PYGMALION: A STUDY OF SOCIO-SEMANTICS

Abstract

This article discusses the novel Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (1957) which depicts Eliza, a flower girl from East London, who became the subject of an “experiment” by a Professor of Phonetics who vowed to change the way she spoke. The story is an excellent example of a very real and contextual portrait of how language, particularly socio-semantics, play a role in the achievement of communicative competence.