SEER, Vol.85,No. i, Januay2007 Reviews Ivcenko, Anatolij and Wolke, Sonja. Hornjoserbski frazeologiskislownik. Obersorbisches phraseologisches Worterbuch. VerxneluZickj frazeologiceski slovar'. Ludowe nakladnistwo Domowina, Bautzen, 2004. 572 pp. Bibliography. Indexes. ?24.90. READY-MADE utterancesor 'locutionstoutes faites',as de Saussurecalled them, lie somewhere in the no man's land between the word and the sentence. They are learned as unanalysable elements, which cannot be constructed by the rules of grammar.In practice, they are most conveniently dealt with as units of the vocabulary and so are recorded in phraseologicaldictionaries,but not all languages are equally well supplied with tools of this sort. This Upper Sorbian phraseological dictionary, which contains 3,600 entries excerpted from nineteenth- and twentieth-centuryliterature,is the firstof its kind. Each entry is based on a keywordin the locution in question, linksto other words in it being made by cross-references.Each Sorbianlocution is provided with Sorbian, German and Russian explanatory definitions. For example, the literal sense of 'boza ruckaje jeho zajala' is 'God's hand caught him'. The explanatory sense is 'he suffered a stroke (or heart-attack)',as is made clear by the Sorbian, German and Russian definitionsin the entry on p. 292. Similarly,the literalsense of 'zloty rjapme' is 'to have a golden spine', but it is explained as 'to be decent, genuine' (p. 285). Sometimes there are available equivalentready-madeformsin German and/or Russian, in which case these are provided, in addition to the explanatorydefinitions.The Sorbian equivalent of English 'as thin as a rake',for example, is 'suchi kaz deska' 'as thin as a plank'. The dictionary gives the corresponding German 'duirrwie ein Besenstiel', 'as thin as a broom-stick'and the Russian 'xudoj kak scepka','as thin as a splinter',in addition to the explanatorydefinition 'verythin' (p. 53). The authors say that their dictionaryis intended to be not normative, but descriptive.It thereforeincludeslocutionsfromvariousstylisticlevels and does not discriminate against expressions calqued from German (p. 7). Of these there are certainly a good few, but the predominant impression is of the specific nature of the Sorbian locutions, compromised occasionally by a Slavonic echo in their Russian equivalents. For example, in several entries including the sequence 'bely dzeen',this is found to correspond to Russian 'belyj den", such as Sorbian 'srjedzbeleho dnja', the equivalent of Russian 'sred' bela dnja', 'in broad daylight' and German 'am helllichten Tage'. However, the authorsdo not aspireto discoverthe originsof their entriesand the German calques are not even identified. The cross-referencessometimes leave something to be desired. One might expect 'boza ruckaje zajala nekoho', for example, in addition to the entry under rucka (p. 292), to be cross-referencedunder boz'iand zajec, but in vain. There are, however, German and Russian indexes, which is a useful feature. The practical value of this dictionary is self-evident. Not only philologists but everyday users of Sorbian too will wish to refer to it regularly.From a theoreticalpoint of view the separatestatusin the vocabularyof a component i36 SEER, 85, I, 2007 consisting of ready-made sequences with real meanings divergingfrom ostensible meanings may be uncertain. First and foremost they belong, under the appropriate keywords, in a comprehensive defining dictionary. But of the practicaladvantagesof having them, in addition, in a separatephraseological dictionary, there is no doubt. Anatolij lv'cenko and Sonja Wolke may be congratulated on their remarkable achievement. The book's production matches up to the Domowina Press'susual high standards. HerlfordCollege, Oxford GERALDSTONE Wilczek, Piotr. (Mis)translation and(Mis)interpretation: PolishLiterature intheContext of Cross-Cultural Communication. Literary and Cultural Theory, 22. Peter Lang, Frankfurtam Main, 2005. I64 pp. Notes. Bibliography.SFR5o.oo: ?34.00: f22.30: $37.95 (paperback). PIOTR WILCZEK, Associate Professorof Polish Literatureat the University of Silesia (Poland),here presentsa collection of essayson a varietyof topicsbearing on the relationshipbetween Polish and Anglophone literatureand culture from the sixteenth century to the present. Some essaysare presented here for the first time; others appeared in earlier versions between I998 and 2004. Wilczek draws together a number of areas of study:the poetry of the Polish and EnglishRenaissance, Reformationstudies,translationtheory and cultural studies. He even ventures sideways into issues of musical performance practice , where questions of archaism, 'authenticity'and aesthetics are also hotly debated. Despite...