Obrazowo mówiąc.

Author(s): Bartłomiej Maliszewski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2017

Artykuł jest poświęcony komunikatom wizualno-werbalnym na okładkach czasopism publicystycznych. Bogaty w znaczenia komunikat, który łączy elementy ikoniczne i słowne, pozwala analizować relację pomiędzy obydwoma komponentami, a także prześledzić wielopoziomowy charakter odczytywanych treści. W artykule przedstawiono przykłady ikonizacji przekazów werbalnych i ukazano wpływ obrazu na sposób odczytywania słów, a także wpływ języka na sposób interpretowania znaków ikonicznych. // The article deals with visual and verbal messages placed on the covers of weekly magazines. Rich in meanings, the message which combines the iconic and verbal elements makes it possible to analyse the relation between those two components as well as to examine multiple levels of the contents involved. The article presents examples of the iconicity of verbal messages, shows the influence of image on the way words are read, as well as the impact of language on the manner iconic signs are interpreted.

„Coming out” czyli „wychodzenie z szafy”:

Author(s): Anna Wyrwa / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2017

Artykuł przedstawia analizę porównawczą językowych obrazów świata „wyłaniających” się z polskich i angielskich tekstów prasowych relacjonujących coming out polskiego księdza. Wykorzystany tu model językowego obrazu świata wg Jamesa Underhilla (np. 2011) zakłada wielowymiarowość tego zjawiska, obejmującego nie tylko zakodowany w systemie danego języka sposób postrzegania i konceptualizowania rzeczywistości, ale także wymiary osobisty, ideologiczny i związany z perspektywą mówiącego. Analiza tekstów na ww. temat w odniesieniu do tych właśnie wymiarów pozwala określić, na ile wyłaniające się z nich obrazy są do siebie podobne, a na ile różne. Zebrane artykuły prasowe traktują o tym samym wydarzeniu, ale ponieważ powstały w dwóch różnych kontekstach kulturowych, należy spodziewać się odmiennych oglądów sytuacji. Analiza porównawcza rzuca światło na istotę tych różnic oraz prowadzi do refleksji nad ich uwarunkowaniami. // The article presents an analysis of linguistic worldviews emerging from the Polish and English press articles reporting on the coming out of a Polish priest. James Underhill’s (2012) model of the linguistic worldview used for the analysis assumes multidimensionality of this phenomenon that embraces not only the dimensions of world-perceiving and world-conceiving encoded in language systems but also the dimensions of personal world, cultural mindset and the perspective of the speaker. The analysis of the press articles in relation to these dimensions reveals similarities and differences between the linguistic worldviews emerging from the articles. The newspaper articles collected for the analysis deal with the same event but because they have been created in two different cultural contexts, a different view of the world should be expected. The comparative analysis sheds light on the nature of these differences and reflects on their circumstances.

Komunikacja a Teoria Modeli Relacyjnych

Author(s): Jerzy Świątek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2017

Artykuł podejmuje kwestię roli modeli poznawczych czy też ram doświadczeniowych wkomunikacji, a szczególnie w dyskursie perswazyjnym. Jedną z takich ram są modele relacyjneopisujące uniwersalne mechanizmy podejmowania decyzji społecznych. Ponieważ modelerelacyjne odnoszą się do ostatecznych kryteriów podejmowania wszelkich decyzji, są one alboimplicytnie przyjmowane przez uczestników aktów komunikacyjnych albo też są negocjowane.Jeżeli zaś nie są one negocjowane, a uczestnicy aktu komunikacyjnego prowadzą dyskurs wramach różnych modeli relacyjnych to perswazja zasadniczo nie jest możliwa. // The article focuses on experiential frames of reference and cognitive models that serve as abasis for communication. In particular, the author points out that the so called relational modelsare an indispensable frame of reference in persuasive discourse. For persuasive discourse to besuccessful the participants must either implicitly assume a shared model or negotiate it. Thenegotiation, usually in the form of metacommunication, is a necessary prerequisite for positiveor expected outcomes. Otherwise, if participants fail to negotiate a model, they actually talk atcross-purposes, sometimes even without realizing it.

