Brian Friel’s Translations: A Bourdieusian Reading

Abstract

Brian Friel is one of the most eminent figures in contemporary Irish drama. In his plays, he addresses the issues of language, culture, education, power, politics and myth. He is also mostly regarded as a postcolonial writer, since he is concerned with colonial and postcolonial contexts in which language and cultural clash are dominant factors. Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist, as one of the theorists in cultural studies mentions the dynamics of power relations in social life through such ideas as capital, habitus, field, symbolic violence, etc. Therefore Bourdieu's theories regarding class, culture and language are applicable. The focus of this article is to analyze Friel's plays in the light of Bourdieu's sociological notions. According to Bourdieu, there are different types of capital (cultural, economic, social and symbolic) which distinguish every individual's position in society and in relation to other individuals. . For instance in Translations , the play which is going to be analyzed, the Irish characters who speak their native language (Gaelic) try to learn English in order to get linguistic capital and form a prestige or social status for themselves.