Relating to the concept of the United States being a “melting pot,” if we don’t really understand what a melting pot is, then we’re unable to understand the real cultural construct of the United States. America is viewed as a nation that’s been built up by the addition of numerous cultures. We don’t have a set, national language. Instead, we have many languages all over the country, ranging from Spanish to French and to German and English and many more. Essentially, this is the beauty of America—we are able to express any culture and language and have it be accepted, more or less. There are definitely instances of cultural discrimination that are quite prevalent in our society. Our varied understandings of metaphors do inhibit our ability to coherently communicate across other languages without misinterpretation. There aren’t always word-for-word translations and, even if there were, they would not really make sense to someone that speaks a language that doesn’t have the same metaphor common to their language. Saying, for instance, “break a leg,” would probably sound insulting to someone belonging to another language before they went onstage for a play. Metaphors pose too much room for error when it comes to attempting to translate it to someone belonging to another culture and language that don’t have a similar common metaphor.
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