Regionalisms in translation on the basis of translations from German into Polish

Abstract

The article discusses problems related to translating regionalisms (dialects, extradialectal regionalisms, standards of national varieties in pluricentric languages). Pluricentric languages are languages with more than one national standard variety, e.g. English or German. Dialectal expressions and extradialectal regionalisms must be translated into the standard target language. Translating into a dialect is not an option, since Bavarian is not to become Silesian. A slightly different approach should be adopted when rendering from and into standard national languages. The names of Austrian institutions should be different in Polish from the names of German or Swiss institutions. In case of translation from the Austrian variety into Polish one must analyze words whose meaning in this variety is to be different from those in the German variety, i.e. false friends. When translating documents addressed to Austria in general or Austrian institutions it is recommended that one should write in accordance with standards adopted there. This is due to the fact that both using Austrian terminology and avoiding typical Germanisms are welcome.