Table of Contents
PART V
Table of Contents
A sports dictionary presents itself as a fairly challenging and demanding lexicographic task. Any author of a lexicographic work on sport, whether it is an encyclopedia, encyclopedic dictionary or bilingual dictionary, faces the regular demands of the trade but also a variety of choices related to the semantic field of sport and sports sciences, target audience and language register. First of all, the author must decide upon the character of his or her work. A sports dictionary will be definitely a specialist one; however, all other attributes of the lexicographic genre may not be that clear cut. It must be a multi-field dictionary since sport is deeply embedded in every human activity and references to sport can be found in many other semantic fields. The question is how much the lexicographic contents should border on these areas. Secondly, the issue of the size of the dictionary must be considered. Each sport discipline or sport-related science would require a sizeable lexicographic volume, whereas a truly comprehensive dictionary of sport would most likely consist of more than hundred thousand entries. Lexicographers must also make decisions concerning the choice of terminological registers in their works. In the broad domain of sport these would include the language of rules and regulations, technical terms, sports slang but also sports metaphors and phrases in everyday use, being mostly culture-specific. Thirdly, the target audience of a sports dictionary: PE students and teachers, athletes, translators or plain sports enthusiasts, would determine its range and size more than any other factors.
Due to processes of globalization and the English language rapidly becoming the lingua franca of the modern world, the corpus of sports terminology in English seems to be constantly growing. With new English sports terms and phrases, often entering semantic domains other than sport itself, there is a need for finding and establishing new equivalents in other languages. Very often English compounds and phrases can only be translated in a rather awkward descriptive way. Thus, in sport and sports sciences, unlike in the majority of other lexicographic fields, the precise distinction between a dictionary and encyclopedia becomes often blurred. Bilingual sports dictionaries, apart from listing plausible and working non-English equivalents, must often provide comprehensive explanatory notes and definitions in English.
The above considerations and restrictions as well as the specificity of the semantic area of sports and sports sciences have been taken into account by the authors and translators of three handy dictionaries of sports terminology published in Poland in 2004. Two of them are practical, bilingual, English-Polish dictionaries compiled by two individual authors, who have clearly gone through the difficult tricks of the trade of dictionary making. Their final achievement deserves high appreciation although a certain number of shortcomings could have been avoided. The third publication is a translation of a British encyclopedic dictionary of sports – a collective work of a board of authors, translators and top sports consultants. All three lexicographic works have two things in common: they have been awaited for a long time to fulfill professional needs of many people of sport and translators in Poland, and they are valuable collections of Polish sports terminology that more of less successfully responds to the global role of the English language in sports in sport sciences.
In fact, Polish readers have waited for a long time for such practical and updated publications. The first bilingual, Polish-English dictionary of sports was written and published anonymously in 1955 as a terminological aid to interpreters and organizers of the 2nd International Youth Games held in Warsaw. It consisted of lexicographic material on 18 Olympic sports. Most of sports terminological resources published shortly after were hardly worth any consideration. During the Moscow Olympics in 1980 a five-language sports dictionary was published, including a Polish language volume on five sports. In the 1990s a few, quite efficient, Polish-English and English-Polish sports terminology collections appeared in Poland. Sports terminology sections of two, very useful and professionally edited, pictorial multilingual dictionaries deserve high appraisal and would definitely require some more publicity and reviews (Corbeil, J. and A. Archambault eds., Wielojęzyczny słownik wizualny, Wilga, Warszawa 1996; Słownik obrazkowy angielsko-polski, Oxford-Duden, Warszawa 1998). As far as more specialist, bilingual dictionaries are concerned, there have been numerous lexicographic works or glossary lists published on individual sports, out of which two very good, compact dictionaries on sailing should be mentioned: Ratajczak, P. and W. Lotko, eds., Słownik żeglarsko-morski (Sea and sailing dictionary), Kanion, Zielona Góra 1996; Petryński, W., Słownik żeglarski angielsko-polski (English-Polish sailing dictionary), PWN, Warszawa-Wrocław 1996. So far the most outstanding and incomparable terminological source on sport in Poland has been W. Lipoński’s monumental World Sports Encyclopedia (Atena, Poznań 2001), which includes information on more than 3000 historical, regional and international sports and games. Together with its immensely successful English-language version published in 2003 under UNESCO auspices the two spacious volumes, although not being a dictionary in the strict sense, constitute an incredibly resourceful bank of sport terminology.
