Cultural Worldview in Translation: Cognitive and Linguistic Challenges

This article investigates the role of cultural worldview in translation and examines the cognitive and linguistic challenges that arise when transferring meaning across different cultural systems. Cultural worldview refers to the shared cognitive framework, beliefs, values, and conceptual structures through which a speech community interprets reality. Since language is deeply embedded in culture, translation inevitably involves not only linguistic decoding but also cognitive reconstruction of meaning. The study adopts a qualitative analytical approach based on theoretical review and illustrative examples from literary and cultural texts. The findings reveal that translators face significant difficulties in handling culturally specific concepts, metaphors, idiomatic expressions, and conceptual metaphors that are rooted in distinct worldviews. The article highlights that translation is a cognitive act of interpretation rather than a mechanical linguistic transfer. It also discusses key strategies such as domestication, foreignization, cultural substitution, and explicitation. The study concludes that successful translation depends on the translator’s intercultural competence and cognitive flexibility in reconstructing meaning across cultural boundaries.