What is a cultural error? What causes it? What are the consequences of such an error? This
volume enables the reader to identify cultural errors and to understand how they are produced.
Sometimes they come about because of the gap between the source culture and the target culture
on other occasions they are the result of the cultural inadequacies of the translator or
perhaps the ambiguity arises because of errors in the reception of the translated text. The
meta-translational problem of the cultural error is explored in great detail in this book. The
authors address the fundamental theoretical issues that underpin the term. The essays examine a
variety of topics ranging from the deliberate political manipulation of cultural sources in
Russia to the colonial translations at the heart of Edward FitzGerald's famous translation The
Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Adopting a resolutely transdisciplinary approach the seventeen
contributors to this volume come from a variety of academic backgrounds in music art
literature and linguistics. They provide an innovative reading of a key term in translation
studies today.
