Sharing, getting and giving

Perspectivization of love scenes in

English-Polish translation
Andrzej Łyda, University of Silesia
Martin Amis:
Let me count the times
Vernon made love to his wife three and a half times a week, and this was all right.
For some reason, making love always averaged out that way. Normally - though by no
means invariably - they made love every second night. On the other hand Vernon
had been known to make love to his wife seven nights running; for the next seven
nights they would not make love - or perhaps they would once, in which case they
would make love the following week only twice but four times the week after that
- or perhaps only three times, in which case they would make love four times the
next week but only twice the week after that - or perhaps only once. And so on.
Vernon didn't know why, but making love always averaged out that way; it seemed
invariable. Occasionally - and was it any wonder? - Vernon found himself wishing
that the week contained only six days, or as many as eight, to render these
calculations (which were always blandly corroborative in spirit) easier to deal with.
It was, without exception, Vernon himself who initiated their conjugal acts. His wife
responded every time with the same bashful alacrity. Oral foreplay was by no
means unknown between them. On average - and again it always averaged out like
this, and again Vernon was always the unsmiling ring master - fellatio was
performed by Vernon's wife every 'third coupling, or 60.8333 times a year, or
1.1698717 times a week. Vernon performed cunnilingus rather less often: every
fourth coupling, on average, or 45.625 times a year, or .8774038 times a week. It
would also be a mistake to think that this was the extent of their variations.
Vernon sodomized his wife twice a year, for instance - on his birthday, which
seemed fair enough, but also, ironically (or so he thought), on hers. He put it
down to the expensive nights out they always had on these occasions, and more
particularly to the effects of champagne.
 Language and reality
A communicative event described by a sentence containing a verb of saying is only one
of two levels necessarily present whenever such a sentence is produced.

On the lower level there takes place an act of communication between the
interactants in an extralinguistic reality, while on the higher level the sender
reports on the situation by using a verbum dicendi of his/her choice. For example,

I love you, Lotte”,

(1) Craig confessed his love to Lotte.
(2) Craig assured Lotte of his love for her, or even
(3) Craig murmured something about love,
and so on…
Lexical means and translation

The New York Times Magazine of 28 September 2003:

One day the governor's social secretary called the head of the
association to inform her that the governor's security cameras --
no one even knew Davis had them -- had caught the two men . . .
well, Claudia doesn't know how to say what they were doing.
''Fornicating,'' she finally says. ''They were fornicating, let's just say,
for the governor.'' She stops. ''I don't want to give you the wrong
impression. They were very nice people. They went out to walk
their dogs all the time. I guess they were trying to make a point to
the governor.''
 Scenes-and-frames
The cardinal characteristics of the basic English verba dicendi say, talk, tell and speak is that
they do “perspectivize the sender and they can denote the receiver” ( Dirven et al 1982: 39).

However, they differ in the extent to which they can perspectivize the message and the receiver.
talk, which in terms of its syntactic potential , resembles make love.

Talk can occur in several patterns, each of which can entail a change in the representation of the linguistic
action: a) talk; b) talk to; c) talk with.
In pattern a) what is highlighted is only the role of the speaker. I talked for a while.
In pattern b) the role of the receiver is prototypically represented as a role enforced upon the
receiver by the sender:
I tried to talk to him but he never said a word.
However, the context may contribute to a different interpretation of the linguistic action, namely, a
two-directional linguistic interaction, with a more active role of the other interactor:
I was talking to him. He said he might be interested in the enterprise.

Finally, it is only in pattern c) that the receiver can be presented as an explicit interactor..

Dirven observes, however, that in the corpus of 217 talk to/with constructions, the explicit
interactor reading it amounts only to 6.5%. A contextual analysis of talk with shows that it is
used mainly to emphatically stress the value of the interactor’s contribution and to presuppose that the
other participant was not a mere receptor but an active participant in a collective reciprocal activity
Encoding experience

Thematic meaning, entailed by the order of words, is particularly

instructive in this respect, especially for translators: dissimilar
word orders give rise to sentences, which, although truth-
conditionally equivalent, differ for example in terms of their
implicatures.

