Conclusion
This essay has demonstrated that the gender issue poses a problem in
translations from English into Polish, especially when the intention of
the author is to hide the sex of the protagonist. The core of the
problem, naturally, lies in the different grammars. While some
grammatical features of English allow for some sexual ambiguity, Polish
is a highly inflected language and requires knowing the sex of the
protagonist from the beginning. This conflicts with the aim of the book,
stripping it of the original meaning and overtones. There are, however,
other factors which aggravate this problem. In order to identify these,
the Polish translations of “Room of One’s Own ”,
“Orlando ”, and “Written on the Body ” were analysed
through three concepts of Bourdieu’ theory of sociology: habitus,
illusion, and capital. The essays concluded that such additional
factors, such as subjective views, historical context, cultural
tradition etc. may influence the perception of the author and book in a
given culture, which was particularly so in the case of the Polish
translation of Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own ”.