O stylu (stylach) komentarzy internetowych

Author(s): Elżbieta Laskowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2017

Przyjmując za punkt wyjścia istnienie stylów i gatunków tekstu, opisanych przez A. Awdiejewai G. Habrajską (2006), autorka próbuje określić, jakie cechy stylistyczne (ewentualnie teżgatunkowe) mają komentarze internetowe na przykładzie komentarzy zamieszczanych naportalu Onet.pl. Obserwacja wykazuje, że badane teksty mają przede wszystkim potocznewykładniki językowe, ale nie brak im też wykładników publicystycznych. Można zatem mówićo stylu mieszanym. // Assuming text styles and genres as described in Awdiejew and Habrajska (2006), in this paperI try to determine which stylistic (genre) features can be proposed for internet commentaries,basing on those placed in Onet.pl. The study shows that the analyzed texts have mostlytypological indicators of colloquial style, but they also possess typological indicators ofjournalistic genres. We can thus propose the existence of mixed style.

Tłumaczenie sądowe a ocena wiarygodności zeznań świadka

Author(s): Katarzyna Liber / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2017

W niniejszym artykule przedstawiono psychologiczne i prawnicze kryteria oceny wiarygodności zeznań świadków w kontekście pracy tłumacza w środowisku sądowym, w szczególności w odniesieniu do wierności tłumaczenia i ewentualnego wpływu transformacji na ocenę dowodu osobowego przez sąd. Pomimo znaczącego postępu technologii wykorzystywanych w kryminalistyce zeznania nadal są istotną wskazówką dowodowo-wykrywczą i mają bezpośredni wpływ na orzeczenia sądów. Przesłuchanie jako czynność procesowa przeprowadzana zarówno w postępowaniach karnych, jak i cywilnych, jest złożonym aktem komunikacji interpersonalnej, w trakcie którego kształtowane jest subiektywne przekonanie sądu co do szczerości i prawdziwości zeznań, zaś obecność tłumacza jako pośrednika pomiędzy przesłuchującym a przesłuchiwanym dodatkowo czynność tę komplikuje. Określenie wartości zeznania zależy od wielu czynników, których tłumacz powinien być świadomy, podobnie jak doniosłości swej roli, jaką odgrywa, uczestnicząc w postępowaniu sądowym. W oparciu o dotychczasową wiedzę i przeprowadzone wywiady z polskimi tłumaczami przysięgłymi, sformułowano przesłanki do przeprowadzenia pogłębionych badań na temat wpływu strategii tłumacza na ocenę świadka i złożonych przez niego zeznań. // The present article presents the psychological and legal criteria for the assessment of the reliability of witness testimony in the context of the work of an interpreter in a court environment, specifically in relation to the accuracy of the interpretation and the possible impact of the transformation on the assessment of the personal evidence by the court. Despite the considerable technological progress in criminology, testimony is still a significant evidentiary - investigative indicator and has a direct impact on the court rulings. Questioning as a procedural activity carried out in criminal as well as in civil proceedings, is a comprehensive act of interpersonal communication, in the course of which the subjective conviction of the court as to the honesty and accuracy of the testimony is shaped, and the presence of an interpreter as an intermediary between the questioning party and the party being questioned additionally complicates this action. Indicating the values of the testimony depends on many factors, which the interpreter needs to be aware of, similarly as the importance of the role they play by participating in court proceedings. Based on the knowledge to date, and interviews conducted with Polish sworn interpreters, prerequisites were formed to conduct indepth studies concerning the impact of translator’s strategy on the evaluation of the witness and testimonies submitted by them.

W poszukiwaniu jednostki mowy.

