This essay examines the political uses to which Behan puts language in his autobiographical fiction, Borstal Boy, both as an instrument of domination and a means of liberation. Identifying Standard English language and literature as important components of the British imperial project, Behan creates, as a linguistic alternative, ‘englishes’, a composite language in which differences of geography, class, age, education, and occupation create a demotic speech of great variability and expressive force. In so doing, Behan sabotages the cultural assumptions and justifications for colonial exploitation embedded and validated in Standard English literature and language.
