Articles

The article studies the rational and emotional nature of the expressive means of language that form the basis for the comparative-stylistic analysis proposed by the outstanding Swiss linguist Charles Bally. Isolation, identification and the classification of expressive means of language aimed at determining the emotional component of speech are based on the method of comparison with the conceptual language of “pure ideas” reflecting peculiarities of the human psyche. The comparison may include languages united by a common psychological structure revealing the emotional side of language patterns that constitute the system due to the living language associations. The article also attempts to establish the origins of functionalism, which can be traced in the social aspects of language patterns that influence the parlance of a specific field as well as the functioning of language systems in similar situations of communication.

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.

The article is concerned with the results of the comparative study of Russian and British encyclopaedias of the 19th century. The aim of the study is to reveal the peculiarities of the historical development of Russian and British encyclopaedias in relation to each other and to specify the features of similarities and differences in the structure of encyclopaedic articles in these editions. If the main task for the Russian encyclopaedia of that period was to create a predominantly national edition, the British encyclopaedists were primarily concerned with providing the reader with information on current events, the latest achievements of science and technology in the world. It was found that at the beginning of this century British encyclopaedias developed more actively than Russian encyclopaedias and that the development of British encyclopaedias, unlike the Russian ones, was significantly influenced by the commercialisation of book publishing and serious competition between publishers. In general, more encyclopaedias were published in Britain (especially in the first quarter of the century) than in Russia, and at the same time, unlike Russia, not only alphabetical but also systematic (thematic) encyclopaedias were published in Britain. The comparison of encyclopaedic articles in Russian and British editions showed that the encyclopaedias of both countries used similar types of articles (review article, reference article, explanatory article, crossreference article), and the indication/non-indication of the authorship of the article is not nationally conditioned. Unlike British encyclopaedias, Russian encyclopaedias usually indicate that the material, or part of it, is translated or borrowed. A comparison of the articles in Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopaedic Dictionary and the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica shows that by the end of the century had been developed a model of a personalia-article that was used by both Russian and British editors: the headword is an individual or group anthroponym, the choice of which is nationally specific; the information is presented in a referential way; the article oft en has an evaluative modality. The headwords of the articles on mythonyms, which are somewhat fewer in the Encyclopaedia Britannica than in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopaedic Dictionary, represent in both encyclopaedias the names of several spheres of onomastic space. The similarity of Russian and British encyclopaedias of the 19th century is due to the fact that their Russian and British compilers followed the already established rules of selection and compilation of encyclopaedic articles. The differences found can be explained by the cultural and national traditions of Russia and Great Britain.

The article deals with examples of humour creation and their verbal and non-verbal peculiarities in English popular scientific discourse. These examples are known as TED lectures or TED talks. Humour is oft en used by speakers to attract the audience’s attention. It happens while establishing a contact or focusing attention on some concrete aspects in the lecture’s content. The information in the lecture is used for transmitting complex ideas, which in the process of perception may become not so sophisticated in English popular scientific discourse. 

The text of the speech is shaping the analysis of verbal mechanisms of humour representing orally popular scientific discourse, sometimes mingled with non-verbal features. The understanding of cognitive mechanisms of humour creation in the orator’s speech and the perception of it by the listeners is expressed by a verbal form and it is combined with the nonverbal and multimodal characteristics. It may help language learners improving their language skills and understanding of English as well as providing the better perception and comprehension of the professional speech in the English language. Besides that, humour studies in lectures aimed at the audience in English in TED lectures may reveal the way speakers use humour, and pointing which particular features depend upon the situational-pragmatic characteristics of communication. The authors of the article represent the difference between a special text and special discourse to perform a much deeper analysis of the discussed problems. The material of this research is based on the text of the lecture by the well-known American neurophysiologist Stuart Firestein (Firestein, 2013).

This article presents an overview of contemporary approaches to multimodal discourse analysis. In multimodal discourse studies, different definitions of mode and different foci are noted. The multimodal analysis theory of different types of discourse is considered from functionalist, cognitive and interactionist sociological perspectives and multimodal corpus analysis and multimodal empirical studies of advertising discourse are presented.

The article deals with the phenomenon of motivation as a key factor determining the professional activity of translators. The author focuses on the significance of internal and external stimuli that infl uence the choice of translation strategies and methods, as well as the final result of translation. Special attention is paid to the role of personal and creative aspects that characterise translation activity as a form of professional self-expression. Various forms of translation motivation are analysed in detail, including the translator’s comments, prefaces, notes and other metatextual elements that contribute to the elimination of semantic losses and cultural asymmetries. The study is based on an interdisciplinary approach combining linguistics, psychology and translation studies, which allows for a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying translators’ professional choices.