(Pseudo)Polonisms in Joseph Conrad’s Amy Foster and Prince Roman and Their Polish Translations
(Pseudo)Polonisms in Joseph Conrad’s Amy Foster and Prince Roman and Their Polish Translations

Summary/Abstract: Joseph Conrad’s language has been subject to various analyses regarding its uniquenessstemming from the writer’s trilingualism. Scholars have traced diverse influences from theFrench and Polish languages in this writer’s artistic output. Nevertheless, the effects of suchinfluences are not thoroughly discussed. This article attempts to take a critical look at theoutcomes deriving from the appearance of phrases which may be classified as Polonisms orpseudo-Polonisms in two short stories Amy Foster and Prince Roman and their translationsinto Polish. In the former story, untypical phrasings which may have been calqued fromPolish serve to emphasise the alienation of the character of Yanko, in the latter, expressionswhich are generally common for both English and Polish highlight both the distinctivenessof Polish culture and its affinity with the European cultural setting. Unfortunately, in thetranslations into the language from which such linguistic or cultural concepts originated, sucheffects are much less distinctive.

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