Hurston has a excellent awareness and manipulation of language. This is clearly depicted on page 91 in the book Their Eyes Were Watching God. In this passage Janie is speaking with a man that lives in town named Ike Green. There is quite a lot of dialogue in this scene which gives you a good idea of Hurston’s unique tone, sound devices, word choice, and syntax. 

The characters have a very unique dialect by using words that are not normally used in our vocabulary, in this time and area of the world. For instance she chooses words like “ah” instead of “I”, “de” instead of “the”, “mo’” instead of “more”, “ain’t” instead of “are not”, the list is endless. She uses a very interesting syntax as well. When the characters speak they normally have very poor grammar. They generally put words in the incorrect place in a sentence and have a very informal way of speaking. For example when Janie says to Ike, “Dis jubjick you bringin’ up ain’t fit tuh be talked about at all.” This sentence expresses the character’s poor grammar and vocabulary very clearly. Instead of using proper sentence structure by saying “This subject isn’t appropriate to ever talk about.”, she purposely says this sentence incorrectly to emphasize that the characters in her book are very intellectual they simply do not use proper grammar when they speak. 

By using very informal language, Hurston solidifies a very realistic tone throughout the book, through the dialogue of her characters. By using this form of speaking, the sound of the characters’ voices have a unique sound. This is portrayed in this passage through the dialogue of Jamie and Ike, “Lawd, Ike Green, you’se uh case!” When Jamie says this to Ike the interesting word choice, sentence structure, and sound of her voice gives her a southern accent, which portrays that she is from the South. By using the word "Lord" and "nigger" in this passage it is shown that the time period of this book is set in the past when there was still racial tension in the south. The sound devices, tone, syntax, and word choice Hurston uses throughout the book, emphasizes where and when this book is taking place, and gives her characters a great level of uniqueness.