The first of the three 2004 publications is an English-Polish dictionary addressed mainly to Polish students and teachers of physical education as a linguistic aid in using English materials. The author, Michal Bronikowski, is both an English teacher and university lecturer in physical education, and these two professional paths have allowed him to share his valuable experience with others in a productive manner. Practical English-Polish Dictionary of the Sport and Exercise Sciences is based on a few well-known and updated Polish lexicographic sources but also, most notably, on the leading dictionary in the area of sports sciences in the world, i.e. Dictionary of the sport and exercise sciences, edited by Mark H. Anshel (Human Kinetics Books, Champaign IL 1991), which itself deserves a future translation into Polish. The terms collected in Bronikowski’s dictionary come from the areas of sports, physical education, motor development and learning, sport pedagogy, medicine and statistics. In most cases, their selection proves to be very reasonable and they are provided with accurate Polish equivalents. The lexicographic material includes such culture-specific terms as catch-as-catch-can, Gaelic football, homerun, korfball, and the Oval, which often present a challenge to even most experienced translators, but have been quite precisely explained or provided with plausible equivalents by the author. Highly valuable components of the dictionary are sports slang terms, e.g. daisy cutter, herringbone, wade in, as well as acronyms and abbreviations (BMR, BMI, DOMS, MPV, RPP) commonly used in modern sports science with their respective Polish equivalents. The dictionary has, however, some shortcomings. First of all, it lacks cross-references that would be especially useful in linking abbreviation entries and full entries. Although it is an English-Polish dictionary, a short Polish-English index would be undoubtedly welcomed by the readers. The author for no clear reason has been very selective on some sports excluding others, but including, on the other hand, also a number of general English terms that unnecessarily expand the size of the lexicon. In a few cases (association football, batter, cheerleader, skittle, swordship (sic!)) the provided Polish equivalents are too stilted, which is surprising since more accurate equivalents have been already present in the Polish language for some time.
Słownik sportu angielsko-polski polsko-angielski by Zbigniew M. Jankowski is the 9th bilingual, thematic volume in the specialist compact dictionary series published in Poland by Kanion publishing house. The dictionary is addressed to a wide, general readership, focusing mainly on popular sports terminology, but also bordering on the semantic fields of medicine, anatomy and meteorology. It would be definitely of more help to students of English and translators than to students of physical culture and sports science professionals. With its 14,000 entries, covering more than 40 sports, this handy publication can serve indeed as “a key to open the door of sport” as the editors put it. In particular, track and field, sailing, and gymnastic terminology has been excellently researched and provided with suitable Polish and English equivalents. The author should be praised on successful inclusion of a number of updated, specific phrasal entries which never appeared in any larger Polish lexicographic source before as well as their excellent translations, e.g. carom shot, bungee launch, dab start, Finnish step, play angles, rabbit punch, pancake landing, wing breakaway or World University Games. A useful part of the dictionary is also a list of French and English names of international sports federations matched with proper Polish translations.
