Between V and T address: The translation of English address terms into Polish in serial storytelling (the case of Doc)
Agata Rozumko
University of Białystok, PolandAgata Rozumko is an Assistant Professor in the Centre for Linguistic Studies at the University of Bialystok, Poland. Her current research interests are in the areas of modality, evidentiality, discourse markers, relational work, and translation, with a particular focus on the translation of discourse markers and address terms.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7718-3253
Abstract
This study is concerned with the translation of address terms in serial storytelling. It adopts the interpersonal pragmatics perspective on address terms and treats them as elements of fictional charactersʼ relational work, i.e. the work they do to negotiate their relationships in interaction. More specifically, this paper focuses on the renditions of the form Doc as used by detective Jane Rizzoli to address doctor Maura Isles in the Polish translation of Tess Gerritsenʼs Rizzoli and Isles crime fiction series. Since English and Polish have different address systems (N-V-T and T-V, respectively) and there are no informal terms equivalent to Doc to address a female doctor in Polish, its renditions depend entirely on the translatorʼs ability to understand and recreate the charactersʼ relational interaction. The Polish translators of the Rizzoli and Isles series showed different degrees of attention to the interactional coherence of the translation, which is why some of its parts contain inappropriate and impolite address forms. Overall, the relational work
done by the characters has largely been domesticated in the translation and adapted to Polish speech patterns and rules of politeness. Consequently, shifts in the charactersʼ address mode take place at different moments in the translation than they do in the original version, and the form Doc is rendered in a variety of ways (both formal and informal) depending on the stage of the charactersʼ relational interaction.
Keywords:
address term, Doc, translation, crime fiction series, relational work, English, PolishReferences
Primary sources
Gerritsen, T. 2001. The Surgeon. New York: Ballantine Books. [Pol. transl. J. Żebrowski, Chirurg. Warszawa: Albatros, 2017]
Gerritsen, T. 2002. The Apprentice. London/Toronto/Sydney/Auckland/Johannesburg: Bantam Books. [Pol. transl. Z. Halka. Skalpel. Albatros: Warszawa, electronic edition 2019]
Gerritsen, T. 2003. The Sinner. New York: Ballantine Books. [Pol. transl. J. Żebrowski. Grzesznik. Warszawa: Albatros, electronic edition 2015]
Gerritsen, T. 2004. Body Double. London/Toronto/Sydney/Auckland/Johannesburg: Bantam Books. [Pol. transl. J. Żebrowski. Sobowtór. Warszawa: Albatros, electronic edition 2011]
Gerritsen, T. 2005. Vanish. London/Toronto/Sydney/Auckland/Johannesburg: Bantam Books. [Pol. transl. Z. Halka, Autopsja. Warszawa: Albatros, electronic edition 2019].
Gerritsen, T. 2006. The Mephisto Club. London/Toronto/Sydney/Auckland/Johannesburg: Bantam Books. [Pol. transl. J. Żebrowski, Klub Mefista. Warszawa: Albatros, electronic edition 2012]
Gerritsen, T. 2008. The Keepsake. New York: Ballantine Books. [Pol. transl. Z. Kościuk. Mumia. Warszawa: Albatros, 2017]
Gerritsen, T. 2010. The Killing Place. London/Toronto/Sydney/Auckland/Johannesburg: Bantam Books. [Pol. transl. K. Obłucki. Dolina umarłych. Warszawa: Albatros, 2019]
Gerritsen, T. 2011. The Silent Girl. London/Toronto/Sydney/Auckland/Johannesburg: Bantam Books. [Pol. transl. A. Jęczmyk. Milcząca dziewczyna. Warszawa: Albatros, 2017]
Gerritsen, T. 2012. Last to Die. London: Bantam Books. [Pol. transl. J. Żebrowski. Ostatni, który umrze. 2013. Warszawa: Albatros, electronic edition 2019]
Gerritsen, T. 2014. Die Again. London/Toronto/Sydney/Auckland/Johannesburg: Bantam Books. [Pol. transl. J. Żebrowski. Umrzeć po raz drugi. Warszawa: Albatros, 2017]
Gerritsen, T. 2017. I Know a Secret. London/Toronto/Sydney/Auckland/Johannesburg: Bantam Books. [Pol. transl. A. Szulc. Sekret, którego nie zdradzę. Warszawa: Albatros, 2017]
Gerritsen, T. 2022. Listen to Me. New York: Ballantine Books. [Pol. transl. J. Żebrowski, Wysłuchaj mnie. Warszawa: Albatros, 2022]
Secondary sources
Bednarek, M. 2017. The role of dialogue in fiction. In: M. A. Locher & A. H. Jucker (eds.), The Pragmatics of Fiction, 129-158. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Braun, F. 1988. Terms of Address: Problems of Patterns and Usage in Various Languages and Cultures. Berlin/New York/Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter.
