The fallacy of cultural interpretation The unaware researcher is likely to miss the nuances of cultural interpretation and conclude that adapting research to another language is a relatively trivial exercise. Translation is more complicated than it may seem, however. This is what we call the elusive fallacy of cultural interpretation. This fallacy consists of thinking that any intelligent and educated speaker of two languages can interpret one language into the other. The reader may notice that we have stopped speaking about translation and are now speaking about interpretation.
Interpretation is the task of attaching meaning.
Translation, on the other hand, deals with transforming one set of symbols into another. Cultural interpreter vs. translator Adapting messages, questions and instructions from one language into another is an ambiguous task. Finding the right word may be what one needs in some instances. On other occasions, finding cultural equivalence may be the key. When conducting research, the interpreter must be versed in both the original and target languages.