The Revolution in Diction

Abstract

The evolution of dramatic structures which were peculiarly suited to radio and its audiences was later to influence dramatic structures in the film and the theatre. But radio’s need to provide entertainment for the mass audience also required a style of literary and dramatic diction and of performance which was closer to the idiom of ordinary speech. It could not support a style of diction which was too refined or socially remote. The caricatures of demotic speech which had satisfied and amused the mandarin consumers of belles-lettres and socially exclusive theatre plays were not acceptable to the mass of listeners, most of whom spoke various forms of the demotic. When radio started in countries like Britain it was not immediately realised that this new form of entertainment and information required voices with whom the mass of listeners could easily identify and associate. Radio argued logically that writers wishing to depict Durham miners or unemployed dockers in Liverpool should represent their idiom and dialect with some accuracy and understanding and that actors should perform such speech with insight and respect.