Brehmer, B. 2015. Was können Parallelkorpora für die Ausbildung von Übersetzern leisten? Eine Fallstudie zur Übersetzung von Anredeformen im Polnischen. In: C. Badstübner-Kizik, Z. Fišer & R. Hauck (eds.), Übersetzung als Kulturvermittlung. Translatorisches Handeln, neue Strategien, didaktische Innovation, 57-81. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Brown, R. & Gilman, A. 1960. The pronouns of power and solidarity. In: T. A. Sebeok (ed.), Style in Language, 253-276. Cambridge (MA) The M.I.T. Press.
Brown, R. & Ford, M. 1961. Address in American English. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 62 (2): 375-385.
Bruns, H. & S. Kranich. 2022. Terms of address: A contrastive investigation of ongoing changes in British, American and Indian English and in German. Contrastive Pragmatics 3: 111-143.
Bucholtz, M. & Hall, K. 2005. Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7 (4-5): 585-614.
Clyne, M. G., Warren, J. & Norrby, C. 2009. Language and Human Relations: Styles of Address in Contemporary Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cook, M. 2019. N-V-T, a framework for the analysis of social dynamics in address pronouns. In: P. Bouissac (ed.), The Social Dynamics of Pronominal Systems: A Comparative Approach, 17-34. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Culpeper, J. 2001. Language and Characterisation: People in Plays and Other Texts. Harlow: Pearson.
Culpeper, J. & Fernandez-Quintanilla, C. 2017. Fictional characterisation. In:M. A. Locher & A. H. Jucker (eds.), The Pragmatics of Fiction, 93-128. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Dynel, M. 2017. “Is there a tumour in your humour?”: On misunderstanding and miscommunication in conversational humour. In: R. Giora & M. Haugh (eds.), Doing Pragmatics Interculturally: Cognitive, Philosophical, and Sociopragmatic Perspectives, 55-78. Berlin/New York: Mouton De Gruyter.
Hołobut, A. & Woźniak, M. 2017. Historia na ekranie. Gatunek filmowy a przekład audiowizualny. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
Hopkinson, A. & Seago, K. 2018. Crime fiction. In: K. Washbourne & B. Van Wyke (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Literary Translation, 220-239. London: Routledge.
Huszcza, R. 2005. Politeness in Poland: From ʻtitlemaniaʼ to grammaticalised honorifics. In: L. Hickey & M. Stewart (eds.), Politeness in Europe, 218-233. Clevedon/Buffalo/Toronto: Multilingual Matters.
Jucker, A. H. 2015. Pragmatics of fiction: Literary uses of uh and um. Journal of Pragmatics 86: 63-67.
Jucker, A. H. 2016. Politeness in eighteenth-century drama: a discursive approach. Journal Politeness Research 12 (1): 95-115.
Kizelbach, U. 2017. (Im)politeness in fiction. In: M. A. Locher & A. H. Jucker (eds.), Pragmatics of Fiction, 425-454. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Kluge, B. 2019. On translating pronominal and nominal terms of address: State of the art and future directions. In: B. Kluge & M. I. Moyna (eds.), It’s Not All About ‘You’: New Perspectives on Address Research, 47-74. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Lakoff, R. T. 2005. Civility and its discontents: Or, getting in your face. In: R. T. Lakoff & S. Ide (eds.), Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness, 23-43. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Leech, G. 1999. The distribution and function of vocatives in American and British English conversation. In: H. Hasselgård & S. Oksefiell (eds.), Studies in Honour of Stig Johansson, 107-118. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Locher, M. A. 2008. Relational work, politeness, and identity construction. In: G. Antos & E. Ventola (eds.), Handbook of Interpersonal Communication, 509-540. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Locher, M. A., 2020. Moments of relational work in English fan translations of Korean TV drama. Journal of Pragmatics 170: 139-155.
Locher, M. A. & Watts, R. J. 2005. Politeness theory and relational work. Journal of Politeness Research 1: 9-33.
