Translating nature terminology

285 Pages·2011·1.718 MB·English

by  Wojciech Kasprzak

Translating Nature Terminology

Translating Nature Terminology
By
Wojciech Kasprzak
Translating Nature Terminology, by Wojciech Kasprzak
This book first published 2011
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © 2011 by Wojciech Kasprzak
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-4438-2850-5, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-2850-5
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Tables.............................................................................................vii
Acknowledgements..................................................................................viii
Notes to the Reader....................................................................................ix
Introduction................................................................................................xi
Chapter One.................................................................................................1
Terminological and Cognitive Approaches to the Categorisation of Nature
1.1. A non-terminological approach to terminology..............................1
1.2. The cognitive approach...................................................................5
1.3. Translation within a theoretical framework..................................12
Chapter Two..............................................................................................26
The Categorisation of Nature in Polish and English Specialist Texts
2.1. Categorisation versus translation..................................................26
2.2. The intra- and interlingual translation of woodland habitats.........30
2.3. The intra- and interlingual translation of non-forest habitats........42
2.4. The intra- and interlingual translation of categories at the level
of species........................................................................................56
2.5. Folk and specialist categorisation – their mutual influence..........64
2.6. Recapitulation...............................................................................73
Chapter Three............................................................................................74
The Categorisat ion of Nature in Polish and English Texts
for Non-specialists
3.1. Perspective................................................................................... 74
3.2. The environmental and cultural background.................................75
3.3. Verbalised categories – dimensions of imagery............................79
3.4. Verbalised categories in context.................................................117
3.5. Recapitulation.............................................................................125
vi Table of Contents
Chapter Four............................................................................................126
A Distorted View of the World: A Mistranslated Categorisation of Nature
4.1. Categories of translation errors – an introduction.......................126
4.2. The distorted view of the world in Hejwowski’s classification
of translation errors......................................................................130
4.3. Imagery – errors..........................................................................216
4.4. Recapitulation.............................................................................225
Conclusion...............................................................................................226
References...............................................................................................229
Translation studies and linguistics.....................................................229
Nature terminology: analytical studies, reference materials
and dictionaries............................................................................232
Nature terminology: analysed primary sources..................................237
Index........................................................................................................243
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Incongruities between up-to-date terminology and entries for the
term torfowisko in five dictionaries.............................................52
Table 2: Comparison of names for bird families in two sources...............62
Table 3: Definitions of types of mires in three general English
dictionaries ..................................................................................67
Table 4: English equivalents of types of mires in three Polish-English
dictionaries...................................................................................69
Table 5: Polish equivalents of types of mires in three English-Polish
dictionaries...................................................................................70
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Professor Aniela Korzeniowska for starting me
off on this project, reading the manuscript in parts and as a whole and
making helpful comments and corrections.
I would also like to express my gratitude to Professor El(cid:298)bieta
Tabakowska, Professor Krzysztof Hejwowski and Professor Jan Rusiecki,
whose critical observations have helped this work to take its ultimate form.
The responsibility for any remaining shortcomings is entirely mine.
My thanks also go to Dr Zbigniew Mo(cid:298)ejko for his kind advice and
encouragement.
I acknowledge the forbearance shown by my wife, Sylwia, during the
many long hours I spent at the computer and the role played by my
children, Staszka and Zdzi(cid:286), as providers of some much needed healthy
distraction from my work.
NOTES TO THE READER
1. The following abbreviations are used for the sake of convenience:
Publications
OALD Cowie, A P, ed. 1989. Oxford advanced learner’s
dictionary. Oxford: OUP.
CED Sinclair, John, ed. 1995. Collins Cobuild English
dictionary. London: HarperCollins Publishers.
Webster’s Gove, Babcock Philip, ed. 1993. Webster’s third new
international dictionary. Cologne: Konemann.
BBC Drive Publications Limited, eds. 1981. Book of the
British countryside. Great Britain:DPL.
BM Blamey, Marjorie, Richard Fitter, and Alastair Fitter.
2003. Wild flowers ofBritain and Ireland. London: A &
C Black.
JAK Anioł-Kwiatkowska, Jadwiga. 2003. Wieloj(cid:266)zyczny
słownik florystyczny. Wrocław: Wyd. Uniwersytetu
Wrocławskiego.
KCz Czekierda, Krzysztof. 1992. Słownik ekologiczny polsko-
angielski. Warszawa: Terra Sana.
Czekierda, Krzysztof. 1995. Słownik ekologiczny
angielsko-polski. Białystok: Wyd. Ekonomia i
(cid:285)rodowisko.
Other than publications

BAP Biodiversity Action Plan
CORINE Coordination of Information on the Environment; the
international programme owing to which the PHYSIS
(not an acronym, to my knowledge) database of natural
habitats has been created.
EUNIS European University Information Systems (used below
to identify one of the databases of natural habitats)
NBN National Biodiversity Network
NVC National Vegetation Classification
x Notes to the Reader
2. The analysed sources are often bilingual publications, where the original
text may be placed a) on the same page as its translation b) on the
neighbouring page c) a number of pages later in the book. In the first case,
the page number is given only once, rather than after the quote and its
target language version. The same applies to one other source: Kossak
(2001), which is not a bilingual publication but page numbers exactly
correspond in the Polish and English editions.
3. The original texts are quoted with all the errors that they contain.
Corrections are suggested only for those mistakes that distort the view of
the natural world. The remaining ones, no matter how serious, are largely
ignored.