Game of Thrones

In this brief extract that became viral, the speaker is doing one of the duties of the interpreter that merges culture and language: being the cultural broker. In this role, the interpreter must give a speaker an insight into the other interlocutor's culture in order to advance the conversation without allowing any term that could possibly be misinterpreted by either speaker to be introduced in the conversation unbeknownst to a participant in the conversation. By knowing that there are no words for "thank you", the person trying to express thankfulness must also understand that the concept of gratitude may be foreign to the person being addressed's culture. If there had been no words for "thank you" but a way to say something similar, (for example: "you have my gratitude") then the interpreter should say the comparable term and keep the conversation flowing instead. The role of cultural broker should only be used in situations where the conversation could either reach a dead end or a term, word, expression or sentence could be misconstrued because of cultural differences.

Be sure to check www.cypherlanguages.com and keep an eye out for

our next post!