Translation as Intercultural Communication

The paper examines translation as ‘intercultural communication’, focusing on the translator as an intercultural mediator, who applies a cultural filter to the foreign text and negotiates meanings for the target text reader. Starting from the central terms of ‘context of situation’ and ‘context of culture’, coined by Malinowski in the 1920s and taken up later by Halliday, the paper investigates culture as a system of frames in which three apparently contradictory views are actually interrelated: context, frames and logical typing. Drawing on Hall’s triad of culture and the iceberg theory (1959/1990), the three levels of culture (technical, formal, informal) are discussed in terms of types of intervention carried out by the translator. Furthermore, a logical levels table for the context of situation and the context of culture is provided. Finally, the paper compares theories related to a number of key issues, such as cultural meaning being ‘carried’ or ‘negotiated’ by language, factors influencing the culture filter and the local versus universal aspect of translation norms.