Still another source of problems with the categorization of our

experience seems to be related to what is known as
perspectivization
 Perspectivization
The notion of perspectivization originates from Fillmore’s ‘Scenes-and-Frames Semantics’,
(1977:33), in which a scene is defined as “any coherent segment of human beliefs, actions,
experiences or imagings” and refers to a representation of a scene from a particular point of
view. An example of a scene is the linguistic action scene, which includes the sender, the
receiver, the message, the channel, the code and the linguistic action itself in a context., to use
Jakobson’s model of communication.

Each of these categories can be approached from different angles in the scene, e.g. the message can
be framed as
a direct enunciation (She said to me: “I am a police officer”),
an indirect enunciation (She told me that she was a police officer)
and synthesis (She told me what her job was.) [Dirven et al. 1982:4].

Scenes can be framed and the framing can be accomplished syntactically, although it should be
remembered that the number of options available is not enormous in most languages. More
often the syntactic options are combined with lexical items, which determine the semantic
characteristics of these items.
For example, a transitive verb like say may take on the syntactic functions of subject and object.
With other verbs, for example speak, it is the message that is incorporated into the scene and
highlighted either as
a message proper in He spoke the truth
or a topic in He spoke about the conference.
 Linguistic Scene
By studying all possible syntactic and lexical options it would be possible to draw a
picture of how a particular scene is perspectivized by the verb and its valency.
Participants

SENDER Information transfer RECEIVER

Transmission object Transmission devices

MESSAGE CHANNEL
CONVEYOR CODE
TOPIC
EVALUATION

Situational features
PURPOSE MANNER VIEWPOINT CIRCUMSTANCES RESULT
PLACE TIME
Talk perspectivizing the scene:
where is the receptor?

TALK

TALK TO
Uni-directional action or
Two-directional action (if the context allows)

TALK WITH
Explicit two-directional activity
Reciprocity

The specificity of reciprocal situations consists in the fact that more

than one entity is performing the same type of action and as a
result each entity plays two roles in the event. Such a collective
action of two or more entities can be marked in many languages in
a variety of ways but almost always the particular mode of
representation is dependent on the verbal constituent of a
sentence in which it occurs .
Reciprocity

Kemmer (1993) uses the term reciprocity to denote a situation in

which two participants bear “mirror image” thematic relations to
one another, i.e. one participant relates to a second just as the
second relates to the first” and where each of the two
participants and is an Agent and a Patient/Goal. The term situation
refers not only to actions but also processes and relations.
Reciprocity defined (1)

Manning (1997:44) “actions and processes in which two or more

people, groups, or things do the same thing to each other,
have a relationship, or are linked because they are
participating jointly in an action or event” [my bold type].
Representing reciprocity

In many other languages reciprocity can be marked in two distinct

ways. First, the reciprocal interpretation arises in sentences
whose meaning is said to be equivalent to the meaning of
sentences with transitive verbs followed by heavy reciprocal
markers each other/one another.
Mike and Helen hugged > Mike and Helen hugged each other.
Light vs. Heavy Markers

heavy reciprocal markers.

Джон и Мэри поцеловали друг друга.
John and Mary kissed each other

light reciprocal markers

Джон и Мэри поцеловались
Reciprocity in Polish

In some languages, e.g., in Polish, such verbs are

additionally accompanied by light markers like
reciprocal/reflexive się (self/selves). In English heavy vs.
light marking is effected by each other/one another
following verbs and by a zero-marker put on naturally
reciprocal verbs (Haiman 1983)
Levin’s Reciprocal Classes

1. Verbs of Social Interaction comprising a) Marry Verbs,

b) Meet Verbs and c) Correspond Verbs;
2. Verbs of Contiguous Location;
3) Talk Verbs, and
4) Chitchat Verbs,
other types to be found in other Alternations patterns
(e.g. Reciprocal Alternations with such subtypes as Mix
Verbs, Split Verbs and Disassemble Verbs).
Other meanings are associated with the domain of fighting
and competing.
Dixon’s ‘inherently’ reciprocal verbs

Ia NP plural+ V + (each other)NP singular + V + NPTogether touch, kiss, f***

Ib NP plural+ V + (with each other); NP singular + V+ with NP together

quarrel, converse

IIa/IIb NP singular + V + ((prep) + NP)NP + V + prep + NP together

Together Pass, meet, fight, marry, play, compete, talk, agree

III NP + V + ((NP) + ((with) + NP)together discuss

IV NP + V+ NP (with NP)NP.+NP. +V + NP exchange

Manning’s Reciprocals

1) Plural subject (NPplural or NPsg + NPsg) + V

The use of pattern (1) indicates an equal status of both participants

and implies that their contribution to the joint action is of
similar weight. The reciprocity of the action can optionally be
emphasized by the heavy marker each other.
1

It may be that some couples cohabit

initially because they are uncertain
about the strength of their relationship.

