The Significance of Scots and Its Accents in Contemporary Scottish Literature, and Its Reflection in Translation

Abstract

The aim of this article is to address the question why so many significant contemporary Scottish writers do not enjoy the same reknown outside the English-speaking world, specifically in Poland, as they do at home. Are they marginalised because of the linguistic forms they adopt in their works, which pose additional hurdles to any prospective translator, or are there other issues involved? Why is Irvine Welsh, for example, translated1 while the founding father of the new generation of Scottish writers, Tom Leonard, or the Booker Prize Winner James Kelman are completely unknown to non-English speaking Polish readers?2 The same can be said for one of the leading Scottish playwrights and poets of the day, Liz Lochhead. Although Scottish writing is flourishing in a variety of genres and forms, I have chosen only to present here these four writers: first, because they are of the same generation and have had a great influence on subsequent Scottish writing, second, because through the adoption of their specific choice of linguistic form they transfer a common message, that is both highly political and national, as well as being characteristically social. All pose translation problems, although the fact that Welsh has been translated into Polish, while the other three have not, points on the one hand, to certain translation solutions that can be found more easily than others, while on the other, to a contemporary readership that appears to want and is ready to accept both the topics touched upon in his novels as well as the language Welsh consistently uses in his writing. The publishing market, of course, is always ready to meet demands and knows what will supposedly sell well. Also the fact that I have chosen those very two poems: ‘right inuff’ by Tom Leonard and ‘Kidspoem/Bairnsang’ by Liz Lochhead as examples3, is hardly accidental. Both, though written over a timespan of probably about twenty years (no exact information has been provided concerning when exactly the poems were written)4 point not only to a common