Remarques sur le concept de culturème

The purpose of this article is to give further details about the concept of cultureme (the culture-bound term or phrase), its definition and semantic field. The significance of this term in the theory of the cultureme and in the theory of linguistic transfer, in the sociology of culture and in sociolinguistics offers the opportunity to set the semantic limits of culturème and to identify its significance in translatology. The binary opposition cultureme-translation unit, cultureme connotation, cultureme-neologism etc. is thought to be a powerful tool to elucidate the fundamental characteristic of the cultureme: monoculturality and its relative autonomy of translation. A classification of the culturemes is suggested to facilitate the translation process and to choose the most appropriate method of translation.