John flew to be at her side after her fight

with Browne, and they have
been seen smooching in New York.
2) Singular subject + V +
a) a prepositional Object: I was fighting with him
b) an adjunct I had a chat with her
c) an Object I met her.

What is emphasized is that the extent of the involvement / role/

responsibility of the Agent is greater than that of the other participant.
A note should be taken, however, of the fact that adjuncts, being usually
optional in the clause structure, should be regarded as even less-nuclear
elements than objects. Yet, whatever the status of the second element,
the action is most often interpreted as reciprocal.
2a

Widows’ benefits are not payable if the widow remarries or if

she is cohabiting with a man as his wife.

The 23-year-old tennis heart-throb smooched with Blue

Lagoon star Brooke during breaks in a TV show he was
filming.

He used to go out with Kylie Minogue.

2a i 2b

He wanted to hug her.

She kissed me and turned out the light.

She married a barrister, and died childless in 1864.

 Reciprocal phrases

They can all either be used on their own with a In addition, make love can be followed by the preposition to.
plural Subject or be followed by a
prepositional phrase beginning with with which If one person makes love to another, there is the implication that the
refers to the other participant. first person is taking a more active role.

If one person makes love with another, the implication is that each
person takes an equal role
While make love to is passivized , the expression make love with is not
passivised: with make love with, the second person is equally involved,
so if you want to focus on them, you make them the Subject.

Go to bed is often followed by together, but the other phrases are not.
This is because it is often felt necessary to make it clear that the two
people involved are going to the same bed (and having sex), since They
went to bed could just mean ‘They went to bed separately (to sleep)’.
Verbs of Romantic ad Sexual activity

1) NPpl + V They kissed.

2)
a) Nsg + V + with NP She smooched with him
b) NP sg + V + NP He wanted to hug me.
The plural subjects patterns, such as in They kissed, imply similar quantitative
and qualitative involvement of both interacting parties. By contrast, in the object
patterns the element that becomes highlighted as denoting the main participant
is the Agent, and the action is not necessarily reciprocal (compare marry and
kiss), with the other participant shown as a Goal. Finally, in the prepositional
patterns the assessment of the involvement of the other participant may
depend on the type of preposition used. Just like in the case of talk discussed
above, the role of the other actor can be represented as passive or active
(reciprocal), depending on whether with or to have been used.
An interesting characteristic of this group of
verbs is that most of them occur only in one
pattern, which is not the case with the
reciprocal phrase re-iterated in Amis’s text
make love. Unlike copulate, fuck or screw, make
love can be used in several patterns, although
with a varying frequency
Love-making in COBUILD

MAKE LOVE TO: 100

Male to female 62
Female to male 20

MAKE LOVE WITH: 100

Male to female 9
Female to male 45

HAVE SEX WITH: 100

Male to female 34
Female to male 38
Love-making in English:
TO vs. WITH

As the figures indicate, the ‘active’ to-patterns highlight the role of males,
while the ‘cooperative’ with-patterns are more frequent with female
Agents. Manning concludes her analysis with the following statement
The speaker thus has a choice as how to present such an activity or
relationship, although in the case of many verbs and phrases they
will be influenced by the typical use of the verb or phrase – that is,
by the choice that the society in general has made as to how
present that activity or relationship.
 Male and female participants

Analysis of make love to (489 lines altogether—all verb forms included)

Analysis of make love with (114 lines altogether—all
verb forms included)
Have sex with
Conclusions

The pattern with a plural

Subject indicates or emphasises the reciprocity of the action; the pattern
where there is a singular Subject and the other participant is mentioned as
Object or prepositional Object focuses on one of the participants or implies
that they have a more active role. In some cases, different shades of meaning
can also be conveyed by the choice of preposition: with or to.
Love-making in Polish:

According to Dąbrowska (1993) there have been reported 344 different

expressions to denote the sexual acts, of which 73 are euphemistic.

