Articles

Deep learning advancement of machine translation has resulted in significant improvement of translation quality. Machines are now able to solve problems which have traditionally been known as the human translator’s privilege. Nevertheless, the impressive development of technology should not blur understanding of the essence of linguistically mediated communication and the role of translator in this process. The article focuses on the analysis of the complex functional system, which merges the translator and the machine translation software in the integrated unit aimed at the fulfillment of the communicative task. The transformation of the professional translator’s competence is discussed; the significance of the translator’s pragmatic competences is highlighted.

The article discusses the prospects for the development of digital translation, as well as its advantages and disadvantages. An attempt is made to predict the evolution of machine translation using an example of the interaction of artificial intelligence and a French translator’s practical activities. A comparative analysis of student translations from French into Russian with machine translation options is carried out.

An intentional inaccurate translation is understood as a translation in which part of the information is omitted or added based on the principle of equivalence. It is a commonly used strategy in literary translation. Analyzing examples of the use of deliberate inaccurate translation in the translation of Leo Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” by the translator Cao Ying into Chinese, this work summarizes the need to apply this strategy in literary translation, the forms of its manifestation and its influence, opening new ways to overcome the difficulties of literary translation. Reasons why translators choose this strategy — ease of perception by readers, increasing the artistic character of the translation and the influence of the social environment. Depending on the way the translator transforms the information contained in the source text, there are three main forms of transmission of intentional translation inaccuracies: uncertainty of information, explanation of information, and substitution of information. The benefits of deliberate inaccurate translation cannot be analyzed from just one point of view, and it cannot be categorized as “good” or “bad”. Instead, this method should be viewed in a holistic and comprehensive manner: its value must be recognized and at the same time the limitations of this technique cannot be denied. Translation itself is a very subjective process, and there are a great many ways to translate. Each translator adheres in his practice to certain translation methods and succeeds in them. It is the various translated texts, with their inherent uniqueness of the style of the translator who created them, that are the reason for the infinite variety of literary translations.

This article is devoted to the study of the psychological portrait of the main character Helen Keller in the play “The Miracle Worker” by William Gibson. One purpose of the article is to study figurative and expressive linguistic means: tropes and figures of speech expressing the category of psychologism in a literary text. Psychologism in a work of art makes it possible to understand the behavior, state, feelings and value orientations of a particular character. The other purpose is to analyze the characteristics of the image of the main character as a means of psychological analysis. The subject of research is the play “Who Worked a Miracle” by William Gibson, on the basis of which we identify the main means of the psychological characterization of a character; the object of research is the work of William Gibson with his understanding and application of the methods of psychologism as a realistic principle of depicting a character in fiction. The article examines the concept of “internal psychologism” of an individual who finds themselves in a very difficult life situation and manages to pull themselves together. Special attention is paid to figurative and expressive linguistic means that convey the inner world of the character. The author of the article points out the ability of the main character to accept all the hardships of life with a smile, as well as the desire for spiritual self-realization and personal growth.

The article considers the emergence and formation of the linguistic and cultural concept “Silk Road,” the most important one in Chinese culture. Based on the analysis of Chinese media texts, four stages of the concept’s development were identified: its emergence in the 1930–40s, its development in the 1950–70s, its symbolic reinterpretation in the era of the “policy of openness,” and its polyphonic sound in the late 20th century. Interestingly enough, this concept penetrated China from the West, but it was deeply rooted in and became a symbol of China, expressing a high appreciation of its civilizational contribution to the Treasury of humanity.

This article is devoted to the study of religious and cult-ritual concepts of the Gothic language. In the course of the research, the processing of historical and linguistic material is carried out, which allows us to analyze the GermanGothic mentality, taking into account, first of all, the specificity of the text of the Gothic Bible. In the study of Germanic and Gothic culture, in particular, a deepening into the lexical and semantic component of the biblical text is carried out. The relationship between the main ethnolinguistic features, the GermanGothic linguistic personality and the linguistic picture of the Gothic vocabulary allows us to look differently at the traditions, life and customs that existed in the Gothic culture. Thus, thanks to the classification and analysis of key religious concepts and value attractors that were part of the hierarchical model of the Gothic tribes’ representation of the essence of the world and the place of man in it, we find a reflection of spiritual and cultural life, recorded by Wulfila in the late 4th — early 5th centuries. In the given concepts, there are accompanying passages from the Holy Scriptures, as well as scenes of everyday life, captured in the form of the author’s comments and in translations of the Gospels of Matthew, John, Luke and Mark. Particular attention is paid to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, since it is in them that most of the author’s “additions” and comments are contained. Translations of the last Epistles of Paul supplement the information received about the life of the Gothic tribes, since they contain direct evidence of a semiotic space in which the cultural and religious concepts of the Germanic and German-Gothic mentality, intersecting in many sociolinguistic aspects, form a single idea of the Gothic linguo-mental complex.

