Polish Proper Names in Literary Translation – Difficulties and Challenges (Based on Zygmunt Miłoszewski’s Crime Trilogy and its French Translation)

Abstract In a literary translation, nomina propria not only indicate a given object, but also perform other functions, evoking many associations. As linguistic carriers of national culture, on the one hand, they introduce the element of foreignness to a translated text and on the other hand, they help immerse the recipient of the translation in the foreign language and culture. Transferring these linguistic elements presents a translator with a number of dilemmas. This article presents the problematic aspects of Polish proper names in the translation process and discusses the methods of their adaptation used by the translator. The study of Zygmunt Miłoszewski’s crime trilogy and its translation into French allowed the following problems to be distinguished: signs and graphemes characteristic of Polish, irregularity of diminutive forms of first names, suffixes of surnames and the genitive form of anthroponimic street names. The motives behind the translator’s decisions and factors influencing their variability in subsequent volumes of the analysed trilogy were considered.