Abstract
The conceptual metaphor that sees translation as “border crossing” is so widespread that nowadays it hardly appears as a metaphor: it has become a commonsensical notion. Our contribution tries to question it by exploring a number of interdisciplinary approaches, which draw parallels – more or less metaphorical ones – between culture and biology. We will analyze, within these different approaches, the notion of border/limit, in order to show an alternative that seems more apt to capture the complexity of translation – the notion of membrane.