Author(s): Jolanta Antas,Małgorzata Majewska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1&2/2016

Celem tego artykułu jest rewizja takich pojęć jak zdanie, wypowiedź, akt mowy, zdarzenie komunikacyjne w obliczu nowych potrzeb badawczych i szerszego rozumienia języka – języka uwikłanego w złożony proces komunikowania, a zatem jako narzędzia służącego nie tyle do produkcji znaczeń, ile do ich przekazywania i interpersonalnego współtworzenia. Z takiej perspektywy język jawi się nie jako system, ale jako jedno z narzędzi symbolizowania znaczeń i intencjonalnych przesłań, które służą do wytwarzania i regulowania więzi społecznych. Zamiarem autorek jest zatem taka redefinicja tradycyjnych dla językoznawstwa i pragmatyki mowy pojęć, aby stały się one dobrym narzędziem dla opisu typu zdarzenia komunikacyjnego i wytworzonej jednostkowej interakcji. Chcemy też usunąć istniejące zamieszanie terminologiczne, tzn. wyeliminować używanie tych samych pojęć dla określenia innych zjawisk mownych lub innych poziomów mowy, a w rezultacie zhierarchizować te pojęcia oraz wytyczyć im przejrzyste ramy definicyjne. A wszystko to po to, by w tych ramach dała się zawrzeć także perspektywa odbiorcy jako czynnego uczestnika i współtwórcy komunikacyjnego zdarzenia, wypowiedzi, a nawet zdania. // The article aims at a revision of such terms as sentence, utterance, speech act, or communication event in view of new research needs and a broader understanding of language as involved in a complex communication process and thus considered a tool of not only generating meanings, but also conveying them in interpersonal collaboration. From such a perspective language appears to be not only a system, but also one of the tools of symbolizing meanings and intentional acts which serve the purpose of generating and regulating social bonds. The purpose of the authors is thus to define traditional linguistic concepts in order to makes them good tools to describe the types of communication events and the ensuing individual interactions. We also intend to resolve the existing terminological confusion, i.e. to eliminate the employment of the same terms to describe different speech events and different levels of speech, and as a result to place the concepts in a hierarchy and assign them clear definitions. All this is undertaken in order to fit in the perspective of the observer as an active participant and contributor to the communication event, utterance or even a sentence.

Podstawowe problemy językoznawstwa antropologicznego

Author(s): Piotr P. Chruszczewski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1&2/2016

“Wysiłek autora został skupiony na połączeniu zgłębiania języka ze zgłębianiem innych gałęziantropologii, bowiem język jest najlepiej rozumiany gdy nawyki, obyczaje, instytucje, filozofia– esencja myśli urzeczywistnionej w języku – są najlepiej poznane. Badacz języka powinienzajmować się ludźmi, którzy mówią tym językiem; to właśnie było celem napisania tej książki[pracy – P.C.], zawierającej wiele odniesień do innych gałęzi antropologii”. Powell ([1877]1880: vi) // “It has been the effort of the author to connect the study of language with the study of other branches of anthropology, for a language is best understood when the habits, customs,institutions, philosophy – the subject-matter of thought embodied in the language – are best known. The student of language should be a student of the people who speak the language; and to this end the book [paper – P.C.] has been prepared, with many hints and suggestions relating to other branches of anthropology.” Powell ([1877] 1880: vi)

Faces of Contemporary Cognitivism

Author(s): Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk / Language(s): English Issue: 1&2/2016

The paper focuses on a comparison of the concepts of language and language studies as presented in contemporary cognitivism and expounded by Ronald Langacker, George Lakoff and Charles Fillmore in their versions of Cognitive Grammar on the one hand and by Noam Chomsky in his Minimalism Program on the other. The theoretical concepts and hypotheses that are discussed relate to the concept of modelling and the locus of linguistic meaning, place of intentionality in the philosophy of language and linguistic theory, the nature of language and cognitive abilities as well as the proper theme of linguistic inquiry. The status of public(shared) language and the position of meaning and semantic theories in linguistic description are dealt with in the next part. Problems evolving from those diverse views on language such as verifiability on the one hand and the methodological constraint on the other conclude the discussion. Referred to are also the generative as opposed to cognitive models of language acquisition and, consequently, diverse methodologies as used by scholars of these persuasions.Conclusions show those aspects of Chomsky’s generativism and Cognitive Linguistics that seem incompatible and those that can be perceived as converging.

