To, co się wymknęło: dekonstrukcja amalgamatów pojęciowych i nowe amalgamaty w wierszu Chirurgiczna precyzja Stanisława Barańczaka
That Which Has Slipped Away: Deconstruction of Conceptual Blends and New Blends in “Chirurgiczna Precyzja” by Stanisław Barańczak

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents a new reading of Barańczak’s poem “Chirurgiczna precyzja.” Instead of focusing on the widely recognized self-reflexive reading, the poem is interpreted as an illustration of the poet’s programme of language critique. In contrast to Author’s earlier poems addressing the language of propaganda of Socialist Poland, this poem is concerned with the USA military discourse. I argue that the titular phrase chirurgicznaprecyzja refers not to the Polish expression but to English surgical precision and two other English coinages: surgical strike and precision strike. My analysis employs Conceptual Integration Theory to show that Barańczak’s poem deconstructs English conceptual blends, for which the input spaces are the concepts of ‘war’ and ‘surgery,’ and offers new conceptual blends stemming from corresponding input spaces in Polish.

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