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English loan translations in Polish – preliminary comments 229
(d) adjective + noun formations, such as, e.g., P. ptasia grypa (E. “bird
flu”); P. plastikowe pieniądze (E. “plastic money”); P. Żelazna dama
(E. “Iron Lady”). 3
(2) Many English adjective + noun expressions are rendered as noun + adjective
formations in Polish, e.g., P. poprawność polityczna (E. “political correctness”);
P. oferta specjalna (E. “special offer”); P. kultura popularna
(E. “popular culture”).
Additionally, in types (1a), (1b) and (1c), we may observe a reversed order
of constituents. Contrary to their English etymons, Polish expressions of the
first three types are all left-headed.
In terms of numbers, the formations of type (1a) and (1b) constitute a vast
majority of the Polish translations of English noun + noun expressions (each ca.
47%) with types (1c) and (1d) being rather infrequent (each ca. 3%). The translations
of English adjective + noun compounds, on the other hand, are rendered
as either noun + adjective (2) or adjective + noun formations (loan translations
proper) and these two types are evenly distributed.
2.3. Loan translations following the Germanic pattern
An interesting, though possibly worrying, observation that can be made, in
the course of studying research material, is that some of the translated, halftranslated
or independently coined expressions usually follow the Germanic
morpho-syntactic pattern of their English etymons, and thus they violate the
morphological system of Polish (Witalisz 2009). Expressions such as P. biznes
informacje (E. “business news”), P. radio konkurs (E. “radio contest”), P. DVD
premiera (E. “DVD premiere”), P. Agata Meble (E. lit. “Agata Furniture” – the
name of a company) are not uncommon in Polish anymore, not to mention copious
instances of formations of this type with morphemes such as “bank” (e.g.,
P. Inwest Bank, Kredyt Bank); bus (e.g., P. Krab Bus, Jan-Bus 4 – the names of
companies) or sex (e.g., P. sex sklep (E. “sex shop”), sex telefon (E. lit. “sex
phone”). It seems that the need for inflectional suffixes or the interfix, which are
normally used in the formation of compounds in Polish, 5 is dropped as the new
formal pattern is a reflection of the one normally found in Germanic languages.
3
4
5
Still, precision calls for noticing such cases in which the Polish translation uses an adjective
as in P. plastikowe pieniądze or P. Żelazna dama, whereas the determinant used in their English
etymons belongs to the category of either noun or adjective.
One other similar example is P. AirBus – name of a bus company, which may be classified as
a loanword (< E. “Airbus”), adapted semantically, graphically and phonologically.
There are very few instances of noun + noun compounds in Polish, e.g., P. zuch dziewczyna,
but this has by no means been a productive pattern. There is no doubt that the formation of
such expressions has been stimulated by English influence.