Dzieje innych miłości, czyli o nieprzekładalności bezwzględnej w tekstach o wartościach w sztuce

Author(s): Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1&2/2016

Autorka stawia pytanie o nieprzekładalność „absolutną”, czyli o to, co nie dociera do obcojęzycznego odbiorcy translacji. Na podstawie albumu o zabytkach kultury polskiej przechowywanych w Bibliotece Narodowej w Warszawie, w wersji angielskiej tłumaczonej z polskiego oryginału i mogącej służyć za wzór znakomitego przekładu, ukazuje, jak teksty odnoszące się do sztuki narodowej mogą zawierać takie pułapki dla tłumacza. Mimo doskonałego wykonania przekładu, u docelowego odbiorcy z innego kręgu kulturowego tłumaczenie nie wywołuje tych samych reakcji na specyficzne, inherentne wartości tekstu pierwotnego, doznawanych przez czytelników należących do społeczności kulturowej tekstu wyjściowego. // The author asks whether there is such a thing as “absolute” untranslatability. In other words, do situations occur in which the full translatability of a text is prevented no matter how good the translation and how skilful the translator? She examines the English translation of a volume on national heirlooms, items of Polish heritage preserved in the National Library in Warsaw. This translation may be regarded as a benchmark for quality, yet it turns out that recipients not belonging to the Polish cultural milieu will not be able to respond emotionally in the same way as natives to the cultural values inherent in the original text.

Strategia kompensacji w tłumaczeniu kultury

Author(s): Maria Piotrowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1&2/2016

Orientacja przekładoznawcza na zjawiska kulturowe prowadzi do rozważań nad strategią kompensacji w ich tłumaczeniu. Po przedstawieniu zwrotu kulturowego, jaki nastąpił w badaniach nad przekładem w latach 1980. oraz definicji kluczowych pojęć ‘strategii’ i ‘kompensacji’, omówione są przykłady kilku kulturemów amerykańskich i jednego cypryjskiego w celu uchwycenia istoty kompensacji i poszerzenia świadomości zjawisk kulturowych w przekładzie. Analizę przykładów wieńczy konstatacja, iż tłumacz jest interpretatorem presupozycji kulturowych, odniesień, konotacji i znaczeń bazujących na różnorodnym spectrum wiedzy pragmatycznej, a właściwe ich rozumienie opiera się na filozofii kompromisu przekładowego i wynikającej z niego strategii kompensacji. // The cultural orientation in translation leads to the consideration of the compensation strategy in translating culture. After presenting the cultural turn which took place in translation studies in the 1980s as well as definitions of the key terms of strategy and compensation, examples of several American and one Cypriot cultureme are discussed in order to grasp the nature of compensation and broaden the awareness of the role of culture in translation. The analysis of examples concludes with a claim that the translator is an interpreter of cultural presuppositions, references, connotations and meanings based on a diverse spectrum of pragmatic knowledge, and the appropriate understanding of the former emerges from the philosophy of translation compromise and the ensuing strategy of compensation.

Towards a comprehensive theory of culturally constructed humour

Author(s): Sajjad Kianbakht / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

In the present research, we discuss Humour Studies within Linguistics, focusing mainly on linguistic theories of humour including the Semantic Script Theory of Humour (SSTH; Raskin 1985), and the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH; Attardo 1994, 2017b). The study demonstrates different types of cultural conceptualisations (Sharifian 2017a, 2017b) that the interlocutors draw upon, such as cultural categories, cultural metaphors, and cultural schemas to create humour, and we argue that the General Theory of Verbal Humour does not account for culturally-constructed verbal humour. Hence, we argue that it is necessary to fill this gap in the most prevailing theory of verbal humour, the General Theory of Verbal Humour, by demonstrating how cultural conceptualisations must be considered in identifying and analysing instantiations of humour, in moving towards a comprehensive theory of culturally constructed humour.

