Provoke or encourage improvements? On semantic prosody in English-to-Polish translation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Originally defined as an aura of meaning associated with words used together in a particular context, semantic prosody is a complex linguistic concept, and there is no agreement among researchers as to its precise definition and level of operationalization (word, phrase, text or discourse). Although there have been some studies on semantic prosody in translation, their findings are rather inconclusive and limited to individual words and phrases. Also, there has been no research on semantic prosody conducted so far in Polish-English translation. Intending to fill in this gap, this paper, grounded in corpus linguistics, showcases the role of semantic prosody in a selected English-to-Polish translation found in the Paralela corpus. More precisely, we present and reflect upon a peculiar translation error resulting from a mismatched semantic prosody and discuss its wider implications on translation quality, translation reception and translation teaching. Thus, apart from presenting new empirical findings, the study also provides an opportunity for reflection on the application of the concept of semantic prosody in descriptive and explanatory research on translation as well as in translator training.