Kłopoty komunikacyjne na moście: przekładoznawstwo, językoznawstwo kognitywne i teoria literatury
Traffc Problems on the Bridge: Translation Studies, Cognitive Linguistics and Literary Criticism

Summary/Abstract: 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 profit 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.

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