Essay
Essay on 'Attitudes towards language cause conflict'-Brian Friel's Translations
Essay on 'Attitudes towards language cause conflict'-Brian Friel's Translations CCEA Exam Question. A Grade
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Translations Essay: Attitudes towards language create conflict‘Translations’ debuted in 1980 amid a time of conflict in Ireland between opposing cultural
bodies. Brian Friel makes it very clear that language is important to all of us on a personal
and societal scale in the play. ‘Translations’ like many of his other works in the Irish
microcosm of Baile Beag which literally means small town and so making his thoughts
universal messages. Language has been a focal point of debate in Northern Irish politics,
especially in recent years with a new resurgence in Irish in the form of the Irish Language
Act. Many languages appear in the play and the characters’ opinions of these languages
affect many of the events of the play, especially its destructive finale. All the characters
have different attitudes towards language, especially between Irish and English. Some
consider Irish as a dying language while others feel English is the way forward in a belief
similar to that of Daniel O’Connell.
Firstly, the attitude of Lancey that Irish is a subservient language to English is most likely a
stereotypical view of many English speakers; “Do they speak any English, Roland?” Friel’s
directed inflexion in combination with the rhetorical question demonstrates Lancey’s
dismissive view of the Irish language as he appears to find it bewildering that the occupants
of Baile Beag do not speak English. Due to English being so common, many speakers
(myself included) end up baffled on family holidays by non-English road signs. This
confusion is only heightened by the fact that due to the 1800 Act of Union Ireland, England,
Scotland and Wales had all been unified into the United Kingdom and so Lancey would
naturally perceive Ireland as an extension of his homeland. Lancey acts as a caricature of
English colonialists and he is also seen to have a poor attitude to other languages as well
as Irish; “He speaks- on his own admission- only English and to his credit, he seemed
suitably verecund…” Lancey does not attempt to understand any of the three different
languages Hugh speaks besides English. The fact he is described as ‘verecund’ shows his
passivity and condescending nature towards other languages as he sees English as his
sole requirement to communicate. This lack of understanding exhibited in Lancey’s
character is exactly what leads to an increase in tension between the Irish and English
throughout the play. Friel ingeniously demonstrates this intolerance even further through
the fact every other character is (to different levels) multilingual whereas Lancey is left
trapped by the boundaries of his sole tongue. The lack of understanding the soldiers have
of the locals of Baile Beag, makes the English’s attitude towards language a leading factor
to the conflict that occurs in the play through the gain in tension it causes throughout the
play.
Furthermore, the purpose of the English in Ireland is to conduct an Ordnance Survey of
Ireland and anglicise the place names of the mapped areas (as directed by the 1824 Spring
Rice Report). This renaming sets the whole premise of the play and shows the attitudes of
characters to language causing conflict in the play. For example, the character of Owen
who in his employ to the British describes his work as, “to translate the quaint, archaic
tongue you people persist in speaking into the King’s good English.” Owen juxtaposes the
two languages of English and Irish by describing Irish as out of date and inaccessible
compared to English. Friel alludes to this mentality of the dying Irish language in many
ways, like, by skilfully making the languages that the polyglots of the play speak Latin and
Greek. These two languages have been considered dead for many years and the way Friel
groups Irish in this category of irrelevance shows a strong disregard of Irish and its cultural
importance. At the time set in the play, Irish was dying for a number of reasons, such as
The National Schools Initiative 1831, the ruling classes of society being English and as we
hear Hugh say, “for the purposes of commerce…” but, Irish has made a resurgence through
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