogue is the driving force in The Commitments what in itself plays an important role, the language used in the novel is strongly oriented towards oral speech. These strategies affect almost all areas of language. However, Doyle’s language not only plays a highly important role and helps to draw a detailed picture of the working-class characters (Powell 2004, 97), but also offers the reader something fresh and new in the literary scene.Ĭonsequently, the aim of this paper is to have a closer look at language in Roddy Doyle’s The Commitments in order to describe the strategies the author uses in terms of language to offer the readership a possibility to identify with the characters easily as well as to make the language appear authentic. Moreover, he is said to be one of the greatest contemporary social analysts (Byrne/Coleman/King 2008, 269).ĭoyle, who admits to love the English language and especially the way it is spoken in Dublin (O’Malley 2013), has also often been criticized for the language he uses in his writing (Keiler 2012). Doyle won the Man Booker Prize in 1993 for his novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (BookBrowse 2012) and today is one of the literary stars of Ireland (Crown 2011). Together with his two subsequent novels The Snapper (1990) and The Van (1991) The Commitments is part of the so called Barrytown Trilogy all of which focus on middle-class family life in Dublin. Doyle has often been criticized for drawing a rather dark picture of the working class, although this had not been the author’s intention.ĭoyle’s book, however, was by no means meant to be open criticism but rather a comic portrayal of Dublin and its people that, perhaps inevitably, provoked some sensitive reactions. The Commitments is the first literary work to portray the living conditions of the working class in Dublin in the 1980s (Ghassempur 2009, 17). Roddy Doyle’s first novel The Commitments was published in 1987. 3.1 Use of vernacular instead of standard speechĤ Implications of the language used by the characters

The commitments doyle