Locher, M. A. & Graham, S. L., 2010. Introduction to interpersonal pragmatics. In: M. A. Locher & S. L. Graham (eds.), Interpersonal Pragmatics, 1-13. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Locher, M. A. & Jucker, A. H., 2017. Introducing Pragmatics of Fiction: Approaches, trends and developments. In: Locher, M. A. & A. H. Jucker (eds.), Pragmatics of Fiction, 1-24. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Marcjanik, M. 2002. Proces przewartościowania polskiej grzeczności językowej. In: G. Szpila (ed.), Język trzeciego tysiąclecia II. Vol. I Nowe oblicza komunikacji we współczesnej polszczyźnie, 391-396. Kraków: Tertium.
Marcjanik, M. 2009. Mówimy uprzejmie. Poradnik językowego savoir-vivre’u. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
Marcjanik, M. 2020. Słownik językowego savoir-vivre’u. 2nd edition. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.
Mayer, R. 2020. The crime fiction series. In: J. Allan, J. Gulddal, S. King, & A. Pepper (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Crime Fiction, 31-38. London: Routledge.
McCaw, N. 2020. Adaptations. In: J. Allan, J. Gulddal, S. King & A. Pepper (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Crime Fiction, 48-56. London: Routledge.
Merlini Barbaresi, L. 2002. Text linguistics and literary translation. In: A. Riccardi (ed.), Translation Studies: Perspectives on an Emerging Discipline, 120-132. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Messerli, T. C., 2017. Participation structure in fictional discourse: Authors, scriptwriters, audiences and characters. In: M. A. Locher & A. H. Jucker (eds.), Pragmatics of Fiction, 25-54. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Mühleisen, S. 2003. Interpreting social roles and interpersonal relations: A cross-cultural perspective on address forms in film translation. Studies in Communication Sciences 3(2): 135-162.
Murray, A. 2002. A New Look at Address in American English: The Rules Have Changed. Names: A Journal of Onomastics 50 (1). 43-61.
Reiber, R. 2016. Zur Übersetzung von Anredeformen in Untertiteln und Synchronisationen. Ein Vergleich am Beispiel von The Nanny. [Unpublished Masterʼs thesis]. Universität Hildesheim.
Rozumko, A. 2023. Interpersonal relationships in translation: Address terms in the English and Polish translations of Henning Mankellʼs The Dogs of Riga. Journal of Pragmatics 206: 19-28.
Rusiecki, J. 2008. Appellatives and verbal forms of address. Linguistica Silesiana 29: 29-42.
Seago, K. & Lei, V. 2020. Translation. In: J. Allan, J. Gulddal, S. King & A. Pepper (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Crime Fiction, 85-93. London: Routledge.
Sinner, C. 2011. Relaciones sociales en la traducción de la oralidad fingida: Formas y fórmulas de tratamiento como dificultad y problema en la traducción. In: S. Roiss, C. F. Gil, M. Á. Recio Ariza, B. Santana López, P. Zimmermann González & I. Holl (eds.),
En las vertientes de la traducción e interpretación del/al alemán, 223-243. Berlin: Frank & Timme.
Sojda, S. 2012. Adresat dziecięcy w tłumaczeniach Winnie-the-Pooh A. A. Milneʼa na język polski i słowacki. Przekłady Literatur Słowiańskich 3 (1): 149-163.
Szarkowska, A. 2006. Formy adresatywne w przekładzie z języka angielskiego na polski. Rocznik Przekładoznawczy. Studia nad teorią, praktyką i dydaktyką przekładu 2: 211-221.
Szarkowska, A. 2013. Forms of Address in Polish-English Subtitling. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Ton, T. N. L., 2019. A literature review of address studies from pragmatic and sociolinguistic perspectives. In: Kluge, B. & M. I. Moyna (eds.), It’s Not All About ‘You’: New Perspectives on Address Research, 23-46. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Woźniak, M. 2008. Jak rozmawiać z kosmitami? Kilka uwag o tłumaczeniu lektorskim telewizyjnych filmów fantastycznonaukowych. Przekładaniec 20: 50-88.
University of Białystok, Poland
Agata Rozumko is an Assistant Professor in the Centre for Linguistic Studies at the University of Bialystok, Poland. Her current research interests are in the areas of modality, evidentiality, discourse markers, relational work, and translation, with a particular focus on the translation of discourse markers and address terms.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7718-3253
