Social Class Differences Reflected in the Language Used in Typical Social Scenes in Pride and Prejudice

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-541-6_26How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Pride and Prejudice; Social scenes; Language; Social class differences; 18th- and 19th-century Britain

Abstract

Pride and Prejudice is a representative work by Jane Austen, written during the First Industrial Revolution. During the period, social mobility was enhanced, but stark differences persisted in the language styles across social classes during interactions. The novel contains extensive depictions of social scenes. This paper examines interactions among three distinct social classes: the aristocracy embodied by Darcy and Lady Catherine, the mercantile middle class represented by Bingley, and the minor middle-class landed gentry exemplified by the Bennet family. Through close analysis of specific vocabulary and sentence structures used by the characters, combined with Bourdieu’s and Foucault’s theoretical frameworks against the backdrop of 18th-19th century British society, the paper delves into how language reflects underlying structures of social stratification and power relations. Research indicates that the language of the aristocracy often carried an authoritative and detached tone, reinforcing their social dominance; the language of the mercantile middle-class blended pragmatism and sociability, reflecting their aspirational positioning within the evolving class structure; the language of the minor middle-class landed gentry combined everydayness with an aspirational quality toward higher social circles. These linguistic differences profoundly illustrate the power relations and interaction logics among social classes in 18th- and 19th-century British society, while also providing new analytical perspectives for understanding social class interactions and literary works of that period.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Sitong Lin
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/02/26
TI  - Social Class Differences Reflected in the Language Used in Typical Social Scenes in Pride and Prejudice
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 5th International Conference on Culture, Design and Social Development (CDSD 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 221
EP  - 227
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-541-6_26
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-541-6_26
ID  - Lin2026
ER  -