Heidegger's idea that "man acts as if he were the shaper and master of
language, while it is language which remains mistress of man" (foreword to
George Steiner's After Baben forms part of the ideology behind the play
Translations. Friel says in an interview in Magill in 1980 that this was quoted
in the programme notes to Translations. The implication in the interview is if
language is the mistress of man and not vice versa then the English as
spoken in Ireland "forms us and shapes us in a way that is neither healthy nor
valuable for us
