Psycholinguistic and Cognitive Dimensions of Poetic Translation

Authors

  • Vladyslava Demetska

    Department of Philology, Ferenc Rakoczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian University, 90202 Berehove, Ukraine
  • Halyna Kuzenko

    Department of Germanic Philology, Institute of Arts and Sciences, 08295 Bucha, Ukraine
  • Nataliia Banias

    Department of Philology, Ferenc Rakoczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian University, 90202 Berehove, Ukraine
  • Enike Nad-Kolozhvari

    Department of Philology, Ferenc Rakoczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian University, 90202 Berehove, Ukraine
  • Kateryna Lizak

    Department of Philology, Ferenc Rakoczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian University, 90202 Berehove, Ukraine

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i12.12345
Received: 3 October 2025 | Revised: 6 November 2025 | Accepted: 7 November 2025 | Published Online: 18 November 2025

Abstract

This article presents a psycholinguistic investigation of the translation of poetry, with specific focus on John Donne's metaphysical poem A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning (1611–1612) and its Ukrainian translations by Viktor Koptilov (twentieth century) and Bohdan Zavidnyak (twenty-first century). There is no doubt that definite factors must be considered when translating poetic works. Key factors influencing poetic translation, including the diachronic evolution of language, the historical and cultural contexts of the original and target texts, the typological "distance" between linguistic cultures, and divergences in metric and generic systems, are addressed. Departing from traditional descriptive, text-centered approaches in translation studies, the analysis foregrounds the translator’s cognitive and imaginative processes, particularly the role of visualization as a mechanism for de-verbalizing source imagery and re-verbalizing it in the target language. Employing a multidisciplinary methodology combining psycholinguistic, semiotic, lexico-stylistic, and historical-literary perspectives, the study examines how emotional and evaluative vocabulary, associative cues, and universal motifs (life, death, love, and parting) are reconfigured in translation, thus producing variant affective and aesthetic impacts. The findings indicate that poetic translation functions not merely as a linguistic transfer but as a complex act of intercultural mediation, in which the translator's imaginative reconstruction of original imagery is instrumental in preserving the emotional and aesthetic integrity of the source text.

Keywords:

Descriptive Theory of Translation; Poetic Translation; Psycholinguistics; Methodology of Translation Studies; Intercultural Mediation; Cognitive Analysis; Semiotic Analysis

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How to Cite

Demetska, V., Kuzenko, H., Banias, N., Nad-Kolozhvari, E., & Lizak, K. (2025). Psycholinguistic and Cognitive Dimensions of Poetic Translation. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(12), 1277–1289. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i12.12345

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Vol. 7 , Iss. 12 (December 2025): In progress

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Copyright © 2025 Vladyslava Demetska, Halyna Kuzenko, Nataliia Banias, Enike Nad-Kolozhvari, Kateryna Lizak

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This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.