Language shibboleths, conversational code breaking, and moral deviance: articulating immorality ...

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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON

FACULTY OF HUMANITIES
School of English

Language Shibboleths, Conversational Code Breaking, and Moral Deviance:
Articulating Immorality in the Novels of Frances Burney

by

Christina Amelia Davidson

Thesis for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
February 2012
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Language Shibboleths, Conversational Code Breaking, and Moral Deviance:
Articulating Immorality in the Novels of Frances Burney

To speak as others speak is one of those tacit obligations, annexed
to the conditions of living in society, which we are bound in conscience
to fulfil, though we have never ratified them by any express promise;
because, if they were disregarded, society would be impossible, and
human happiness at an end.

James Beattie, Dissertations Moral and Critical (1783) p. 169
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON

ABSTRACT
FACULTY OF HUMANITIES
SCHOOL OF ENGLISH

Doctor of Philosophy

LANGUAGE SHIBBOLETHS, CONVERSATIONAL CODE BREAKING, AND MORAL
DEVIANCE: ARTICULATING IMMORALITY IN THE NOVELS OF FRANCES BURNEY

by Christina Amelia Davidson

Burney’s fictional speech has been recognized as idiosyncratic, subjective, sociolectic, and
influential of later writers, but no focused study has been carried out to flesh out such features of
her work. Further, Burney’s use of dialogue as an index of morality has not been subject to
detailed analytical attention. It is timely therefore to carry out such a study, and logical to draw
on the methods of modern linguistics, the frameworks and vocabulary of which have proved very
useful, though such hybrid approaches are still relatively unexplored in literary criticism. My
thesis addresses such omissions.
This thesis examines decentralized voices in Burney’s fiction, which articulate alternative moral
values to those endorsed by the main narrators and central protagonists. Examination establishes
that Burney drew on various literary and extraliterary genres, actively selecting and shaping the
language and speech patterns of her characters to create rapid inferential access to their
subjective space. In doing so she interacted with disparate debates carried out over various
discursive fields, tapping into her readers’ assumptions and knowledge of the real world, and
inviting them to recover meanings from her represented speech. My study begins with two main
sources of recuperation. One concerns contemporary debates about morality, carried out mainly
in philosophical treatises, but disseminated in numerous texts, defining how to live a good life,
and measuring potential effects of environment against innate qualities. Another source concerns
language itself, which was a locus of contention during the eighteenth century, under pressure
from various sources during the years when Burney published her novels: from those seeking to
establish standard grammatical forms; from the challenges of shifting views on politeness and
sensibility; from anxieties about class, gender, and nation; and from evolving concerns about
affectation and deceit, as well as about any language which carried ‘palpable designs’. Engaging
closely with the novels themselves, this thesis explores Burney’s use of dialogue as a platform, to
engage with these kind of social, gender, and politeness issues. Further, this study reveals
Burney’s ability to use conservative ideas about language in order to disrupt reader expectations,
and to raise questions about the ownership of language styles and even whole genres, while
proclaiming her own professionalism, and right of involvement in a literary and ethical life.
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Contents

List of Figures and Illustrations 8

Declaration of Authorship 9

Acknowledgements 10

Texts and Abbreviations 12

Introduction 13
1. Aims and Questions Raised by this Study 13
2. Methodology and Critical Approaches 18
3. Burney’s Novels and Contemporary Fiction 22
4. Extraliterary Voices in Burney’s Work 31
5. Categorization in this Study 34

Chapter 1. ‘Scaffolding and Architecture’: Self, Social Sympathy, and Speech 39
1.1. Morality and Motivation: Questions of Innateness, Authentic Selfhood,
and Identity 40
1.2. Personal Face and Social Performance 49
1.3. Modern Theorization of Politeness and Impoliteness, and Eighteenth-Century
Concepts of Polite Conversation 55

