Traducir entre culturas: la competencia cultural como componente integrador del perfil experto del traductor

Abstract

In intercultural communication our active behavior as well as our perception of others are guided by the value orientation system of our own culture. This culture bound perspective frequently leads us to project our own cultural frame of reference on to the foreign culture. Such projection, in turn, of ten results in mutual misunderstanding and may even cause a communicative breakdown. It will be argued that it is the translator's task as an expert professional to make successful intercultural communication possible. S/he thus needs a professional cultural competence, a more detailed definition of which is given in the present article, which offers a blend of general functionalist translation theory and intercultural communication studies.