Languages are cultural epiphenomena: they, and their varieties, emerge at stages of development in the life of a culture. In some important respects they are peculiar to their culture, and the meanings of certain terms used in the language of their culture are not therefore readily transferable to the languages of other cultures. There are culturally-laden terms that do not have semantic equivalents in the languages of other cultures. Generally speaking, translations can more easily reproduce semantic equivalents that are culturally neutral. So, the term ‘dog’ is able to be translated in most other languages, since whatever term is used has the same recognised referent. The efficacy of translation generally depends upon the nature and number of semantic equivalents that are culturally neutral. The trouble is that there is a large number of terms that are not semantically equivalent because they are not culturally neutral; the greater the number, the less the efficacy of translation. It would seem, therefore, that translation cannot in many instances convey what is distinctive of the culture of the original language.

语言是文化的附带现象：它们及其变体出现在文化生命的发展阶段。在某些重要方面，它们是其文化所特有的，因此，在其文化语言中使用的某些术语的含义不容易转移到其他文化的语言中。有一些承载文化的术语在其他文化的语言中没有语义等价物。一般来说，翻译可以更容易地再现文化中立的语义等价物。因此，术语“狗”可以翻译成大多数其他语言，因为无论使用什么术语，都具有相同的公认指称。翻译的效果通常取决于文化中立的语义等价物的性质和数量。问题在于，有大量术语在语义上并不等同，因为它们在文化上不是中立的；数量越大，翻译效果越差。因此，在许多情况下，翻译似乎无法传达原文文化的独特之处。