Chapter 2. Breaking Down the Barriers: Sociolects and Self-Fashioning 61
2.1. Frances Burney’s Fiction and the Context of Eighteenth-Century Linguistic
Theories 66
2.1.1. Language Varieties During the Restoration Period 67
2.1.2. Post Seventeenth Century: The Ideology of Standardization, ‘Vulgarity’,
and Class 72
2.1.3. Language, Method, and the Mind 77
2.2. Surprised by Unruly Talk: The Language of the Fashionable Elite in
Evelina, Cecilia and The Wanderer 80
2.2.1. Fashionable Barbarisms and Aristocratic Misrule in Evelina 81
2.2.2. Coterie Slang in Cecilia: Language and Morals Fallen into Decay 89
2.2.3. The Wanderer: Illuminating Speech in the Darkness 95
2.3. Aspiration and Emulation in Evelina and Camilla 99
2.3.1. The Branghton Circle: The Essence of Gentility 101
2.3.2. Instruments of Power in Camilla 107
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Chapter 3. When ‘peculiar and characteristic Manners are confounded and lost’:
Masculine Women and Foppish Men 115
3.1. Gendering Speech in the Late Eighteenth Century 117
3.2. ‘Masculine Understanding’, ‘Noble Spirit’ and Female Expression, in
Evelina and The Wanderer 121
3.2.1. Mrs Selwyn and the Authority of Female Satirists 122
3.2.2. Elinor Joddrel: Defying ‘all forms’ and ‘antique prescriptions’ 130
3.3. The Figure of the Fop: The Benign Comic Hero and the Site of Wider Anxieties 142
3.3.1. Eighteenth-Century Representations of Foppery 144
3.3.2. Evelina: Mr Lovel 149
3.3.3. Camilla: Clermont Lynmere and Sir Sedley Clarendel 153

Chapter 4. Violating Codes of Politeness: Aggression and Raillery 163
4.1. Politeness, and the Impoliteness of Stigmatized Affections and Passions 165
4.2. Captain Mirvan: Masculine Authority and Acts of Aggression 173
4.3. Women Characters and Boundaries of Feeling 186
4.3.1. Madame Duval: ‘almost bursting with passion’ 187
4.3.2. Mrs Delvile: ‘harnessing primeval brilliancy’ 193

Chapter 5. The Boundaries of Politeness: Formality and Familiarity 201
5.1.1. Artificial Civility, Formality and Deceit 202
5.1.2. Formality and Deceit in Cecilia 205
5.2. Familiar Talk and the Register of Disrespect 216
5.2.1. Disrespectful and Familiar: Sir Clement Willoughby, Evelina 221
5.2.2. The Rural Poor, Urban Merchants, Tradespeople, and Servants 234

Conclusion 247
1. Burney’s Use of Form and Genre Conventions 248
2. Burney’s Fiction and ‘the design of recommending right’ 251
3. Politics, Society, and the Individual 254
4. Burney and Authorship 256

Bibliography 259
1. Primary Sources 259
2. Secondary Sources 281
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List of Figures and Illustrations

Figure 1. Sociomap of Characters in Evelina 65

Figure 2. P. Dawe, The Pantheon Macaroni (1773) 148

Figure 3. Frontispiece (dated 1779) of Volume II of Evelina; or The History
of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World, new edn, 3 vols
(London: T. and W, Lowndes, 1784) 183

Figure 4. Illustration from Evelina; or, Female Life in London: Being the
History of a Young Lady’s Introduction to Fashionable Life, and the Gay
Scenes of the Metropolis… (London: Jones, 1822) 185
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DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP

I, Christina Amelia Davidson, [please print name]

declare that the thesis entitled:

Language Shibboleths, Conversational Code Breaking, and Moral Deviance: Articulating
Immorality in the Novels of Frances Burney

and the work presented in the thesis are both my own, and have been generated by me as the
result of my own original research. I confirm that:

 this work was done wholly or mainly while in candidature for a research degree at this
University;

 where any part of this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree or any other
qualification at this University or any other institution, this has been clearly stated;

 where I have consulted the published work of others, this is always clearly attributed;

 where I have quoted from the work of others, the source is always given. With the exception
of such quotations, this thesis is entirely my own work;

 I have acknowledged all main sources of help;

 where the thesis is based on work done by myself jointly with others, I have made clear
exactly what was done by others and what I have contributed myself;

 parts of this work have been published as: ‘Conversations as Signifiers: Characters on the
Margins of Morality in the First Three Novels of Frances Burney, Partial Answers: Journal
of Literature and the History of Ideas, 8.2 (2010), 277-304


Signed: ………………………………………………………………………..

Date:…………………………………………………………………………….