The visual representations of a Biblical proverb and its modifications in the Internet space

Author(s): Hrisztalina Hrisztova-Gotthardt,Melita Aleksa Varga,Anna T. Litovkina,Katalin Vargha / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

Proverbs have never been considered sacrosanct; on the contrary, they have frequently been used as satirical, ironic or humorous comments on a given situation. In the last few decades, they have been perverted and parodied so extensively that their variations have been sometimes heard more often than their original forms. Naturally, the most well-known Biblical proverbs are very frequently transformed and modified in various languages. “He who digs a pit for others falls into it himself” is one of such widespread proverbs originating from the Bible. This proverb exists in almost fifty European languages, including Croatian, English, German, Hungarian and Russian. Below, we would like to demonstrate the occurrence and popularity of this proverb, as well as its transformations in the five languages. The major source for this study has been the Internet and some previously constructed Internet corpora. In the course of the present study we are going to focus primarily on the visual representation of the Biblical proverb in question and its (humorous) modifications as well on the interaction between text and image.

Comparing English and Russian humour perceptions through statistical signature analysis

Author(s): Faisal L. Kadri,Ekaterina N. Zakharenko / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

Signature analysis is a statistical technique introduced in the 1940s in order to identify groups of statistical measures to identify aircraft from radar reflections. Other applications include particle identification in nuclear physics and dark matter location in astrophysics. Humour appreciation, or funniness scores, are empirical measures of perceived humour. Two questionnaires, one in English, the other its translation into Russian, were made available online. Each had 96 humorous sentences or jokes. The sentences were classified empirically according to four age trends. Signatures of the four classes of sentences are calculated from participant scores in six age groups. The original scores will be available to researchers for verification and further investigation from either author. The use of signature analysis in this work involves the comparison of a sentence profile with the signature of its class or category; if the profile meets a strict criterion of errors then it can be described as a best predictor of its class. One notable finding from signature analysis is the existence of offsets: displacement of a sentence profile from its type signature. We suggest that offset values are direct measures of humorousness without reference to context. In this analysis, the profiles of the Russian and English sentences are compared to each other and their graphical differences are interpreted including offsets.

Book review

Author(s): Aleksandar Takovski / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

Essential attributes of a comprehensive theory of laughter

Author(s): John Charles Simon / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

In principle, humour studies would be significantly enhanced by a comprehensive understanding of laughter and amusement. Members of various scientific disciplines, however, often approach laughter from distinct, rather narrow, experimental or observational paradigms, and rarely make direct challenges to broader theories that are generally accepted as incomplete, but also difficult to falsify. Evaluating, comparing, and ranking such theories is possible, however, using the concept of explanatory scope. To better establish the range of questions a comprehensive theory of laughter must resolve, I reviewed 525 peer-reviewed journal articles and recorded a total of 852 topics addressed by the authors. These were categorized into 29 themes. The list provided should allow scholars to more effectively assess the strengths and weaknesses of existing laughter theories and help guide future endeavours to more fully understand this important behaviour.

Detachment of empathy:

Author(s): Ron Aharoni / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

This is a sequel to a previous paper (Aharoni 2018), in which I suggested that the game of humour is played not between two meanings of the same carrier, but between meaning and its carrier: the two are detached from each other by some means. In the present paper I want to substantiate this thesis by some evidence, the main one being referred to in the title of the paper. It is that two well-known theories of humour, both presently neglected to a large extent, are based on this mechanism. In both the carrier of meaning is not words, but actions. In fact, one of the main messages of the paper is that often the carrier of meaning in jokes, and in humour in general, are actions. I will try to show that both Bergson’s “automatic behaviour” theory and the superiority (or derision) theory are based on detachment of empathy, namely of identification. Since, as I will try to show, empathy and identification are man’s (and even animals’) main tool in deciphering meanings of actions, this results in detaching actions from their meanings.

