Article published In:
TargetVol. 9:1 (1997) ► pp.25–41
Translating a Poem, from a Linguistic Perspective
To bridge the unfortunate gap between "literature" and "language", literary critics, including critics of translation, should make use of what linguists have to say about language. Out of modern linguistic theories, Cognitive Linguistics seems particularly promising. On the basis of Robert Frost's poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay " and one of its Polish translations, the author demonstrates how intuitive interpretations and assessments are corroborated by a strictly linguistic analysis, which is carried out in the cognitivist vein. In particular, the interplay of two grammatical oppositions—between perfective and imperfective verb forms and between countable and mass nouns—is shown to be a means of direct symbolisation of meaning. Translation losses are then discussed—some unavoidable in view of systematic discrepancies between linguistic conventions, others a compromise imposed by the demands of versification.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The Poem: Interpretations by Critics
- 3.The Poem: Poetic Convention
- 4.The Poem: Grammatical Convention
- 5.The Poem: Grammatical Categories
- 6.The Poem: A Polish Translation
- 7.Conclusions
-
Notes
-
References
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Cited by (2)
Cited by 2 other publications
Calfoglou, Christine
2014.
Iconic Motivation in Translation: Where Non-Fiction Meets Poetry?. In
Literary Translation,
► pp. 99 ff.
Janda, Laura Alexis
2006.
Cognitive Linguistics.
SSRN Electronic Journal
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