In this paper, which is based on translation as a product, the author aims to compare written ST and TT parts that may be related contrastively to the respective textual contexts and to the culture-specific knowledge of the source culture (SC) and the target culture (TC). The problem investigated here may be divided into three general questions. The first is a theoretical-definitional one: which cultural references are of ‘translational relevance’ and which are not? The second is an empirical-descriptive one: how are cultural references taken into account in translation? The third and last is an applied didactic and methodological one: how may cultural references that are of ‘translational relevance’ be dealt with? This paper mainly deals with the first question and with the second question only as it is related to the examples given; the third question will not be covered.