In this chapter an explicit connection is made between the realization of certain speech acts in intercultural communication and in covert translation. The author presents an empirical study of the realizations of requests and suggestions elicited via the use of discourse completion tests (DCT) in a number of different communicative situations in English, German, Greek, Italian and Russian. The results of this investigation are then compared with the analyses of literary translations (of novels and plays) involving these same languages. It is shown that it is indeed the case that the culture-specific realizations of requests and suggestions established in the DCT study are also reflected in translatory actions in which a cultural filter has been employed to achieve pragmatic equivalence. Translation is thus a useful diagnostic instrument for revealing cross-linguistic variation in pragmatic choices.