First Spanish-American intercultural exchange

Abstract

The cultural component of translation is often overlooked and even ignored by the layman. Most people understand translation as expressing in one language a text written in another language; interpreting means doing the same but orally. If we turn to the dictionary for a clearer definition we will find basically the same idea “to translate = to turn into one’s own or another language” and “interpreter = a person who translates orally for parties conversing in different languages.” (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary) Neither of these definitions makes reference to the type of knowledge needed to successfully render in the target language the meaning and ideas expressed in the source language. They are limited to the purely semantic aspect of translation.