Horton discusses the lack of one-to-one interlingual relationships between certain grammatical categories. He argues for a communicative theory of translation that offers a functionalist view on transferring information between cultures, allowing for various shifts and compensation categories. The author illustrates his point by comparing the translation of modes of address from English into German and vice versa. He shows the relevance of co-textual and contextual indicators in the case of structural incompatibility between languages.