Bourdieu’s La Distinction marshalled empirical evidence in support of the view that cultural preferences promote social distinctions. Within language considered as a cultural form capable of expressing a worldview, examination shows that the levels of analysis—pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary—differ greatly in how they express distinction. All competent speakers are expert practitioners as well as “critics” of their native language but they seem to remain largely unaware of the linguistic and social mechanisms that underpin variable usage. The implications for translation are momentous: all languages vary but each has its own loci where variation is at once possible and stigmatised. At these loci culture and linguistic structure converge indissociably, and the search for equivalent effects offers formidable challenges to the translator.