G-dropping is a phenomenon in which the -ing suffix is realized as -in'. When we say something like "walkin'" instead of "walking," for example. G-dropping is stereotypically associated with lower education levels and lower socioeconomic classes.
What does this have to do with theater?
Spring Awakening uses g-dropping in an interesting, clearly intentional way.
Spring Awakening is a musical about the dangers of censorship. One of the primary themes in this musical is education, or the lack thereof. The male characters all either attend or teach at a rigorous, rigid high school. Meanwhile, it is unclear whether the teenage girls actually attend any school. However, one of the most explicit demonstrations of lack of education in the show is with Wendla, the female lead, being deprived of proper sexual education. The education gap between male and female characters is clear throughout the show.
G-dropping was used even in the libretto to establish a linguistic difference between male and female characters. As Table 1 shows, girls used -in’ instead of -ing far more often than boys did. I ran a chi-square, determining that female characters used significantly more g-dropping than male characters throughout the show, χ2 (1, 225) = 8.102, p = 0.0044.
Table 1: g-dropping in Spring Awakening
-in’ (song) | -ing (song) | -in’ (speech) | -ing (speech) | |
Girls | 19 | 28 | 0 | 39 |
Boys | 12 | 56 | 0 | 71 |
This pattern shows how linguistic phenomena can be used to reinforce themes, however subtly.
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