Conceptual integration theory and British humour:

Author(s): Joanna Jabłońska-Hood / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

Conceptual integration theory (henceforth CIT), also known as conceptual blending, was devised by Fauconnier and Turner (2002) as a model for meaning construction and interpretation. It is based on the notion of a mental space, which originated in Fauconnier's early research (1998). Mental spaces are structures that constitute information pertaining to a particular concept (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 40). Interestingly, mental spaces can be linked together and blended so as to produce a novel quality. In this manner, conceptual integration serves as a theoretical model that throws light on creativity in language use. In my paper, I will apply CIT to British humour in order to use its multiway blending together with its dynamic, online running of the blended contents for the purpose of comedy elucidation. It is crucial to observe that British humour is a complex phenomenon which pertains to many different levels of interpretation, i.e. a linguistic, cultural or discursive. CIT possesses a well-suited cognitive apparatus which can encompass the complexity of British humour with all its layers. The primary goal of the article is to analyse a selected scene from a sitcom entitled Miranda in order to show the validity of the theory in respect of humour studies. In particular, I will undertake to demonstrate that CIT, with a special emphasis on its principles such as compression and the emergent structure of the blend can deal with many processes that accumulate within British humour and result in laughter. Simultaneously, I will try to demonstrate that frame-shifting, as proposed by Coulson (2015: pp. 167-190), can be of help to CIT in explaining humour.

Metapragmatic stereotypes and humour:

Author(s): Vasia Tsami / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

The present study concentrates on the potential of mass culture texts to impose specific metapragmatic stereotypes (Agha 2007) through humour on the wider audience. Metapragmatic stereotypes constitute speakers’ internalized models of how language should or should not be used; such models guide speakers’ own language use and enable them to make evaluations about their own language behaviour or that of others. In this context, I explore the dominant metapragmatic stereotypes for the interpretation and perception of humorous mass culture texts. To this end, I analyse a humorous Greek TV advertisement of a telecommunications company. Drawing upon Coupland’s (2007) conceptualization of style and the General Theory of Verbal Humour (Attardo 2001), I intend to show that humour reflects, sustains, and reproduces the dominant metapragmatic stereotypes of linguistic homogenisation and monolingualism (Blommaert & Rampton 2011). Then, I explore how the audience perceives the representation of stylistic choices in mass culture texts and, more specifically, in the analysed advertisement. My informants were 96 students of the last two grades of a Greek elementary school. The recipients’ responses show that their metapragmatic stereotypes are aligned with the dominant ones: they approach stylistic choices as strictly-defined systems used in specific social contexts and they expect the alignment of TV fictional characters with linguistic homogeneity. My findings suggest that humour stigmatises specific styles, and that the audience perceive the respective (and reinforced through humour) metapragmatic stereotypes as guidelines for “correct” stylistic use. Furthermore, it seems that through humour, such stereotypes usually go unnoticed in mass culture texts and may even become naturalised, as they are framed in a “trivial” and “non-serious” manner.

Audiovisual translation of puns in animated films:

Author(s): Elena Aleksandrova / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

The translation of the pun is one of the most challenging issues for translators and interpreters. Sometimes, puns, especially those containing realia, are considered to be untranslatable. Most translation strategies and procedures offered in previous findings for the translation of realia-based puns are not appropriate for audiovisual translations of animated films, for either dubbing or subtitling, because of the specificity of the target audience, and the genre. The problem of choosing the most relevant strategy and procedures for realia-based puns is underexplored. To narrow the gap, metamodern and semiotic approaches are applied to the translation of puns. In accordance with the semiotic approach, a pun is considered as a type of language game based on the use of the asymmetry of the form, and the content of the sign. The “Quasi-translation” strategy discussed in this paper reflects the metamodern attitude towards the game, whereby “game change” is one of the basic postulates. “Quasi-translation” involves three types of translation procedures: quasi-localisation, quasi-globalisation, and quasi-glocalisation. The term “quasi-glocalisation” is also used to denote the general strategy for the translation of audiovisual works containing realia-based puns, which involves: 1) oscillation between the need to adapt the translation to the target culture, and the need to preserve the culturally-marked components of the original; and 2) the reproduction of “atmosphere” (the common reality of the perceiver and the perceived). This insight can be used by audiovisual translator-practitioners, and university teachers in the course of translation theory and practice.

Book review

Author(s): Anastasiya Fiadotava / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019