Teaching translation implies taking the context of the original text into account. Only if they understand the deduction mechanism of the linguistic context, the restructuring mechanism of the situational context and the dialogue mechanism of the cultural context, can students develop, step by step, their basic, professional and general translation skills.

Ryurik Konstantinovich Minyar-Beloruchev (1922–2000) was one of the most famous Soviet and Russian scholars and of the founders of the general theory of translation. He laid the theoretical basis for interpretation and devised methods of teaching consecutive and simultaneous interpretation. His numerous works, based on his rich personal experience, research, teaching and experimental work, have become a model to follow in the field of interpretation studies and practical training of interpreters.

Due to the high demand for interpretation in the modern world, MinyarBeloruchev’s works deserve a close study not only by Russian interpretation researchers and educators, but also by experts from other countries. Currently, research into the interpretation theory in China is still at the initial stage of its development, and the need for highly qualified interpreters in China is constantly growing. Chinese researchers should study the theory developed by Ryurik K. Minyar-Beloruchev when setting up training programs for interpreters in China.

The article describes various aspects of military interpreters’ work during the Great Patriotic War. The author shows the specifics of speech in a military environment and the conditionality of speech behavior of a military personnel as determined by the nature of combat tasks that they perform.

The article reveals the types of activities of any military interpreter depending on the features of the military organization of units and formations, as well as the uniqueness of the conditions in which the military personnel operate.

The author emphasizes the need for special language training and stresses the role of the Military Institute of Foreign Languages (MIFL) in the training of military interpreters during the war. It would have been impossible to start fighting without translators who not only spoke the enemy’s language, but also knew its military machine, who were able to navigate freely in captured documents, gain information from radio traffic and influence the enemy’s troops and population. The successful preparation and conduct of operations ultimately depended on those officers’ language skills.

The paper deals with the study of the military-political discourse (MPD) as a state-institutional, hybrid-multivector communicative phenomenon of a functionally multi-purpose mission — military doctrinal, political-diplomatic, military-journalistic (informational and propaganda), military-commercial, military-educational, etc. It states an unprecedented use on the international arena by representatives of power structures of a number of NATO member countries in the media and oral rhetoric of discursive games of a substandard style with the goal of insulting, humiliating and ridiculing an opponent-recipient at the level of a deviant-profane usus using an invective, obscene vocabulary, offensive paralinguistic means, etc. The author analyzes the professional activities of the translator in the field of military-political communication as a civil servant in the Armed Forces sector on the scale of the pan-European standard for working languages with the index C₁ / C₂ using the example of inter-lingual mediation in the field of military journalism.

The article describes the uncompromising verbal struggle against Nazism that simultaneous interpreters waged at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial (1945–46) regardless of considerable emotional strain and the psychological pressure exerted on them by some defendants and the counsel every so often. The interpreters defied the odds and emerged victorious. Excerpts from the memoirs authored by some of the key participants in the Trial of Six Million Words are provided.

The 75th anniversary of the Soviet people’s victory in the Great Patriotic War once again brings us back to the events of that time and makes us think again about the impact of the war not only on various aspects of human society, the economy, politics and technology, but also on the human consciousness, man’s language and speech activity.

During any war, the cognitive and communicative system that provides communication in the military sphere is being refined and developed. Inter-language communication and translation take on peculiar forms in the context of a military confrontation between “us” and “them.”

The Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War expanded the range of social functions of the Russian language. It became the language of international cooperation, including that in the military sphere, which gave a major boost to translation activities, as well as the development of translation theory and methodology.