Issue 22-23

Don't have an account on our website?

Przekładaniec

About the journal

Information for Authors

2009

Publication date: 2011

Licence: None

Editorial team

Editor-in-Chief dr hab. Magda Heydel

Secretary dr hab., prof. UJ Agnieszka Romanowska

Volume Editor Magda Heydel

Issue content

Presentations

Nie ma śpiącej królewny bez kolców. Tłumaczenie baśni. Propozycja modelu analizy porównawczej (przełożyła Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese)

Jan Van Coillie

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 11-35

Few stories have been translated so often and into so many languages as the classical fairy tales. Therefore, they are a true challenge for translation studies. This article wants to outline a methodology for investigating fairy tales in translation. The method is essentially a comparative textual analysis, inspired by translation studies, literary theory, linguistic criticism and discourse analysis. It can be applied to the synchronic research of fairy tale translations within a restricted period of time as well as to the diachronic research of translations of one or more fairy tales over a longer period of time. A step-by -step model is presented which makes it possible to classify and analyze changes in translations as well as adaptations. In order to bridge the gap between content and linguistic levels, a linguistic analysis is linked to focal points, grouped under categories from literary studies. The examples are taken from six recent Dutch translations of Sleeping Beauty, published between 1995 and 2007. In the fi nal part of this study, a scheme is offered for the interpretation of the changes the analysis brought to light. It takes into account individual as well as social factors and it is based on the concepts of norms, systems and functions. By presenting a structured method of analysis, this article hopes to reinvigorate the study of fairy tales in translation.

PDF

Metamorfozy Kopciuszka. Studium porównawcze dwóch angielskich przekładów baśni Perraulta (przełożyła Anna Arno)

Martine Hennard Dutheil de la Rochère

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 36-58

PDF

Jak to z Kotem w butach było. Baśnie Charles’a Perraulta w przekładzie i w adaptacji Hanny Januszewskiej

Monika Woźniak

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 59-79

The opening of the article examines the history of the reception of fairy tales – in particular Perrault’s tales – in Poland since 1700; it attempts to explain the reason for the long established Polish tendency to adapt rather than to translate this kind of literary works. The introductory presentation is followed by an in-depth comparative analysis of the first ever Polish translation of Mother Goose Tales by Hanna Januszewska, published in 1961, and the adaptation of Perrault’s tales made by the same author about ten years later. The examination focuses on two questions: firstly, on the cultural distance between the original French text and the Polish context of fairy-tales tradition, resulting in a series of objective translation difficulties; secondly on the cultural, stylistic and linguistic shifts introduced by Januszewska to the tales in the process of transforming her earlier translation into a free adaptation of Perrault’s work. The goal of this scrutiny is not only to compare originality or literary value of Januszewska’s two proposals, but also to try to understand the reasons that lie behind the enormous popularity of the adapted version. The faithful translation, by all means a good text in itself, did not gain any recognition, and if not exactly a failure, was nevertheless an unsuccessful attempt to introduce Polish readers to the original spirit of Mother Goose Tales.

PDF

Polskie dzieje baśni braci Grimm

Eliza Pieciul-Karmińska

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 80-96

The article discusses the diffi culties with translating Grimm’s Fairy Tales into Polish. The fi rst part demonstrates the specifi c features of the original text and Bruno Bettelheim’s conclusions about “the meaning and importance of fairy tales”. The second part is a critical review of the existing Polish translations. The third part refers to the main goals of the new Polish translation. The conclusions stress that the new Polish translation should be addressed to the same recipient as the original Children’s and Household Tales, i.e., both to children and adults.

PDF

Czy potrzebny był nowy przekład baśni Andersena?

