Bleak House: Dialect 3 key examples

Dickens uses this "legal"  version of English to signal yet another aspect of the incomprehensibility,  silliness, and strict adherence to tradition of the legal profession. Tangle's words slur together, mixing legal jargon and traditional courtroom phrases with normal English in a way that makes both seem like nonsense. For example, Tangle is saying "My Lord" when "Mlud" "slides" out of him. This is the customary respectful address to a presiding judge in Britain. However, in Bleak House the English spoken in Chancery is not like normal English, because these lawyers apparently only speak to each other. This illustrates how divorced Chancery is from real life. Furthermore, it also allows Dickens to make fun of the ludicrous verbiage of legal language.

When Tangle calls him"M'lud," the Lord Chancellor knows exactly what's going on. Mr. Tangle is "tangled" himself in the endless case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, so much so that the Chancellor can understand what he's getting at even if he doesn't actually say what it is that his "duty" compels him "tsubmit" to his "ludship" (what his duty compels him to submit as evidence to the Lord Chancellor). It's also notable that, after Dickens has referred to Chancery as being so stuck in the "mud" of London, the traditional name used for the Lord Chancellor  is only one letter away from actually being "mud."

London English is sometimes called "Cockney," and its specific sounds and vernacular single out Jo's speech. It is an important part of his identity, and differentiates him from the other children in the novel. The author brings in local color and a sense of how London might have sounded outside the posh parlors and law courts by having Jo "speak" Cockney, which incorporates lots of contemporaneous slang and colloquialisms. Jo is essentially telling Lady Dedlock in this passage that she mustn't run away without paying him: "Stow hooking it!" and "Stow cutting away" both mean "don't run off."

Lady Dedlock has no idea what he's talking about, and doesn't even bother trying to be polite about it: she calls him a "horrible creature" while offering him an extravagant sum of money. She says this while he is still there, as though she expects him not to understand or hear her. Jo is used to treatment like this from the wealthy, but it doesn't help with their mutual comprehension. Indeed, it seems true here that he can barely understand her accent, as when she speaks he has to "tell" (count) her words "off on his broom-handle," and "pause to consider their meaning."

 Cockney English is a class marker in this novel, but it's only one of the dialects of English that appears in Bleak House. For instance, although both are versions of spoken English specific to London, Jo's Cockney speech differs from the "legal" English of the lawyers of Chancery in its content, delivery, and variety. It also differs from the English that aristocrats speak, as the quoted passage demonstrates. English dialects in Bleak House are like English class differences: people from different walks of life can often barely understand each other.

Dickens represents this person's speech as it is meant to "sound" in Bleak House, mangling words and phrases to imitate this sort of upper-class accent. This manner of speaking—meant to seem funny to Victorian-era readers—is the author's interpretation of English speech so posh it's practically unintelligible. The cousin's stilted, chortling dialogue misses letters and clumps words together, indicating that he's speaking in a confusing and abbreviated way. 

The cousin is saying here that although he thinks Lady Dedlock is beautiful enough to "set up shop of women" (exceed most others), overall he finds her "rather alarming." Dickens goes on to allude to William Shakespeare's play Macbeth, invoking another "larming kind" of woman as he compares Lady Dedlock to the cruel and self-interested Lady Macbeth. The "debilitated cousin" says that like Lady Macbeth, Lady Dedlock is an "inconvenient woman" who might "get out of bed" and "bawthestablishment" ("bawl the establishment," or say something to rock the status quo.)

Like the legal jargon that Mr. Tangle and his lawyer colleagues speak, this kind of English is localized and period-specific to the 1800s. It is comprehensible to the Dedlocks and their friends because they are also presumably able to speak this way, being nobly born themselves. However, it seems nonsensical to the reader until it's looked at carefully, as it's much easier to understand when read aloud. Because it accurately represents how characters like this cousin might have "sounded" to each other, it contributes to the realism of Bleak House.

Although it's meant to amuse a Victorian reader, this "dialect" might seem quite cruel toward a disabled character, if taken out of context. It's difficult to tell whether Dickens means this "cousin" is actually mentally incapacitated, or if he's just "debilitated" by his extremely aristocratic rank and station. However, given how Dickens tends to characterize privileged people as incompetent, this probably amounts to the same thing in Bleak House.