Brian Friel - Translations: Practice Questions

• a.To enforce the use of the English language in local hedge schools.
• b.To establish a new military barracks to suppress local rebellions.
• c.To collect taxes from the local farmers on behalf of the British Crown.
• d.To create a new Ordnance Survey map and anglicize Irish place names.

• a.His conflict with Captain Lancey over the ethics of mapping leads to his court-martial.
• b.His inability to learn the Irish language causes him to lose his position in the Royal Engineers.
• c.His idealistic love for the Irish landscape and Maire leads to his mysterious disappearance and the subsequent military crackdown.
• d.His decision to defect to the Irish cause results in his execution by the British army.

• a.It symbolizes the disintegration of the old cultural order and the fallibility of memory and language in the face of colonial erasure.
• b.It proves that the Irish characters are intellectually superior to the British soldiers who do not know the classics.
• c.It represents a hopeful transition to a new era where Latin will replace both Irish and English.
• d.It serves as a comic relief to lighten the tension of the impending British military retaliation.

• a.Hugh
• b.Jimmy Jack
• c.Manus
• d.Owen

• a.He argues that the Irish language is the only way to effectively communicate with the spirits of the land.
• b.He claims that Irish is linguistically superior to English because of its complex syntax.
• c.He believes that the British will eventually abandon the mapping project and leave Ireland.
• d.He argues that the language is a repository of Irish history and mythology, even if it no longer matches the physical reality.

Write your answer out first, then check it against the worked solution.

Write your answer out first, then check it against the worked solution.

Write your answer out first, then check it against the worked solution.

Write your answer out first, then check it against the worked solution.