This chapter examines intervention at the level of text and discourse and emphasizes the need for the translator to be aware of diverging functions of language in different linguistic cultures. The author's discussion of Arabic and English sheds light on the conventions of ‘hortatory’ language that, while appropriate for the Arabic context, are inadequate and misleading (if not risible) in ‘analytical’ writing in English. Hatim explains these differences, claiming that Arabic is a ‘residually orate’ language which does not differentiate registers, texts, discourses and genres in the same way. It is the translator’s role to intervene in the process, adapting the English target text according to the function of the hortatory language as appropriate to target-language conventions, and importantly linking those discourse-level choices with foreignization and domestication orientations. Most interesting, however, is the assertion of difference in conventions between different languages, which would seem to call both for more contrastive stylistic studies in multiple languages and for a more delicate examination of the dominant role of English as it enters into translatorial contact with other languages in certain domains such as scientific and historical writing.