Articles

This article discusses possible consequences of the referendum on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (Brexit) for the European language system, as well as the training system in the language industry in both the EU and the UK. The referendum brought to the surface the previously hidden contradiction between the UK, France and Germany on the use of official and working languages in the European Union. However, the Europeans’ hope to oust the English language cannot be realized because of Ireland and Malta’s standing on this issue. The exit of the UK from the EU will have a negative impact on English language learning programs aimed at training language experts for the language industry, as living language studies are being somewhat neglected in the UK education system today.

There is a common misconception that technical documentation is, by definition, clear and hence easy to translate. The terminology is often naively said to be unambiguous and internationally standardized. Even if a term is used in a wrong way, the context will set it right as it eases the understanding and further communication. The article deals with examples which show perfectly how bewildering both specific professional terms and household technical realia might be for native speakers of different languages, which poses a real challenge in translating these apparently “simple” and “unambiguous” units.

The paper discusses the translations of Miguel de Cervantes’ interludes by Aleksandr Ostrovsky made through the use of the foreignization translation strategy that consists in preserving national and cultural features of the original. The authors show that literal translation and the strategy of “distancing” are characteristic of the Russian playwright’s translation method (although at the same time he tries to make the text clear to the Russian reader). Special attention is paid to Ostrovsky’s studies in the field of Spanish literature, culture and dance. Ostrovsky’s translation comments on Cervantes’ interludes are analyzed.

The article focuses on the peculiarities of translation of indoctrination materials (leaflets and radio broadcast programs) aimed at soldiers and the population of Nazi Germany during the Great Patriotic War. Based on the language and style analysis of original materials, we define grammatical, syntactical and stylistic transformations in translation intended to convey the meaning of combat documents which exert influence over different demographic and social groups. While analyzing the discourse of verbal persuasion in the armed forces of Wehrmacht through oral and printed propaganda, we emphasize the translator’s capability to use language means, particularly epithets, allegories, antitheses, metaphors, hyperbolae, inversions, etc., to affect soldiers’ feelings and emotional state. A thorough study of indoctrination documents allows the authors to suggest a set of necessary requirements for translators who work with leaflets and broadcast programs.

The article stresses the necessity to find appropriate ways of car brand slogans translation taking into account the fact that automotive companies convey an additional symbolic meaning to promotional items so as to establish an image-based communication. Considering linguistic and stylistic peculiarities of advertisements, we define means that ensure the invariant character of the target text, analyze car brand slogans translation from English into Russian and propose ways aimed at conveying a perlocutive effect of the original message. The author studies the capability of evaluation expressions to control the addressee’s actions indirectly through creation of incentives related to essential needs stressed in the advertisement.

The richest system of suffixes in the Russian language is ideally adapted for the expression of a vast range of different emotional relationships, not only gentle, affectionate, but many others for which it is sometimes quite difficult to find a definition. Translators face the challenge of untranslatability of diminutive-hypocoristic suffixes. In this respect, the most interesting objects of texts studies can be texts by Mikhail Bulgakov in which the author uses various words with diminutive-hypocoristic suffixes in his pursuit of a specific artistic task, viz. to transmit certain emotionally-colored connotations not always related exclusively to the amount value. The use of diminutive-hypocoristic suffixes in French is not common in word formation, which poses translation problems. It is important to note that the use of the stylistic nuances of diminutive-hypocoristic suffixes is of great importance for the understanding of Bulgakov’s irony, as well as penetrating those parts of the text that refer to the representatives of the so-called “new time” and are not conveyed in the translation.

The researchers note that translating technical texts into one’s native language is no easier a task than doing it in the opposite direction, particularly when the translator lacks expertise in the target area. The main difficulties that supposedly arise are translation of terms and clichés, as well as fitting the thought into an appropriate form in the target language. The authors suggest that ad-hoc corpora of texts in the native language be used to address them. The basis for this study became the experience, by all means successful, of utilizing the same type of resources, this time consisting of texts in the foreign language, in translations from the mother tongue. The researchers demonstrate strategies of employing corpora to overcome language difficulties and concurrently address the ever-pressing issue of optimizing the procedures for information retrieving from electronic translating tools. Particularly, they look into the benefits of corpus managers’ advanced search and wild card characters. Among other noteworthy results of this work are several tested and proven approaches to generating corpus queries based on the context analysis. They come in handy when everything else, i.e. dictionaries and other conventional translating tools, failed as sources of preliminary data for corpus searching.

The article discusses the development of the Interpretive Theory in China and its impact on scientific research and practical translation activities in China from Chinese researchers’ perspective. It also describes the author’s point of view about the causes of the spread of the Interpretive theory in China, as well as the establishment of a complete interpretation theory system in China.

The article focuses on defining the notion of strategy of translation, describes its major components and defines major principles for the translator to use when choosing a specific translation strategy. The author concludes that “translation strategy” is a complex multi-agent notion that has its “core” and “periphery”. Translation strategy is viewed as a kind of purposeful and meaningful cognitive translator’s behavior, aiming mainly at a definite communicative target. Certain methods, techniques and approaches to translation are believed to be an essential strategy of translation components required to achieve good translation quality.

On October 12th, 2022, the III International Methodological Seminar "Didactics of Translation in the Digital Age" was held at the Russian Academy of Education, organized jointly by the School of Translation (Faculty) of Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Department of Education and Culture of the Russian Academy of Education. The seminar was dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the translator, educator, and scientist Ryurik Konstantinovich Minyаr-Beloruchev, who was at the forefront of the development of the theory and methodology of teaching oral translation.

From November 10th to 13th, 2022, the IX International Scientific and Educational Forum "Languages. Cultures. Translation" was held at the University Pension of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, dedicated to the Year of Cultural Heritage of the Peoples of the Russian Federation.

From May 13th to 15th, 2022, the XII International Scientific Conference "Russian Language and Culture in the Mirror of Translation" was held at the University Pension (Zvenigorod, Moscow Region), dedicated to the 240th anniversary of the formation of the Translation Seminar at the Imperial Moscow University.

On November 24th and 25th, the International Philological Forum in Memory of Academician Lyudmila Alekseevna Verbickaya was held at the Russian Academy of Education with the support of the Society of Russian Literacy and the International Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature.

On April 13th, 2022, as part of the XXIX International Scientific Conference for Students, Postgraduates, and Young Scientists "Lomonosov," which traditionally takes place every spring at Moscow University, there was a meeting of the section "Theory, History, and Methodology of Translation."

The rewiew is dedicated to the recently published monography by Nikolai Garbovsky and Olga Kostikova on the history of translation. Th e book is an attempt to analyze different aspects related to the practice, theory and technology of translation in different historical periods. It is based on a wide circle of sources and contains postulates and conclusions that may be appreciated as a valuable contribution to modern translatology.