Conceptualizing translation in Poland in 2018

Abstract

This paper aims to provide an account of our survey on the semiotic nature of the concept of translation among young Polish native speakers. The methodological strategy adopted is a con­structive replication of Sandra Halverson’s survey conducted in Norway in 1997. We claim, in our main hypothesis (stemming from a theoretical background of prototype semantics, which we used for measuring our object), that the concept of translation is not uniform and includes different semiotic types of translation, some of which are perceived as central (prototypical), and others as peripheral. According to our additional hypothesis, young Polish native speakers have a broad notion of translation (encompassing a wide range of intralingual and intersemiotic translations), even broader than their Norwegian counterparts, more than twenty years ago. Our data has been collected in 2018 using a seven-item questionnaire (seven different text pairs) with a seven-value scale from 103 subjects. While the main hypothesis has been confirmed, the additional hypothesis was rejected, with Polish respondents conceiving the concept of translation more narrowly. The methodological format of a replication produced an ambivalent effect: on the one hand, it yielded positive incentive, and on the other hand, it became our principal hindrance.