In his book, David R. Sewell examines Twains perspective on language with regard to its lingusitic elements, cultural uses, and traditions. Over the course of Twains literary career, his writing reveals his attitude toward traditional grammar, ideal language, the vernacular, and the political implications of language. Sewell concludes that, Mark Twain held an ambivalent position in reference to the purposes and functions of language; his attitudes, reflected in his works, changed over the course of his life.

Throughout his life, Mark Twain kept his faith that an ideal language -- perfect in form and function -- exists, but that the Babel of human languages, having fallen away from original perfection, provides fuel for philosophy and comic effect; in elaborating on that idea in his writings, Twain describes four different roles of language in human interactions. An example of the first, the Whorfian proposition that language shapes our worldviews, persists throughout Twains work and appears in the Roughing It sketch of Scotty Briggs and the parson: the language barrier between Briggs and the parson seems insurmountable because it shapes two different views of the same event (57). The two speakers have no idea that they are discussing the same issue because they both see it through different lenses. Language as a vehicle for humor, a second role of language in Twains work, comes to the forefront in Huckleberry Finn: Hucks pure vernacular is not, as so many critics have seen it, Twains unabashed crusade for "linguistic populism" (50). Instead, Huck is an exemplum, a "linguistic impossibility," whose language serves as an innocent, humorous foil to the pompous pretenses of aspiring gentility in the novel (109). Twain uses Huck to puncture the inflated language of frauds like the King and the Duke, to thwart those who rely "on a mannered style to cover hollow thoughts" (96). Also in Huck Finn, Twain portrays language as a barometer of morality, a third function of language in his works. Sewell matches the four kinds of language in the novel -- authentic standard, idealized vernacular, pretentious standard, and pretentious ignorance (debased speakers like Pap) -- with four levels of morality respectively: authentic truth, innocent lies, conventional truth (the greater lies of society), and vicious (self-serving) lies (106-107). Finally, the fourth role of language in Twains work, language as power, plays out in Puddnhead Wilson and shows Twain's gradual loss of faith in the powers of the vernacular to provide an alternative to the corruption of the standard language (110). In Pudd'nhead Wilson, Twain recognizes that "both the standard and the colloquial speech of the South were inescapably tainted by class and racial oppression" (111). The power of the standard language, then, becomes power wielded over the subordinate class; language is inherently political. This view of language -- that is, language at its most oppressive -- is the darkest of the portrayals in Twain's major works.

According to Sewell, the complicated interactions between languages gives Twain plenty of material for his works, and it situates him in an ambivalent position with respect to the importance of standard English. Because heteroglossia (the "Babel" of languages) is inevitable, Twain developed what Sewell terms "an organic view of language": language evolves with its speakers, and, due to this effect, speakers must learn language with respect to its context in the real world (31). Twain was not averse to the traditionally "correct" principles of grammar -- he was careful to keep his own writing close to grammatically perfect, especially when writing for his Eastern audience -- but he railed against the arbitrary methods used to teach grammar to children (29). Just as Twain makes us laugh in Innocents Abroad by poking fun at the sacred without completely tearing it down, he pushes the boundaries of traditional language rules enough to amuse us, but never goes so far that he loses sight of the standards. For Twain, heteroglossia is useful for comic effect, but it has its dangers, too.

For us, studying Twain's works as language-based art, Sewell makes an important point: we must remember that there is no set definition of how Twain viewed language. Each work describes its own take on the concept, though the trend over Twain's life is a loss of faith in the benignity of mutually incomprehensible languages and a greater recognition of their dangers. I found this book useful to remind me that Twain was not just seeking comic success or social criticism with his language, especially the vernacular in Huck Finn; his relationship to language is much more complicated. As we saw in Innocents Abroad, Twain is not a headstrong social crusader -- he pushes the envelope with popular dialects, but never so far as to make his audience uncomfortable or fearful that the integrity of standard English is failing. To Twain, language is a powerful force that, when manipulated by the right hands, exposes people's follies as laughable, but threatens them as well.