The variety of language Chaucer uses in The Miller’s Tale is fundamentally limited by the context of the tale: It is essentially a story told primarily for entertainment by a drunken miller. However, despite the obvious limitations of the language which Chaucer can use, there is still a relatively large variety of language within the tale itself, and despite the limitations Chaucer imposes upon himself by choosing this context for the tale, he still admirably sticks to rhyming couplets throughout the play, and even maintains his decasyllabic form throughout the poem.

There are parts of The Miller’s Tale where Chaucer uses high register words, usually for ironic purposes. However, high register language is used sparingly in the tale, as it does not sit comfortably with the context. However, when it is used, Chaucer makes uses the language very effectively. For example, when introducing us to Nicholas, or rather to the façade which Nicholas puts forward to the outside world as his persona, Chaucer uses polysyllabic, Latinate words such as ‘conclusiouns’ and ‘interrogaciouns’. These two words are linked through both rhyme and meaning: Nicholas draws ‘conclusiouns’ from his ‘interrogaciouns’. Chaucer has made this link deliberately, in order to draw attention to the scientific methods that Nicholas likes people to believe he employs when conducting his investigations. Of course, with this sub-context, it is important for Chaucer to use fairly high register words in order for him to emphasise that fact that Nicholas puts forward a convincing façade of acting scientifically in his studies so that we can accept that John would believe Nicholas’s lies about the flood.

However, at the same time as introducing Nicholas, Chaucer is also using language to put doubts in the reader’s mind about Nicholas: For example, through the repetition of ‘sweete’, and the hyperbolic reference to Nicholas being ‘as sweete as is the roote / Of licoris’, we begin to suspect that Chaucer’s use of this adjective is somewhat ironic. Of course, by the end of the tale, we find that Chaucer’s repeated use of this modifier is, indeed, ironic – we see that, in fact, Nicholas is the complete antithesis of ‘sweete’, and this adds to the bathetic ending of the tale.

One area in which Chaucer’s lexis is rather restrained is in the imagery he uses: Almost without exception, all of his similes and metaphors use vehicles that are taken from the natural world, probably because this is the world with which the miller would be most familiar. Also the Miller’s target audience, the mainly uneducated people of the fourteenth century, are likely to be accustomed to the natural world. For example, when introducing the character of Alisoun, Chaucer says
‘Fair was this yonge wyf, and therwithal
As any wezele hir body gent and smal.’

Here again, along with the natural imagery, we see Chaucer using language on two levels: Looking at this quotation from a denotative perspective, Chaucer is using a simile to compare Alisoun’s thin and graceful body with that of a weasel. However, if we look at this quotation on a connotative level, then we can clearly see that Chaucer is not only comparing Alisoun’s physical characteristics to those of a weasel, but is also comparing aspects of Alisoun’s personality to the rather clichéd personality of a weasel, and, by the end of the tale, it is clear that this is, indeed, a rather accurate comparison.

Worlds away from the high register language that Chaucer uses, we hear the drunken Miller’s voice begin to show through. Again, the low register, Anglo-Saxon words which the Miller uses are designed to fulfil his purpose of entertaining his audience. Whilst the other drunken irreverent pilgrims like the Miller would roar with laughter at some of the language used, the Knight and the Prioress, for example, would be shocked – a fact that would probably entertain the Miller and his friends even more. However, the Miller builds in many classic comic devices into his story-telling, and these are clearly noteworthy from a language point of view. For example, during Nicholas and Alisoun’s first encounter, the Miller says
‘As clerkes ben ful subtil and ful queynte,
And prively he caughte hir by the queynte;’

This is a clear play on words: Whilst the first instance of ‘queynte’ is almost innocently used to mean ‘devious’, the second instance is far from innocently used, and by the time the Miller has said ‘And prively he caughte hir by the’, then the Miller’s friends will have built up an expectation of his use of the word ‘cunt’, and will no doubt once again roar with laughter when he actually says the word. A similar device is employed by the Miller near the end of the tale, shortly before Absolon’s second ‘kiss’:
‘ “Spek, sweete brid, I noot nat where thou art.”
This Nicholas anon let flee a fart,’

Once again, the Miller’s use of language builds up an expectation of the word ‘fart’, which would no doubt provide great amusement amongst the Miller and his friends, whilst shocking the Nun and the Prioress. Due to the context of the tale, it is clear that this low register language is used far more frequently than the polysyllabic Latinate terms discussed earlier.

Taking an overview of the tale, we can see that Chaucer does indeed use a wide range of language and vocabulary in The Miller’s Tale, but the extent of the language and vocabulary is severely limited by the context of the tale, and also the person who is telling it. So, whilst I would agree that there is a degree of variety of language within the Miller’s tale, I would have to disagree that The Miller’s Tale demonstrates “enormous variety” in the language.