Among most common ones, there can be found: (po)kochać się z (lit. (make)
love (with)), uprawiać seks / miłość) (lit. practice sex /love), iść do łóżka (go to
bed), spać (z) (sleep (with)), współżyć (z) (cohabit (with)); legal and medical
terms like spółkować (copulate); poetic expressions odbyć (daleką) podróż)
(make a long journey); descriptive expressions of verb + noun type: odbywać
…, mieć…., spełniać…, robić… (perform/have/fulfill/make); neologisms and
vulgarisms.
Polish verbs of romantic and sexual activity follow patterns of two kinds
1. (a) Plural Noun group + reflexive verb: Kochali się./ They were making love.
(b)Plural Noun group + verb: Kopulowali / They were copulating.
2. (a) Noun group + reflexive verb + z (with) + noun group Jan kochał się z Marią /
– John was making love with Mary.
(b)Noun group + verb+ z (with) +noun group Jan spółkował z Marią / John copulated
• with Mary.
(c)Noun group + verb + noun group: Jan bzykał Marię / John was bonking Mary
(d) Noun group + reflexive verb + do (to) + noun group (only verbs of courting).
LET ME COUNT THE TIMES
The diachronic account of students’ translation of
Let Me Count the Times shows that
translational choices are conditioned not only
by the range of means available in the target
language but also by the range of means
acceptable.
Elizabeth Browning’s Sonnet XLIII in Sonnets
from the Portuguese, which begins:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I

love thee to the depth and breadth and height
Quality is then superseded by quantitifiable variations of
love-making, which, “Vernon didn't know why, […]
always averaged out that way”. This conversion of love
into love-making and of the unfathomable passion into
a conjugal act performed with predictable frequency is
well represented in the text. The phrase make love
appears there six times to denote the action and twice in its
nominalised form (making love). This lexical monotony
seems to be broken by three expressions: perform
cunnilingus, perform fellatio and sodomize, but due to their
technical overtones they only contribute to the de-
emotionalisation of the relationship.
it can be observed that both interacting participants are drawn into the
picture by means of plural subject patterns (They made love) as many as
five times. Since the expression make love with singular subject occurs only
twice and in both cases the other participant (his wife) is marked, it might
suggest that the interaction is presented as reciprocal. However, it is essential to
note that the reference to the other participant is accomplished by means of to-
phrases (made love to his wife), which indicate the passive Goal status of the
participant. The active, if not dominant role, of Vernon is further emphasized by
his Agent status in Vernon sodomized his wife and Vernon performed
cunnilingus as well as in Fellatio was performed by Vernon’s wife, where the
passive voice highlights the centrality of the sentence initial fellatio. Apart from
that, it is also the narrator voice that accentuates the leading role of Vernon (“It
was, without exception, Vernon himself who initiated their conjugal acts”).
Decision-making

Levy (1967) considers translating a decision-

making process. What he puts the emphasis on
is the fact that at every level the translator has
to choose one option from among a set of
many others and while doing so he has to bear
in mind that this very first decision will be the
springboard to each and every subsequent one.
In other words, everything unavoidably
revolves around decisions.
Rising number of choices
Rising number of choices
Actually, justifying her choice of expressions, one of the students
wrote in 2004:

If a guy keeps counting it, how selfish he must be. The woman is just
an object, a means to break records. How I hate it . I had to
ridicule his achievements.
Norms in translation

For Popovic, translation is inextricably intertwined with a

confrontation of two sets of linguistic and discursive norms and
conventions, those which reside in the source text and those
which prevail in the target culture or in that section of target
culture where the translator hopes to make an impact. In other
words, when non-compulsory choices are concerned translators
will decide in favour of one option rather than the another
because they are aware of and respond to certain demands which
they derive from their reading of the source text, and certain
preferences and expectations which they know exist in the
audience they are addressing.
Toury adds that such norms can be strong or weak and more or less
durable. Their scope may be narrow or broad. They may be
positive or negative, i.e., tend towards obligations or towards
prohibitions, but what remains unquestionable is, as Toury claims,
the fact that norms change because they need to be constantly
readjusted so as to meet changing appropriateness conditions.

Undoubtedly, the changes in the translation of Let me Count the Times

into Polish demonstrate that it is the case.