Chapter Eighteen
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semantic content but also with a range of (new, item-specific) connotational,
interactional, affective, etc., attributes of meaning. Such displacement shifts
though are not exclusively conditioned by the translator’s intended
strategies, they are rather insinuated or imposed by the Target Language
lexical or, in other cases, grammatical systems.
The process of displacement makes evident the phenomenon of the
absence of full synonymity in the same language and the impossibility of
full equivalence across different language systems and underlies all re-
conceptualization cycles in language. In other words, it accounts for the
incommensurability of the language systems in Lakoff’s sense of the term.
The process of the displacement of senses is clearly seen when one
item in a SL has a cluster of equivalent items in a TL, out of which all
have their equivalents in the SL, semantically displaced when contrasted
with the original term. This phenomenon will be exemplified by the form
motor, which bears semantic and formal similarity in Polish and English,
both in general language and in the language of restricted domains,
particularly mechanics and law, however is not devoid of cross – linguistic
differences, particularly with respect to categorisation extensions generating
meaning displacement.
Re-conceptualization as a theory of translation
In the case of a message translated from a Source to a Target Language,
the product of translation, as was shown above, is a result of a number of
cycles of re-conceptualization of the Source (Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk
2010). A construal of a scene (Langacker 1987), structured by relevant
language conventions, i.e., language grammar, as well as cultural
preferences of the relevant language community and, last but not least,
particular contextual pressures as well as individual language users’
dispositions and preferences, all contribute to different scene construal as
identified in the Source and Target language texts. Any syntactic variant of
the TL text, any putatively synonymic word or phrase in the same
language, which the translator considers possible equivalents, brings about
a new re-conceptualization cycle, responsible for particular imagery
effects with the text receiver.
Paradox between reflexive meanings and semantic
approximation of meaning sharing in discourse
Although on closer scrutiny each word matters in an utterance and brings
with it a new set of core sense and implications, as we tried to argue in the