Translating a Worldview

The book offers a view of the translation of a literary text as a reconstruction of the non-standard linguistic worldview embedded in that text, and emerging from the standard, conventional worldview present in a given language and culture. This translation strategy (and the ensuing detailed decisions) is explained via the metaphor of two icebergs, representing the source and target texts as iceberg tips, resting on the vast foundations of the source and target languages and cultures. This thesis is illustrated by analyses of English translations of two poems by Wisawa Szymborska, the 1996 Nobel Prize winner: Rozmowa z kamieniem (Conversation with a Stone/Rock) and Chmury (Clouds).