Polish-Italian contrastive analysis and translation of specialist lexis on the example of medical terminology

Abstract

The paper fits within the strand of Polish-Italian contrastive studies focused on exploring issues related to translation based on a linguistic analysis of specialist lexis. The object of the analysis is the medical terms by means of which both languages express ‘inflammation’: for Polish analytical and semantically clear terms (zapalenie płuc, zapalenie jamy ustnej) the corresponding Italian terms are characterised by lower semantic clarity and a synthetic (one-word) structure using the suffix ‑ite (polmonite, stomatite). The specificity of the terms being compared means that the difficulties with translating them are only limited to the translation into Italian and concern the choice of the terminological or descriptive equivalents. For instance, zapalenie płuc can be rendered using the specialist term, i.e. polmonite, or using a descriptive equivalent, i.e. infiammazione/flogosi polmonare and/or infiammazione dei/ai polmoni. Analysis of particular examples of translations leads to the conclusion that the choice of one of the potentially possible descriptive equivalents may be either the result of the translator’s conscious and deliberate choice (the use of e.g. explicitation) or the result of language interference (a calque of the Polish structure). Given the difficulties associated with the unambiguous determination whether the solution used in the translation is an explicitation or the result of interference, doubts of methodological nature arise with regard to studies on the so-called translation universals (which include explicitation).