Jankowski’s dictionary is in many ways a pioneering, bilingual lexicographic work in the domain of sport in Poland. It is a fairly successful attempt toward compilation of a useful, practical sports dictionary; however, the author could have avoided a few editorial errors and shortcomings. The entries in the English-Polish part are in alphabetical order, which in many cases makes the search for right words rather difficult. A framework based on compound main entries with tildes relative to extended entries – involving, for instance, such headwords as area, field, games, line, race, vault that generate numerous phrases in sports semantics – would definitely improve the clarity of the dictionary’s arrangement. All head entries in the dictionary include semantic field labels but they lack grammatical and stylistic indicators, whereas some set noun phrases as main entries are sometimes short of definite and indefinite articles. One of the most visible traps Jankowski got caught in are cases of translator’s false friends – words that look almost the same in both languages but have a narrowed, broader or completely different meaning. The instances of such faux amis include contusion (for Polish kontuzja – should be injury in English), debutant (Pol. debiutant – Eng. beginner), planche in fencing (Pol. plansza – Eng. piste) and robinsonade (should be flying save in English). These errors can be, however, easily corrected in the following editions of this useful source.
Leksykon sportu, edited by Gerry Cox, is a monolingual encyclopedic dictionary which is a truly professional Polish translation of the popular British Dictionary of Sports (Carlton Books Limited 1999). It is a collective work of top specialists from British sports associations and federations. The dictionary contains 6000 well explained and updated terms and phrases, all fully indexed, and it covers over 150 sports, including all Olympic sports. The work combines sports terminology with information on sports rules, tactics and organizations, slang expressions (e.g. 19th hole, fergie, hotdogging) and names of famous sports venues and events (e.g. Louisiana Superdome, Strahov, WACA, CCIO, Old Course, the Boat Race). The content is divided into 12 chapters, each devoted to a particular type of sports such as indoor team games, outdoor team games, precision sports, track and field, gymnastics, martial arts, extreme sports, water sports, winter sports, etc. Additionally, the book includes innovative terminological cubicles located between the chapters, which provide explanations of terms from such semantic fields as stadium architecture, sports equipment, sportswear, sport psychology, injuries in sport, safety in sport, etc. Since the dictionary is a translation from a British source it naturally promotes sports and games of English-speaking countries hardly known or practiced in Poland, e.g. Australian football, Canadian football, speedball, rounders, hurling, shinty, jai alai, kabaddi, NASCAR, or bandy. What must be stressed are very efficient translations of many new terms associated with such sports into Polish and translators’ successful attempts to standardize some sport terminology not yet fully established in the Polish language. In a few cases the Polish translators, however, risked some calques from English that are still questionable and their adoption into the Polish language of sport remains an open question as yet, e.g. petanka, greenowanie, graby, hakowanie. In other cases, the translators left the original English terms with Polish explanations but they showed no consistency throughout all subchapters on particular sports, e.g. on American football or baseball.
Overall, the lexicon is a successful, hugely informative and professionally edited publication which will be of tremendous assistance to all kinds of people dealing with sport in general and in particular. The editors’ promise from the back cover of the book: “A sports lexicon which explains terms and expressions used in all sports one can see on TV” has been duly kept. One thing making this source even more useful to sports translators and editors would be leaving all English originals intact next to Polish definitions and explanatory notes. A prospective semi-bilingual version of the lexicon should deserve some publisher’s consideration.
The above works published in 2004 constitute important developments in the somewhat neglected domain of sports terminological resources in Poland. Their authors made a very fine job of selection and classification of sports terminology, and in most cases, of Polish or English equivalents. The dictionaries will appeal to a number of readers in Poland, sports amateurs and professionals, as well as translators and interpreters, and they will fill the existing gap in Polish lexicographic and sports publication markets. Since no dictionary is a perfect one – as Dr Samuel Johnson once put it, “…while it is hastened to publication, some words are budding, and some falling away” – the three sources are significant stepping stones on the way to a prospective publication of a large, corpus-based and possibly the most comprehensive ever Polish-English and English-Polish dictionary of sport that will hopefully appear in the near future.
