A language postulates in itself a model of reality and a phonic association with the universe it describes, so we cannot separate language from culture. Both linguistic equivalence and cultural transfer are at stake when translating. Translation is a cultural fact that means necessarily cross-cultural communication because translation enables language to cross borders and helps intercultural exchange and understanding

The complexity and multiplicity of cultures and languages, the empire of quantity, makes it impossible for an individual to cope with even fundamental references of literary or scientific works within different languages.

Translators need cultural literacy, communicative language competences and cross-cultural competence as well, because they have to interpret socio-cultural meaning in cross-cultural encounters, contributing to the transfer of knowledge across cultures and to cultural development as well.

Translation as a bridging means of communication across language-cultures has a double role to play: it both constructs and deconstructs, or deconstructs and constructs, the national cultural identity of the source and target texts.

There exists a reciprocal relationship and neither the ‘deconstruction’ of the source nor the ‘construction’ of the target is to be taken in the absolute. The more access there is to other cultural identities, the more cultural ‘common ground’ there may be between one’s own identity and the identity of the other, hence the less distinctive the identity of one is from that of the other. 

The reciprocal relations between the various processes in translation are in fact the reflection of an underlying postulation, namely the relativity of cultural identity in translation. 

Globalization has end the cultural identity?

The appearance in the 1980s of the term culture as a key concept in Translation Studies supposed an important shift of direction in the theories postulated until then. The translation process could no longer overlook those extra-linguistic features that constitute an integral part of a text, that is, the translator could not ignore the culture of the source language, much less that of the target language. Indeed, the latter became the prime reference in the practice of translation, which is, therefore, “culture bound”.

Thirty years later, this ‘cultural turn’ has given way to notions of culture and identity that seem more blurred than ever, probably as a direct consequence of the revolution in technology and communications which has fostered cultural exchanges so rapidly.

We live in an increasingly globalized world. We talk about global agriculture, global warming, global market, business on a global scale, global education …and even a “global English”, the language that is required for job positions in many industries across the world. Moreover, English is the official language of 527 countries that include high growth rate countries like South Africa or India and is the most widely spoken foreign language for communicating both with native and non-native speakers of English.

Thus, this situation needs an interdisciplinary approach and interdisciplinary competences have to be used. Over the last few years, scholars from different disciplines and from different approaches have been discussing translation and cultural identity and translation and cross-cultural communication. The concepts behind these abstract terms are complex and have different senses and definitions depending on the discipline from which they are taken.

For these reasons, we need bicultural translators and interpreters to translate across diverse languages and cultures, to act as mediators/ambassadors across cultures and as necessary intercultural communicators.