Liverpool footballer Luis Suárez was recently handed an 8 match ban for the racial abuse of Manchester United player Patrice Evra. In Suárez’s native Uruguay reactions to the decision have veered from bemusement to outrage, with suggestions that the language used would not have been viewed as offensive in Rioplatense Spanish.

If Suárez is indeed guilty of using pejorative language to refer to Evra’s race – and this is something Liverpool are still investigating – then the ban comes as a lesson in the importance of cultural context.

Most words have their semantic equivalents in other languages, but it is a much trickier task to succinctly express the weight of culture and history that informs the use of that word in a particular country or context. As an aside, this is why the job of a translator is such a skilled one, requiring more than mere linguistic knowledge. In the cultural context of a football match in Uruguay, referring to someone by their skin colour may be commonplace, but to do so in the UK carries with it a different cultural context and is likely to cause offence.

Footballers may live a closeted existence, but when accepting a position of employment in a new country and a new culture they are duty bound – as we all are - to learn the boundaries of appropriate behaviour in that country and to act within those boundaries. Liverpool and Suárez may feel that the ban is harsh, but if it sets the example that ignorance is no defence and forces football clubs to educate new arrivals in the norms of acceptability, then it has served a purpose. Put simply, what is acceptable to one culture can be offensive to another, which is a lesson Luis Suárez has been forced to learn.

For a free quote from a translation company that understands the importance of cultural context, contact TransAction.