Nić Ariadny / le fil d’Ariane (literally: Ariadne’s Thread) – interlingual equivalence of idiomatic expressions relating to Greek mythology

Abstract

The paper discusses the problem of interlingual equivalence of Polish and French idiomatic expressions including mythological terms. At first, it seems to be important to recognize the formal and semantic structure of these expressions. Next, in a comprehensive study of equivalence it is necessary to consider several factors such as linguistic competence of the sender and the receiver, their knowledge of reality, different parameters of communication and the role of cultural determinants of translation. The author tries to show benefits of using certain concepts of cognitive semantics to describe the range of equivalence. For example, equivalence on the level of profiling reveals significant differences between idiomatic expressions considered to be analogical (syzyfowa praca/rocher de Sisyphe).
The analysis shows that the meaning of idioms may express specific experience and a different interpretation of events specific to different cultures. Thus, a common source of idioms does not always imply equivalence of their composition and global sense. On the other hand, the comparison of methods of imaging idiomatic meaning reveals some differences at the conceptual level. The examples are grouped according to the different levels of interlingual equivalence: equivalents with a high degree of formal, lexical, semantic similarity and similar motivation (the similar figurative imagery), equivalents with some formal and/or lexical and/or semantic differences and differentmotivation (the different figurative imagery),idiomatic expressions relating to Greek mythology and their equivalents (correspondents)  motivated by other conceptual domains.