Bogusława Sochańska

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 97-129

A positive answer to the above question seems obvious after a critical analysis of the history of the reception of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales and stories in Poland in the second part of the 19th century and in the fi rst part of the 20th century. On the one hand, over a hundred years ago the writer was classifi ed as an author of exclusively children’s literature due to intended or unintended misinterpretations of the spirit of his prose. This classifi cation was then inherited by next generations of readers and translators. On the other hand, a huge number of various kinds of mistakes in translation depleted Andersen’s unique style. The analysis shows how Andersen’s narration was changed to traditional literary style (especially when it came to dialogues); how humour and irony were either overlooked, misunderstood or judged improper for children; how translators miscomprehended Danish grammar and vocabulary; and how little attention was paid to the consistency of the text. The effect is a narration which is “too sweet,” often lengthy, boring, and at times illogical. The analysis compares selected examples from the most recent complete edition of 167 fairy tales and stories translated from Danish by Boguslawa Sochanska (2006) with the previous complete edition (of 155 fairytales and stories) translated from German by Stefania Beylin and Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, whose work has enjoyed high recognition for 50 years. The detailed discussion of mistakes and misunderstandings in Polish translations done from German also illustrates typical diffi culties that appear when translating Andersen’s prose. Therefore, the article points out similar problems with giving Andersen’s prose its proper shape in the most recent Polish edition.

PDF

Przekłady baśni pomiędzy mobilizacją narodową a komodyfikacją. Niemieckojęzyczna literatura dla dzieci w dziewiętnastowiecznym społeczeństwie chorwackim (przełożyła Anna Arno)

Marijana Hameršak

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 130-145

After a brief review of the approaches of folklore studies and children’s literature studies to the issue of translation, the article focuses on nineteenth-century Croatian translations of German fairy tales. They are discussed from the point of view of literary history, i.e. in the context of their textual and paratextual features, their relationship to source texts and their involvement in the processes of national integration. They are also interpreted from the point of view of the history of reading, i.e. in the context of children’s consumption of German children’s books in nineteenth-century Croatia. Finally, they are investigated from the book history perspective, i.e. at the level of adoption of German children’s literature publishing genres and strategies in nineteenthcentury Croatian children’s literature. Careful examination of these aspects shows that the appropriation of fairy tales originally written and published in German in nineteenthcentury Croatian society followed different (oral, written, German-language, Croatianlanguage) routes and had different outcomes. The complexity of these routes and outcomes reminds us that literature is not only symbolic (written, textual), but also material (reading, editing, publishing). Moreover, it reminds us that children’s literature is entangled not only in concepts of childhood and literature, but also in other cultural concepts such as nation and class.

PDF

Czy strategia redukcji może służyć egzotyzacji, czyli gdzie się podziała Sierotka Marysia w angielskim przekładzie

Aleksander Brzózka

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 146-158

The translation of Maria Konopnicka’s O Krasnoludkach i sierotce Marysi (The Brownie Scouts) into English is an interesting fusion of two translation strategies that are usually considered mutually exclusive. At fi rst glance, this careful and faithful rendering of passages describing Polish tradition, culture, history, geography and folklore is a good example of foreignization. Taking the reader who represents a dominant culture on a trip to an unknown peripheral culture, it seems to stand in opposition to Lefevere’s understanding how cultural capital and asymmetries between cultures infl uence the translator’s decision to adapt source culture’s exotic elements to the target reader’s horizon of expectations. Thus, her decision not to domesticate the original places Katherine Żuk-Skarszewska (nee Hadley) in a group of translators called bridgeheads by Cay Dollerup. They aim at familiarizing the target language audience with most interesting and valuable aspects of the source language culture.
Yet this assumption is undermined by Żuk-Skarszewska’s frequent use of reduction technique, which helps her to deal with the culture-specific elements she considers less important. Instead of a typical adaptation strategy, in The Brownie Scouts two radically different solutions co-exist: efforts to faithfully preserve some items and fragments characteristic of the source language culture are counterbalanced by decisions to cut other elements and passages in order to make room for what the translator judges more worthwhile. As a result, reduction becomes an integral part of the translation strategy, and it is used to control the intensity of the overall foreignizing effect. This unusual strategy becomes even more interesting to observe, as the elements the translator gives up most readily are usually those related to the child (characters, subject-matter and folklore). Paradoxically, it is children who lose most in this translation of the book about them.

