The Comparative Translator: A Translator Involved in Language. Regarding Two Poetic Grammatical Categories in Polish and Slovenian

The translator as a mediator between the original and the translation is a person who is simultaneously working between two languages, two cultures and two literary heritages, which have experienced different developments. The work of translation is similar to that of comparativism (comparing, text analysis, exploration of literary and cultural contexts, differences and similarities), so it is possible to say that the translator is an ideal comparatist, or a „comparatist — practitioner”, who must cope with the diversity of languages and cultures during the whole process of translation. Translation from the original to another language reveals relativism, which sometimes cannot be overcome. The different linguistic nature may appear not only at the level of semantics, or in the pragmatic conventions, but also in the field of grammar: for example, grammatical forms, which enable the creation of a certain poetic “visionism” in the original language, do not allow translation into another language, as the latter uses a different grammatical system. Thus, the Polish instrumentalis, which does not need to use the preposition s/z, is untranslatable into Slovenian and, considering the same principle, the Slovenian “intimate” category of the dual form is untranslatable into other languages. The differences between the various linguistic conceptualization are observable only through a comparative analysis between the original and the translation, which — in practical action — is done by the translator, and — in theory — by the translation critics