Abstract
The article is an attempt at accounting for the apparent differences in meaning between the Polish word umysł and its English dictionary equivalent. A case study is conducted on a selection of examples from Czesław Miłosz’s famous Zniewolony Umysł and its English translation. The article identifies points of difference and investigates similarities between the stated lexical items. The text takes on various perspectives to describe the linguistic medium used by Miłosz to conduct a dialogue with the Western readership about Communism and ranges from linguistics and culture to philosophy and history.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
This and all further quotes from Polish works are translated by the author of this article.
- 2.
It is interesting to note that the quoted list of authors are in two separate groups which I provisionally call ‘futurologists’ and ‘sentimentalists’. Their belonging to one group instead of the other is conditioned by their first-hand experience of extreme traumas, or apparent lack of it, e.g., war, great personal loss, harsh totalitarian reality and the like. Both ‘futurologists’ and ‘sentimentalists’ escape the ‘here’ and the ‘present’—the former to the future, the latter to the past. However, they do choose to do so for very different reasons. The common ground seems to be that all of them are disposed of essential linguistic means for expressing their cause within the present—in an attempt to discover the exotic world behind the Iron Curtain, the futurologists turn to dystopias, whereas the sentimentalists, by virtue of their being literally eye witnesses to the dramatic events, cannot but turn to the past—a linguistic, personal and probably moral haven.
- 3.
Originally titled Rodzinna Europa.
- 4.
Courage is not a precise term to use in the context of this discussion. I owe the following illuminating example to Professor Anna Wierzbicka (Australian National University). During one of her lectures at Warsaw University, Wierzbicka discussed the concept of courage in its cross-linguistic context and in trying to illustrate the term’s non-equivalence to the Polish odwaga, which is usually chosen to render courage in Polish, she used the following example: some years back the Australian farmers had to deal with severe droughts that left the majority of their livestock dead. Attending a Sunday Mass, Wierzbicka was struck by the way the sermon was delivered—it was courage for the farmers for which the priest was praying, something very unlikely to be used in a similar situation in the Polish context. Instead, a Pole is rather likely to pray for siła—strength or some similar concept, but it definitely would not be courage. What this example reveals is the essentially different perception of the word in its cross-linguistic perspective—it simply has a completely dissimilar set of associations ascribed to it. It also tells a lot about the Polish national character. Polish cultural and historical heritage has made us value the romantically reckless odwaga much more than is the case within the Anglo-Saxon culture. For a detailed discussion of courage see A. Wierzbicka, Semantics, Culture and Cognition. Universal Human Concepts in Culture-Specific Configurations. (1992: 201–222).
- 5.
Discussing the two versions of the work, I will now use only the publication dates of the books I was working on.
References
Barańczak, S. 1990. Przedmowa do szwedzkiego i amerykańskiego wydania. In Czesław Miłosz, Zdobycie Władzy, 5–7. Olsztyn: Wydawnictwo Pojezierze.
Descartes, R. 1641/1996. Meditations on first philosophy. Trans. E. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross. In From modernism to postmodernism: An anthology, ed. L. E. Cahoone, 29–40. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Goldsmith, O. 1764/2010. The traveller. Charleston: Nabu Press.
Herbert, Z. and C. Miłosz. 2006. Korespondencja. Warszawa: Fundacja Zeszytów Literackich.
MacLeod, R. 1975. The persistent problems of psychology. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
Miłosz, C. 1990/1991. Rok Myśliwego. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak.
Miłosz, C. 1968/1988. Native realm. Trans. C. S. Leech. London: Penguin Books.
Miłosz, C. 1953/2001. The captive mind. Trans. J. Zielonko. London: Penguin Classics.
Miłosz, C. 1953/1989. Zniewolony umysł. Kraków: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza.
Nida, E. 1969/1982. The theory and practice of translation. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Ryle, G. 1949. The concept of mind. London: Hutchinson’s University Library.
Shakespeare, W. 1600/2003. Hamlet. London: Yale University Press.
Shakespeare, W. 1595/2003. Romeo and Juliet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sinyavski, A. 1982. The trial begins and social realism. Berkley: University of California Press.
Wierzbicka, A. 2001. What did Jesus mean? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wierzbicka, A. 1997. Understanding cultures through their key words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wierzbicka, A. 1992. Semantics, culture and cognition. Universal human concepts in culture-specific configurations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Young, E. 1742-1745/2010. The complaint: Or, night-thoughts on life, death, & immortality. Gale ECCO, Print Editions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Biegajło, B. (2013). Target Culture Ethno-Philosophy in the Source Culture: Czesław Miłosz’s Zniewolony Umysł and its English Translation. In: Piątkowska, K., Kościałkowska-Okońska, E. (eds) Correspondences and Contrasts in Foreign Language Pedagogy and Translation Studies. Second Language Learning and Teaching. Springer, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00161-6_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00161-6_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-00160-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-00161-6
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)