Tomasz Skirecki
This book is important both for Polish and general history of track and field athletics. Its significance for Polish sports history is thanks to the Author’s extensive research to find all possible historical records in the Polish archives. The list of hand-written documents used by the Author, connected with the earliest activities of athletic pioneers is very long and makes a bibliography in itself. The rest of the reference section provides readers with information on surprisingly numerous publications on the early history of modern athletics in Poland. However, all of them, describing or analysing particular questions, have not been yet combined into a single complete history of that period and failed to generate a more general picture of early track and field athletics in Poland. It is Zaborniak’s work that makes the early history of athletics well-knit and uniform. It also well completes another, collectively written, book titled Track and Field in Poland 1919-1994 (Lekkoatletyka w Polsce 1919-1994, Warsaw 1994), edited by Professor Bernard Woltmann. Both works, although written and published separately, fully cover the history of Polish athletics from 1867 up to 1994.
Most of the historical evidence used by Zaborniak is hardly available for those who do not know the Polish language and the content of Polish archives. Nevertheless this book, although written and published in Polish, would be also an important publication for foreign track-and-field historians. The history of this sport has rested on two pillars: the ‘older’ pillar of sport of ancient Greece and its traditions in such events as running, long-jump or discuss and javelin throwing; and the modern “pillar” of the British sports contributions visible in events such as hurdles, steeple-chase or hammer-throw. Other countries contributed to the development of the sport’s structure mostly with their performance, but not directly to the idea of the sport, its character and content. Meanwhile, Western historians of early modern athletics pay respect mostly to contributions of Western countries, as if other parts of the world, including Eastern Europe and Poland had not existed at all. In fact, the popularity and international prestige of track and field have not rested exclusively on the developments in the West. The question about mechanisms responsible for the spread of modern athletics to the most remote corners of the world is, I assume, one of the most important research problems for any historian of sport, and historian of athletics in particular. Zaborniak’s book will certainly help answer that question, concerning Poland as an important part of “international athletic community.”
Zaborniak’s work not only deals with athletic performance. It provides readers with information and thorough analysis of developing sports’ structure, its social background, growing significance and influence, dependence on political issues, system of competition organization, system of training and coaching as an element and reflection of general knowledge (not just a specific, technical tool for practical exercises), etc. A number of historical works on athletics, written to a substantial degree by ambitious sports reporters, focus on the history of athlete’s performance, especially at the Olympics, World and continental championships and other international events such as once popular international bi-national matches. This type of approach is represented, for instance, by a “classic” of this kind, Roberto Quercetani’s A World History of Track and Field Athletics 1864-1964, which is in fact a journalistic rather than scholarly study of athletic competitions and performance, and by no means a history of a wider context and all related issues. This kind of writing history of any sport, although successfully meeting expectations of an average reader, does not fulfil the scientific criteria of any comprehensive history of sport. Zaborniak’s book is in this respect a pioneering work on an international scale. Finally, Poland as well as other less known and previously much ignored countries have been recognized as explicit contributors to the development of athletics and sport in general.
The contents of particular chapters indicate the scope of Zaborniak’s work. Following the first introductory chapter on European traditions of track and field, the second chapter discusses general economic, social and legal conditions of sport in partitioned Poland before 1918, as well as the system of instructors’ and coaches’ education, state of local venues, production of equipment, sporting competition and events. The emphasis is placed on the Austrian sector of Poland, where in the second half of the 19th century liberal policies of Emperor Franz Joseph provided the best conditions for development of Polish sport.
In the next chapter Zaborniak discusses development of athletics within more general organised movements, especially Polish playground movements such as Rau’s Gardens (Ogrody Raua) in Warsaw and Jordan’s Gardens (Ogrody Jordanowskie) in Cracow. Also the beginnings of athletics connected with the famous Towarzystwo Gimnastyczne Sokół (the Falcon Gymnastic Association) are thoroughly discussed.
The following chapter concentrates on the first Polish athletic clubs modelled after British and German equivalents. It is divided into three parts, each discussing the sports club movement in three parts of divided Poland, “Russian”, “German” and “Austrian” respectively.
