The author examines translation as 'intercultural communication' and discusses what is understood by the term 'culture'. This is related to the very nature of language and has enormous bearing on how the translator operates. Katan explores the central terms of 'context of situation' and 'context of culture', coined by Malinowski in the 1920s and taken up by Halliday some thirty years later. The authors looks at the question from an anthropological angle and concentrates on the translator as a intercultural mediator applying a 'culture filter' to the foreign text and negotiating meanings for the target text reader.