PDF

Z amerykańskiej plantacji do międzywojennej Polski (czyli jak Uncle Remus został Murzynkiem Bam-Bo)

Piotr Blumczyński, Joanna Najwer

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 159-171

The article opens with the introduction of Joel Chandler Harris and his literary output, since Harris is unfamiliar to Polish readers, despite his well-established position in the American literary canon. As a so-called local colorist, Harris depicted American plantation life in 19th-century Georgia: he included many cultural and folk elements in his works. The analysis of his stories about Uncle Remus concentrates on (1) the levels of narration; (2) the linguistic complexity of the text (the stories abound in slang and dialectal expressions); (3) the form; and (4) the folklore value. The same four aspects of the analysis guide the discussion of the Polish translation of Harris’s work. The only Polish version of his stories comes from 1929 and was done by Władysława Wielińska. As the target audience of the translation were children, the ultimate aim of this analysis is to determine the profi le of the translation as a book for children, to consider it against the skopos of the source text, and to establish the extent to which the peculiar character of Uncle Remus stories was preserved.

PDF

The Cat That Walked by Himself w przekładzie Jakuba Głuszaka

Rudyard Kipling

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 172-172

PDF

Postarzałe przekłady – o niedostatkach istniejących tłumaczeń historii The Cat That Walked by Himself Rudyarda Kiplinga

Jakub Głuszak

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 192-204

The existing Polish translations of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, created in early 20th century, seem faulty nowadays, mainly due to the loss of many stylistic features of the original. One of the causes might be a generic absence: prose written in Polish at the time does not bear any similarity to Kipling’s manner. The articles points out the weaknesses of the two Polish translations of the story entitled The Cat That Walked by Himself. It concludes with the attempt at a new translation.

PDF

Adaptacje w dobie globalizacji

Michał Borodo

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 205-219

The article investigates the concept of adaptation in the context of globalization and points to considerable potential of the research on contemporary adaptations, not yet fully realized within translation studies. It provides an overview of several theoretical approaches to the adaptation of children’s literature and presents adaptation from a historical perspective. It then focuses on selected Disney adaptations of Peter Pan published in Poland at the turn of the 20th century. Of special interest in these Disney adaptations are pictures, which are identical in different editions, whereas the accompanying texts differ widely. The visual is thus ‘recycled,’ whereas the texts change in style, the depiction of characters, the use of tenses and culture specific items. The article also introduces the category of glocal adaptations, that is, Disney adaptations retold by Polish verbal masters, such as Jeremi Przybora or Jacek Kaczmarski. Though examples of cultural homogenization, these adaptations are partly indigenized by wellknown local figures and therefore may be viewed as glocal texts in which the global and the local overlap

PDF

The Owl Who Was God w przekładzie Michała Borodo

James Thurber

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 220-225

PDF

Bariery literatury dla dzieci. Recepcja książek obrazkowych we Włoszech a kwestia głośnej lektury (przełożyła Monika Woźniak)

Annalisa Sezzi

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 226-244

The article opens with the idea of the international “republic of childhood” without geographical and political borders, as conceived by Hazard and promoted after the Second World War. According to O’Sullivan (2004, 2005), this concept of childhood, and consequently of children’s literature, is idealistic and does not address real problems connected with the process of translation. As a matter of fact, the translation of a book for children from one language into another is not as easy as it might seem: frontiers and custom-houses do exist (Bertea 2000: 94). A peculiar cas limite is represented by the reception of the picture book in Italy: introduced thanks to the pioneering work of the publishing-house Emme Edizioni and of its translators, the genre was then rejected. Italy had to wait a decade to see the same and similar picture books republished, but it is still paying the price of this initial closing of the borders, which happened even though the translators paid custom-duties and import-duties. These depended not only on the prevailing child image held by the Italian society, but also on the different image of the adult, who was going to read picture books aloud and who was ready to put on a performance for the child reader (Oittinen 2000). In particular, examples of the discrepancy between the adult and the child images of the source texts and of the target texts selected from American and English picture books and their Italian translations will be investigated.

PDF

Tajemnica klusek z czerniny. O tłumaczeniu kulinariów na przykładzie trylogii o Emilu ze Smålandii

Hanna Dymel-Trzebiatowska

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 245-256

The article starts with a short overview of the fundamental role food plays in children’s literature. The motif of food can convey deep psychological as well as philosophical meanings, and Astrid Lindgren made use of it with various purposes in mind: symbolical, comical, anti-didactic or educational. The main analysis is limited to the Polish translation of the name of one dish from the old Swedish cuisine – palt – which appears in different contexts in Astrid Lindgren’s trilogy about Emil of Lönneberga.