The final chapter is devoted to the period of World War One, when despite war conditions and due to the growing feeling of national identity sport served as an expression of national spirit and as a psychological counterweight to war atrocities and inconveniences. Numerous new sport clubs were established during this difficult time. The value of this chapter lies in its utilization of unique documents proving beyond any question that even severe war conditions are unable to prevent expression of human vitality.
The last but not least part of the book are different addenda such as a list of Polish athletic clubs before 1918, a list of the top results in particular events combined with analogous results in Western countries, a name list of Polish athletes killed during World War One, the first set of track and field regulations in Poland, photocopies of some rare documents, etc. The book is well illustrated. For foreign readers an extensive English summary is provided and the work is completed with an index of geographical places, associated in one way or another with athletic activities, which substantially facilitates knowledge of the development of that sport in the territory of then partitioned Poland.
The case of early track and field in the most difficult period of Poland’s history, when the country was deprived of independence and partitioned by three political superpowers (Russia, Austria and Germany) provides us with a story of unique developments: despite all the political restrictions track and field was used for proliferation of national sports organisations, maintaining ethnic prowess, promoting public health and fitness, providing necessary recreation, etc. These complex issues are rarely noticed in general histories of athletics. The case of early history of that sport in Poland provides the readers with valuable evidence and at the same time with answers to questions such as: How did athletics spread even to the most remote corners of Europe? How have hitherto unknown local events contributed to the general history of this sport? Since the book is written and published in Polish one may wonder how exploration of any kind of knowledge expressed in a language of hardly an international status can be possible? The answer is simple: by studying that language or by ordering a translation from Polish by bilingual scholars or translators. We can mention numerous examples of Eastern European scholars producing books on sport of their native countries in English, in order to assist their Western colleagues in better understanding and historical evaluation of regional contributions to sports history. Although the level of the English language in such publications does not usually meet Oxford requirements, it is perfectly understandable that East European research should be introduced into a more general stream of European and world’s sport history. In Eastern Europe we are still waiting for minimum appreciation from our Western colleagues.
Wojciech Lipoński
All the above remarks on sports history can be repeated in another sector of research on sport, this time represented by the humanistic approach to human health and body and modern concepts of physical education. Professor Krawański’s book belongs to the most interesting works on the problem ever published in Poland and, at least to some extent, abroad. Krawański made, however, one obvious mistake: while suggesting his combination of Polish and Western pioneering concepts of health education he forgot to emphasise in appropriate places that such combinations and concepts were his own. Since they seem obvious and logical a reader less acquainted with developments in health and physical education can think that the Author relates knowledge already well-known. I would like to appeal to him for less modesty. For instance, in a paragraph devoted to fighting some old concepts of physical education, Krawański openly writes that, “Health is not an ultimate goal in undertaking educational activities. Health is an indispensable means in reaching the majority of life goals” (p. 149). But according to him physical education is not only an instrument in realisation of such an attitude. Krawański goes even further in treating education, regarding physical education as a means for reaching personal and social goals. As far as I have understood it he is against such instrumental treatment of physical education and, in fact, he attempts to break up with the traditional biological and medical concept of “healthy life”. Following some Western authors he suggests replacing such an attitude by an incomparably more comprehensive concept of life as “cognitive travel through reality” where physical activities are important part of cultural essence and experience of life. He writes that the current “pedagogy of health, which constitutes a general basis (pedagogical theory) for the didactic process concerning health is unable to fulfil independently all expectations from the process described recently as social health education [...] Social health education is a many-sided and multifaceted process aimed at protection and raising the level of human health potential through a system of political, social and educational actions and effects”. This is, by the way, very close to the old aesthetic concept