What’s the gain in living in-between? Olga Tokarczuk’s czułość ‘tenderness’ in translation

Abstract

Ethnolinguistic inquiry makes ample use of insights proposed in translation studies: one of them is to consider the original and its translations as a coherent body of texts. However, if in most cases the original–translation relationship is viewed in terms of the inevitable loss that occurs in the process, this study proposes to search for semantic gains in the original–translation configuration, in the sense that the translation complements or develops the original. Three categories of such gain are proposed: (1) extension of the original’s semantics (which is effected through profiling as a parameter of cognitive salience), (2) retrieval of the multiple viewpoints present in the original, and (3) enhancement of the original’s meaning (effected through the “loudness” of the speaking “voice”). The three categories of gain are illustrated here with the various ways in which the concept of tenderness is profiled in the English, French, Portuguese, and Russian translations of Olga Tokarczuk’s Nobel lecture.