PDF

„Tylko to, co najlepsze, jest dość dobre dla dzieci”, czyli o dylematach tłumacza literatury dziecięcej

Karolina Albińska

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 259-282

No doubt the world without Winnie the Pooh, Pippi Longstocking, Pinocchio or Moomin Trolls would be less colourful. Characters from fairy tales imperceptibly slip into young readers’ minds and tend to stay there forever. Children accept them unconditionally and do not ask questions about their descent. Children’s response to books is usually very spontaneous: a love at fi rst sight or an immediate dislike. Therefore, it is very important that they receive “the best” – not only beautiful and wise books but also book that are skillfully translated. Discussing the role of the translator of children’s literature, this article focuses on such issues as child–translator relation and translator–author dichotomy. It points to different attitudes toward the translator’s creativity and “visibility.” It examines terminological ambiguities of such notions as “adaptation,” “reconstruction,” “rewriting” and “translation.” Finally, it deals with translation challenges that arise from didactic, entertaining and aesthetic functions of children’s books.

PDF

Przegląd bibliograficzny polskich i wydanych w Polsce prac i artykułów o przekładzie literatury dziecięcej

Monika Woźniak

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 283-292

PDF

Conversation

Sztuka akompaniamentu. Z Józefem Wilkoniem rozmawia Agata Hołobut

Agata Hołobut

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 295-306

PDF

Reading matter

Erudycja, dowcip i intertekstualność w przekładzie. O polskim tłumaczeniu zbioru felietonów Umberta Eco Rakiem Gorąca wojna i populizm mediów

Paulina Matusz

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 309-319

Umberto Eco’s work within the fi eld of translation studies is not well known in Poland (for example, his Dire quasi la stessa cosa. Esperienze di traduzione is still waiting for its Polish version). Fortunately, Polish readers know and enjoy his fi ction and essays; most recently they have been offered Turning Back the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism. Its three translators, Joanna Ugniewska, Krzysztof Żaboklicki and Anna Wasilewska met the same challenges as other translators of Eco’s works: erudition, wit and intertextuality. Moreover, they had to deal with the fact that this collection of column articles is a compositional whole anchored in a specifi c political and social situation. Therefore, Eco’s typical reliance on the intelligence of his readers and his intellectual games had to be accounted for: the translators could not explain away the pleasure of arrival at the solution to Eco’s puzzles. Ugniewska, Żaboklicki and Wasilewska rely on two strategies, preferred by Eco himself: they treat translation as communication between two cultures and they try to avoid overexplaining or improving the original (though occasionally they cannot resist amplifying or glossing). Another question is the untranslatability (or partial translatability) of Eco’s linguistic puns – the Polish translators offer interesting equivalents, which are discussed in greater detail.

PDF

Od Achleitnera do Zweiga – trzy dekady literatury austriackiej w Polsce

Dorota Szczęśniak

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 320-326

The bibliographical research on Polish translations of Austrian literature and their reception was published in 2009 as Austrian Literature in Poland from 1980 to 2008. An Annotated Bibliography (Literatura austriacka w Polsce w latach 1980-2008. Bibliografia adnotowana, edited by Edward Białek and Katarzyna Nowakowska). This monumental work of over twenty Polish scholars features 266 authors on 500 pages. It tracks down translations of fi ction and non-fi ction; it lists monographs, articles and reviews (including theatre and TV adaptations and their reception). The abundance and variety of the material documents well the familiarity of the Polish audience with Austrian literary output. Relatively a small country, Austria nevertheless enjoys a great popularity in Poland. The image of Austrian literature that the bibliography uncovers is fl attering: the authors presented through translation and literary discussion are wellchosen and representative, although there are some inexplicable absences – for example, Karl Kraus – which may be caused by delay, rather than by lack of interest. Three reasons for such a thorough presentation of Austrian literature in Poland are worth mentioning: the well-recognized contribution of Austrian authors to the world literature (it is enough to mention Arthur Schnitzler, the “inventor” of the stream of consciousness; Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Georg Trakl; concrete poets such as Friedrich Achleitner, Hans Carl Artmann, Konrad Bayer and Ernst Jandl; prose writers and playwrights such as Stefan Zweig, Thomas Bernhard or Elfriede Jelinek); the common history of Austria and Poland; and the presence of excellent translators.

