The Case of ‘Obviously ’

The last adverb to be discussed in this chapter is obviously, which was translated chiefly as oczywiscie (of course). Alternative translations included the adjective oczywisty (obvious) as well as the adverbials w oczywisty sposob (evidently/in an evident manner) and wprost (simply). With regard to omissions, only two instances were found. As for position in the sentence, the adverb occurred mostly medially and once initially. The core meaning of obviously as borne out by the Polish data was that of “obviousness,” rather than its evidential status. A point worth noting here is that in the dataset analysed, both of course and obviously had the same Polish counterpart, i.e. oczywiscie, as its preferred translation (see (12) and (17)). This is in contrast with what Simon-Vandenbergen and Aijmer (2007: 219-220) say about the differences between of course and obviously. In their view, although both adverbs share the backgrounding function, of course means “as everybody knows or should know” or “according to expectations,” whereas obviously means “as evidence shows” or “as knowledge of the world shows.” Thus, of course is more forceful and authority-oriented, while obviously is evidential and does not necessarily imply the hearer’s knowledge. This, however, was not so manifest in the Polish data, in which the aspect of “obviousness” stood out, rather than the evidential status of the adverb. It can be posited then that while English distinguishes between of course and obviously, linked to “expectation” and “evidence,” accordingly, such a distinction appears to have less or no relevance in Polish, where only oczywiscie is used.

(17)

ENG:

KME asks the Court of Justice to replace the General Court’s appraisal by KME’s preferred test. Not only is that inadmissible but the General Court’s appraisal is obviously correct and KME obviously wrong.

POL:

KME zwraca si§ do Trybunalu o zast^pienie oceny dokonanej przez S^d preferowanym przez KME kryterium. Jest to nie tylko niedopuszczalne, ale tez ocena S^du jest oczywiscie prawidlowa, podczas gdy ocena KME jest oczywiscie bl^dna. [OAG_30]