The Reconstruction of Lisa Tolgfors’ Idiolect in the English Translation of Zygmunt Miłoszewski’s "Bezcenny"
The Reconstruction of Lisa Tolgfors’ Idiolect in the English Translation of Zygmunt Miłoszewski’s "Bezcenny"

Summary/Abstract: This paper addresses the problem of translating nonstandard language in contemporary popular fiction. The discussion is based on an adventure novel written by Zygmunt Miłoszewski (Bezcenny) and its English translation produced by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Priceless). Idiolect of Lisa Tolgfors – one of the protagonists in the story – poses a major challenge to the translator as the character’s language plays a number of roles in the text and, in addition to being properly recognised, its functions ought to be adequately reproduced in the target text. To analyse the extent to which the translator has succeeded in reconstructing the idiolect, its different functions in the source text have been determined. The comparison of the nonstandard language that is formed in the ST and recreated in the TT has revealed that even though certain functions have beensuccessfully recreated, the idiolect is – to a large extent – normalised, the consequence of which is the aesthetic impoverishment that can, additionally, contribute to a different perception of the character by Polish and English readers of that novel.

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