PDF

Lekcja Karla Dedeciusa

Markus Eberharter

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 327-332

Błażej Kaźmierczak has compiled a Karl Dedecius bibliography which lists about 800 items: books, articles, anthologies, interviews. However, Karl Dedecius’s Works. An Annotated Selected Bibliography (Dzieła Karla Dedeciusa. Wybór bibliograficzny adnotowany) is still not complete. One reason for its incompleteness is the breadth and variety of this eminent German translator’s output. Another is the meticulousness of the Polish scholar, who has not included into his bibliography some of Dedecius’s works, because – for example – their pages are not numbered. While such a scholarly pedantry might be regretted, it is worth pointing out what makes this publication so valuable: the publication has been prepared in close cooperation with the Karl Dedecius Archive in Słubice and it is the fi rst volume in the planned series Scripta Caroli Dedecii. Among the items listed by Kaźmierczyk we can fi nd Lektion der Stille, the anthology of Polish poetry in Dedecius’s translation published in Munich in 1959. To justify the claim of this book’s literary, cultural and even political importance, it is enough to point out that its bilingual edition was issued in Poland in 2003. Marek Zybura’s The Lesson of Silence in the Voices of German Critics (Lekcja ciszy w głosach krytyki niemieckiej/ Lektion der Stille. Deutsche Stimmen) collects German reviews of the anthology and presents them in his Polish translation. The German critics express their surprise at the achievements of Polish poetry, its rich dictions, universalism, “hope,” “intimate delicacy,” not least because it managed to reject totalitarian ideology. It showed in print “what in East Germany could not be even thought.” The critics expressed their concern with the fact that fourteen years after WWII they still did not know much about Polish literature. Therefore, they highly commended Dedecius’s selection and praised him as “a translator of empathy.” Interestingly, Zybura’s translation refl ects Dedecius’s strategy of domestication – his book demonstrates how literature and literary translation can contribute to the reconciliation between (the two) nations. Publikacja

PDF

Tłumaczenie jako „wojna światów”?

Magdalena Heydel

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 333-340

Translation studies and comparative literature as well as literary theory have common goals, but also common enemies. To prove his point, Edward Balcerzan entitles his collection of essays Translation as “the War of the Worlds”. On Translatology and Comparative Literature (Tłumaczenie jako „wojna światów”. W kręgu translatologii i komparatystyki) and develops his controlling metaphor through a series of engaging arguments and examples which demonstrate the ongoing struggle in the two disciplines between the need to order, classify and canonize – which he himself strongly advocates – and the tendency to blur and shift boundaries, visible in postmodernist thought, deconstruction and intertextuality. The multilingual in translation proves a risky challenge which insists on recording the traces of foreignness; the monolingual safely counters the Babel myth and offers evidence that language can be a space for the coexistence of literary worlds. Whereas it is diffi cult not to appreciate the author’s subtle and inspiring analyses, which support his well-known claim that translation is an art (elaborated over the thirty years of his work as a theorist of translation and literature, translator and poet), one cannot resist asking questions about Balcerzan’s major premise that translation is a war of the worlds. Should we no longer see translation as a creative exchange where versions engage in a dialogue, but rather as a military expedition where every subsequent version wars against all its predecessors as well as the original? If we accepted that the function of translatology, comparative literature and literary theory is to sanction unity and order, rather than transgressive abundance, who should decide on canon-makers and select a single canonical translation? Balcerzan’s controversial claims deserve attention and should be treated as an invitation to discussion – an approach which complements the two pointed out by Anthony Pym as typical of translation studies: confl ict or indifference.

