PERSONIFICATION AND EMBODIMENT IN “THE BOTTLE NECK” (FLASKENHALSEN) BY H.C.ANDERSEN AND ITS TRANSLATIONS INTO ENGLISH, LATVIAN AND RUSSIAN

Abstract

In his monograph Embodiment and Cognitive Science (2006), Raymond Gibbs points out that many aspects of language and communication arise from, and continue to be guided by, bodily experience, as the human mind is embodied, and embodied experience structures thought. As a result, numerous terms across a variety of languages reflect understanding of things in terms of the human body or its parts, which also serves as evidence of metaphoricity. The present research aims to outline the link between personification, i.e. understanding of inanimate objects in terms of living things, which is an integral part of the mind shaped by culture [Lakoff, Johnson 1980], and embodiment, i.e. understanding of the role of an agent’s body in its cognition. Both are present in the short story “The Bottle Neck” (Flaskenhalsen) by Hans Christian Andersen, which proves an interesting challenge to translators. As the main character of the story is alive, personification becomes an extended and the most important stylistic technique in the work. The translations into English, Latvian and Russian serve as exciting illustrations of cultural and linguistic differences, which emerge when the translators have to deal with personification and embodiment in the original text.