of health as a cultural factor expressed in George Santayana’s vision of aesthetics contained in his Sense of Beauty, where this American philosopher emphasised that, “without health [...] no pleasure can be pure.” I find parallels between some Krawański’s paragraphs and Santayana’s remarks in All Human Functions May Contribute to the Sense of Beauty or The Differentia of Aesthetic Pleasure. It can be seen, for instance, in his discussion of Maciej Demel’s concept of human being as “creator of himself in respect of health”. I think that Krawański should go in this direction even further and not stop at such a concept, which seems to me too instrumental, while, as I emphasised above, health cannot be an autonomous and ultimate goal of life. It should be filled with human values and be something more than “health engineering.” Krawański shares this point of view in many places, when he develops, for instance, an opinion expressed in N. Armstrong’s New Directions of Physical Education (1990) that health-related fitness is not only a remedy against sickness but is, first of all, a form of life enrichment. Krawański criticises some Polish and foreign educators who do not notice that change in the role of health and physical education. Krawański writes, however, that, “The concept of education based on the category of personality of man as a point of departure for educational activities respecting body and health goes through with utmost difficulty. Even with more difficulty, it enters consciousness of those who are interested in it that the process of shaping personality through body and health care does not necessarily have to result from one concept or theory of education, but can be an expression of acceptance of different pedagogical theories and methods contained in liberal pedagogy” (p. 167).
Polish past experience with totalitarian political systems and their influence also on teaching of physical education, puts Krawański in a special position to discuss the problem of pedagogical authority (by the way, pertaining not only to the period of Communist era, but also to the influences of those Western educational systems, especially from Germany and Scandinavia, which were based on the “commanding” system). This problem merely signalled in the paragraph subtitled Propedeutics of Health pedagogy (Hermeneutic reconstruction of anti-authoritarian education), should be, in my opinion, more thoroughly developed in Krawański’s book. The problem of authoritarian influence in Poland, or in any other former Communist country, did not disappear instantly in 1989. Thousands of PE teachers were educated in this direction, which Polish scholar Andrzej Pawłucki called “pedagogy of corporal’s command and whistle”. While delineating liberal trends in modern health and physical education Krawański forgot to relate them to the mentioned past political and ideological factors which influenced so negatively the whole system of education in the former Eastern Block. I hope that this component will be better developed in the future works of Professor Krawański.
For foreign scholars Krawański’s book is also extremely interesting as a debate on all important Polish systems of physical education, hitherto formulated and applied in Poland. This pertains especially to the current strategy of the Polish Ministry of National Education and Sport, as well as to comprehensive systems of physical education developed in the past by Maciej Demel, Zygmunt Jaworski and more recently by the mentioned Andrzej Pawłucki. The last educator, discussed in Krawański’s book in a separate subchapter (pp. 70-75), is especially interesting for his “pedagogy of body’s values” (“pedagogika wartości ciała”) which contains such pioneering elements from the domains of physical education, and cultural and philosophical approach, as his concept of “culturalisation of health”(“kulturalizacja zdrowotna”), “program of positive health for the idea of positive life” (“program zdrowia pozytywnego dla idei życia pozytywnego”), and finally the concept of “vital truths” (“prawdy witalne”), etc.
I do not know which of the Polish concepts mentioned by Krawański has any chance to contribute to the general development of health and physical education as a world wide science and practice. Before judging it, however, one should be aware, that Poland is a 40-million country with nine large specialised universities of physical education and numerous PE and sport departments at almost any general university. For any intelligent scholar it should encourage reflection that such a huge organised system sooner or later could produce not only some original solutions or systematic approaches towards health and physical education, but also an entirely original theory alongside with methods of its implementation. Better or worse theories of that sort and their implementations have existed in Poland for many decades but have remained rather unknown abroad. It is my opinion that they should no longer be ignored by those scholars, who by accident were happy enough to be born and live in the West. The political isolation within the European bounds came to a definite end. The scholarly isolation of health and physical education and sport from the West should be now more effectively broken, too.
Wojciech Lipoński