Difficulties in classifying and identifying culturally bound expressions

Abstract

Although the translation of culturally bound expressions has be­ come an extremely popular topic in translation studies, in practice, due to diffe­ rences in terminology and definitions, it turns out to be a very complicated task to categorize these items and to identify them in specific contexts. The present study seeks to answer the question of what advantages and shortcomings the existing classification systems have, as well as what challenges translation researchers face when categorizing and identifying culture­specific expressions. Therefore, the aim of the study is to map and compare some of the better­known classifications, and to present my own classification system based on Vlahov and Florin (1980), New­ mark (1988), Nedergaard­Larsen (1993), Pedersen (2011) and particularly Heltai (2018), which includes three major categories: extralinguistic culturally bound ex­ pressions, referring to realities outside of language, intralinguistic culturally bound expressions and proper nouns as a separate category.