Cluster Equivalence, General Language, Language for Specific Purposes
385and uncalibrated. Thus language cannot guarantee the presence of the
universal, external points of reference, tertia comparationis, to ensure that
their users can communicate and understand messages addressed to them
in the same way or interpret messages translated from other languages in
precisely the same way the Source Language speakers intended.
Translation and, for that matter, any comparison of distinct language
systems, require a common point of reference which would guarantee that
the comparison and its results are reliable in providing the systems with a
common frame of reference. In terms of the Cognitive Linguistic approach
the common frame of reference involves a universal human psycho-
physiological set up and cognitive abilities and mechanisms shared by all
human beings, such as categorization, ability to compare and identify
similarities and differences, metaphorisation, inferencing, etc. The differences
on the other hand involve syntactic patterns and semantic categorization
principles, specific to a given language system.
As proposed before, languages are characterized by what can be called
a displacement of senses (Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk 1996, 1996), which
is rooted in the absence of one-to-one semantic correspondences, replaced
by a mechanism of what I label reconceptualization of meanings. The
displacement of senses, which will be further exemplified in the present
paper by parallel English-Polish materials, accompanied by meaning
reconceptualization processes takes place when users of the same language
communicate in this language or when a Source Language text is
translated into a Target Language. For instance, the English verbal concept
cook is categorized into a number of co-hyponymic senses both in English
and in other TLs. And yet, while say in the sentence Mary is cooking
dinner the Polish equivalent Marysia gotuje obiad, contains a prototypical
lexicographic equivalent cook – gotowaü, in the sentence Marysia gotuje
wodĊ, the verb cook is replaced with the verbal hyponymic concept of
boiling in English. The superordinate verb say go in English, with no
Polish equivalent on the same categorization level, has to be rendered into
Polish as one of the two possible co-hyponyms iĞü or jechaü. They, in
turn, attract a range of equivalents in English such as walk in the case of
the former, and the lexicalized drive, ride, fly, swim, etc., or a
prepositional NP phrase with the superordinate go by (bus, tram, plane)
for the latter. In further displacement turns, each one of them corresponds
to a number of similar or distinct lexical items and patterns in Polish. This
displacement of sense processes epitomizes the subsequent movement
away from the original meaning as each of the turns and each of the new
lexicalized items in either of the two languages introduces a meaning
displaced with reference to the original, not only with its own core