PDF

Przekład biesiadny

Monika Woźniak

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 341-345

To the stock conceptualizations of translation Elżbieta Skibińska offers a delicious novelty: translation as a culinary art, and the translator as an expert chef who loves to serve foreign foods, at times replacing exotic spices with local ingredients, but always with flair and finesse. This conceptualization organizes the author’s thoughts on translation as the dynamics of intercultural relations, collected in The Translator’s Cuisine. Studies of Polish-French Translatory Relations (Kuchnia tłumacza. Studia o polsko-francuskich relacjach przekładowych). She brings into her discussion particularly Itamar Even- Zohar, Antoine Berman, Laurence Venuti, Richard Jacquemond and Marie-Hélène Catherine Torres. Her essays on Polish and French literature, translations created in the two countries and their reception profi t also from the statistical analysis: the number of specifi c translations which appeared over a chosen period. Skibińska concludes that Polish literature in France is at stand-by, eagerly used when the need for its symbolic resources appears. In Poland, French literature has been claimed by political regimes and establishments to meet their ideological needs. The analysis clearly shows Polish literature and culture as “peripheral” and the French as “semi-central”. This overview and general discussion is supported by case studies which concentrate on translation questions prompted by culinary issues: its lexicon and anthropology. Not surprisingly, Claude Lévi-Strauss and his 1965 seminal essay Le triangle culinaire make an important appearance in Skibińska’s argument.

PDF

Gwiezdny pył czy piasek w oczach?

Agnieszka Romanowska

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 346-354

In 1834 John Staples Harriot, an English offi cer and amateur linguist, published simultaneously in Paris and London a play entitled Napoléon. Drame politique et historique en cinq actes. A l’imitation de MACBETH, de Shakespear. Ideologically pro- French, the play (written in French) was rooted in the aesthetics of the Shakespearian drama and was composed at the time which naturally inspired its numerous artistic as well as historical and political tensions. Therefore, Harriot tried to justify them and secure for his work as big audiences as he could on both sides of the English Channel by means of the extensive paratextual material. Apart from the appendix which lists various historical sources, he wrote an elaborate preface addressed to his French audience, where he defended the Shakespearian drama conventions, and an afterword with his English version of the scenes borrowed directly from Macbeth, which was supposed to persuade his English audience that the French play was faithful to the original tragedy. Napoléon has never been staged, and is largely forgotten, but recently its textual manipulations have become the focus of detailed historical and literary analysis, which proves that studies of the paratext are important to translatological refl ection. Such studies of varied and extensive material (Polish, French, Czech, Italian, Spanish, Latin-American; fi ction and non-fi ction, children’s and specialized literature) were conducted by a group of Polish scholars in Wrocław and published in 2009 in a volume signifi cantly entitled The Translator’s Glossary (Przypisy tłumacza), edited by Elżbieta Skibińska. Through their detailed (therefore at times overwhelming) presentation, they defy the stereotypical notion of the gloss, especially the footnote, as “dust” (Genette), “parasite” or – less pejoratively – “censor” and “proofreader.” Instead of describing the footnote as “pedantic” or “helpless”, they emphasize its role in conveying and overcoming linguistic and cultural untranslatability. Paratext is a primary way of marking and revealing the translators’ in-betweenness as their inherent positioning.

PDF

Kłopoty komunikacyjne na moście: przekładoznawstwo, językoznawstwo kognitywne i teoria literatury

Elżbieta Tabakowska

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 355-359

In her monograph entitled A Cognitive Approach to Equivalence in Literary Translation. Illustrated by an Analysis of Images of Women in Henry James’s Portrait of a Lady and Its Polish Translation Portret damy, Monika Linke claims that the discipline of translation studies can be selected to become a bridge between linguistic and literary theories of translation. Moreover, linguists and literary scholars can profi t from translation studies as well. Such a claim that emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of research is admirable; as is the claim that cognitive linguistics should be recommended to tackle the problems and challenges of translation criticism. However, no interdisciplinary approach should constitute an excuse for shortages in the knowledge of contributing disciplines. Unfortunately, Linke’s presentation of the two theories of cognitive linguistics: Lakoff’s metaphor theory and Langacker’s theory of grammar, abounds in misunderstandings and mistakes. Moreover, the theoretical part does not prove very useful in the monograph’s second part, which offers ten case studies focusing on selected linguistic aspects of the passages chosen from Henry James’s Portrait of a Lady and its Polish version. Linke’s ambitious aim to “facilitate the application of cognitive linguistics to translation studies” has not been achieved.

