Intercultural intertextuality as a translation phenomenon

Texts as communicative occurrences are characterised by their interdependence on other texts, either of the same genre or of a different genre. This characteristic feature is known as intertextuality (or discursivity). The relationship can either be to texts originating in the same language and culture, or to texts originating in another language and culture. This paper comments on the discourse phenomenon of 'intercultural intertextuality' from the point of view of translation (studies). It illustrates strategies employed in the original texts for referring to the source language/culture. Subsequently, the paper explores the translation strategies used in authentic target texts in dealing with the phenomenon of intercultural intertextuality. A variety of political speeches (mainly of the language pair English and German) are used as illustrative examples.