Cultural implications in the interpretation of sexual references in social institutions

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and describe certain aspects of language whose knowledge, expression and reception affect the social and cultural field rather than what’s purely formal; that is to say, sometimes we may understand the words but we may not understand the implicit message or we may even dismiss some kind of linguistic constructions because they are seen as strange or anomalous and therefore not very significant from our own social and cultural perspective, even though such constructions may be highly significant from the speaker’s point of view and their social and cultural context.In order to highlight this kind of linguistic constructions, I will address those references and expressions with sexual content that required to be translated from Arabic to Spanish when interpreting on the public services context. That is why this paper will focus exclusively on interpretation, given that, unlike translation, interpretation requires the physical presence and effectiveness of the three players in communication, namely: the service provider, the user of such service and the interpreter.