PDF

W przekładzie, czyli pomiędzy językami

Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 355-363

Poets, but also writers of prose (especially poetic prose), who compose in France, Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Germanspeaking countries, Poland, Russia and the former Soviet Union, Estonia, Finland, Norway and the Netherlands “should be particularly compelling for English-language readers.” This opinion, which cannot be undermined, guides John Taylor, an American critic, writer and translator, on the journey of discovery. His sixty-three essays, articles and reviews (published between 1981 and 2008 in, e.g., the TLS, Yale Review, Antioch Review, Poetry or Absinthe) do not aspire to exhaustiveness; instead, they signpost readerly experience, but also ignorance which needs to be overcome, hopefully by means of translation. With this aim in mind, Taylor assembles his compendium entitled Into the Heart of European Poetry, where he presents authors who have earned his love and respect; those who share certain philosophical and religious premises as well as pursuits: “the exploration of the quotidian (not just facts and routines, but its very essence), the search for the ‘thing-in-itself’ (and the corresponding anxiety of being hopelessly separate from both the material world and imaginable transcendent realms), the grappling with such dichotomies as subjectivity and self-effacement, presence and absence, or negativity and affi rmation, as well as the examination of ‘origin’ and uprootedness as categories that are as ontological as they are geographical, historical, political, sociological, or cultural.” More signifi cantly, the 405 pages of this anthology celebrate particularity and multilinguality. Taylor, who “as a product of the American public school (...) had studied not a single foreign language at the time, except a bit of Latin,” has since lived in Germany, Greece and France, and has translated from the Greek and French. Therefore, his collection gives testimony to the resourcefulness of translators: those named and those (yet) unnamed. As we read, spatial “in-betweenness” transforms into linguistic “in-betweenness” – somewhere between English and the original we arrive at comprehension, however partial. “In-translation” is indeed a special case of “in-betweenness.” Publikacja

PDF

Alfa i Omega

Andrzej Pawelec

Przekładaniec, Issue 22-23 – Baśń w przekładzie, 2009, pp. 360-370

Bringing together Paul Ricoeur’s On Translation and Peeter Torop’s Total Translation seems a risky intellectual enterprise, even if its rationale and incongruities are informatively pointed out by Edward Balcerzan, when he introduces this joint publication in his foreward entitled Total Translation, or on the Power of Hyperbole. The French philosopher’s phenomenological search for the true nature of translation is accompanied by his awareness that fi nding an/the answer is not realistic. His refl ection on translation does not clarify – it complicates instead. Ricoeur, inspired by Antoine Berman and George Steiner, urges us to forsake the distinction into the translatable and the untranslatable; he chooses to consider translation as “linguistic hospitality,” which allows us to understand our identity in relation to “the other.” Ricoeur’s probing of the mystery of translation stands in opposition to the systematizing and classifying work of the Estonian semiotician. Torop’s attempt suffers from the enormity of the discussed material and lack of precision. Unfortunately, the Polish version is fl awed, so the presentation of Torop’s argument will profi t from careful re-edition or even retranslation. Importantly, however, the two thinkers on translation should be presented separately.

PDF

Files to download

Spis treści UNKOWN Strona redakcyjna UNKOWN Sprostowanie UNKOWN Spis ilustracji UNKOWN O autorach UNKOWN

Słowa kluczowe: children’s literature, fairy tale, translation, linguistic criticism, norms, translation, adaptation, Perrault, fairy tale, Januszewska, translation in a series, adaptation, Grimm, adaptation, translation of proper names, translation of titles, translation in a series, Brothers Grimm, Croatian fairy tale, translation, appropriation, chain translation, children’s literature, folklore, Konopnicka, translation, foreignization, folktale, Harris, children’s literature, translation, Kipling, stories, translation, children’s literature, adaptation, globalization, glokalization, translation, children’s literature, Disney, picture books, children’s literature in Italy, translation, reading aloud, translation of cultural elements, didacticism, Astrid Lindgren, children’s literature, adaptation, reproduction, retelling, foreignization, domestication, translation, intertextuality, pun, allusion, strategy