Cross-cultural translations
It is obvious that translations need to be accurate. However, there is more to a good translation than accuracy. Translations also need to be culturally competent.
What does this term mean?
Since translations are mostly produced for target readers who belong to a different culture from that of the source language readers, they also need to be culturally appropriate. This implies that the whole cultural context must be considered, because authors' and readers' networks of meaning are marked by different cultures. Your cultural traditions mark your view of good communication. (I do not mean to say that culture shapes everything you do, think or say anywhere anytime and I do not imply that your culture can explain your behaviour, thinking, communication ...) In some cultures, people share the belief that good communication can be highly implicit, whereas in other cultures, people tend to believe that good communication is preferably highly explicit. The way people deal with ambiguity - in their everyday life and in communication - also differs. Indeed, some cultures seem to be more at ease with ambiguity than others. The perceived power difference between author and reader - or speaker and listeners - may differ and result in different practices. Etcetera, etcetera. A culturally competent translation needs to take such differences into consideration.
Let me briefly illustrate the above. Generally speaking and over-uniformizing and over-homogenizing cultures, we could say that the French like to use a variety of words to refer to one and the same concept. Actually, this variation seems to be more of a need than a preference. I shall not go into the cultural roots that may underlie this need. The Dutch and the Germans, however - to name just two, and again I am generalizing - seem to share the belief that words and terms should be used consistently throughout a given text. In other words, they prefer to use one word for one concept. They believe that this greatly improves textual consistency. To them it seems that in France the writer does not have to adapt to the reader so much. This may have to do with differences in power distance, but I shall not go into that here.
culturally competent translators