Moscow University Translation Studies Bulletin. 2021. 3.

Since its emergence in human society, translation activity has always been closely linked to social development as its integral part. Political, economic and social conditions have obvious limitations that influence the concept and practice of translation; therefore, translation activities have a strong social dimension. In many translations, the translator not only plays the role of a medium, but may also carry out related editing and proof-reading work. The complexity of translation activities and the interactive nature of linguistic communication make the translator’s role in society as a social individual inevitably multifaceted. In commercial oral negotiations, for example, interpreters often play the following roles: messenger of information, mediator and facilitator of commercial matters, negotiation assistant and informant. An interpreter can be transformed into a reader, author, creator and researcher as required. Because language is a multidimensional collection of information, traditional translation is essentially equivalent to reproducing cognitive, communicative and artistic information. Language, culture and literature, which are closely related to translation, have social properties and therefore the study of the social nature of translation is very promising. The paper also considers machine translation as one of the technologies that take the place of auxiliary actors in the structure of translation activities, the further role of artificial intelligence and humans in translation, their interaction, and the changing social function of translation in this context.

In the paper a new syncretic polyvector construct is introduced into scientific circulation — the discursive-game paradigm of translation, which is an organic combination and complementarity of the translation classical methodology of regular language correspondences and both free and quasi-translation methods and techniques of rendering into the target language of the untranslatable, as well as an adapted socially ordered translated context, meaningless speech acts, etc. The paradigm is built on the concept of complementarity (functional complementarity) and has an open character, which allows to adequately build up the explanatory and resolving power of its theoretical and methodological base.

Relevance. The article is addressed to the changes taking place in the subject fi eld of translation, and the main prerequisites for the emergence of Ethnic Translation Studies as a new branch of the science of translation. The obvious ethnic vector of the 21st century humanities, due to the intensity and peculiarities of ethnic processes at the global and regional levels, and the urgent tasks of preserving the cultural diversity of the modern world dictate the need to develop a categorical apparatus and an appropriate methodology for ethnic texts (which traditionally contain cultural information and the memory of ethnoses) translation.

Aim. The paper considers the ethnological and Translation Studies foundations of the theory, practice, methodology and didactics of ethnic translation, which will ensure the training of an erudite translator, i. e. a successful mediator in cross-cultural communication at the global and local levels alike.

Methods. The identification of the prerequisites and foundations of Ethnic Translation studies is based on a general scientific hermeneutic approach. The experience of translating Siberian ethnic texts is considered from descriptive and prescriptive perspectives, thus making it possible to follow a universal methodological and heuristic principle of complementarity and accompanied by methods of scientific literature analysis, comparison, observation, as well as the case method.

Results. The translation history and examples of ethnic texts belonging to representative types of Siberian ethnic literature (the Yakut epic Olancho and Evenki fairy tales) allows us to consider ethnic translation as an important way of decoding and transmitting cultural information and memory functioning in the cultures of indigenous peoples; a way of preserving the cultural identity of indigenous Siberian ethnoses (primarily small-numbered ones); a tool for revitalizing and preserving unique languages and cultures in the modern world.

Conclusions. Ethnic Translation Studies as an integrative scientific discipline is designed to solve ethnological, cultural, philological and translation problems in modern humanities, which meets the challenges facing mankind.

The paper presents a scheme of a functional system of providing translation services. The scheme clearly shows the changes in production processes that are primarily related to translation executors. Previously, it was an individual translator, but now it can be a whole team working on the principle of crowdsourcing or a person using special computer programmes. The scheme reflects the lack of a sufficient number of regulatory documents with the help of which it is possible to identify the most effective forms of interaction for their further continuous use. Moreover, transformations in working conditions lead to changes in the cognitive activity of a specialist. The autonomous work of a single translator is completely different from collective work with other project participants or from interaction with digital technologies. Thus, the existing translation models are also questioned, thanks to which cognitive strategies and templates for performing translation tasks are set. The paper proposes an eco-cognitive model of translation which is based on the theory of distributed cognition and allows taking into account all the factors that affect translation decisions. The new information technology environment of the translation process, on the one hand, helps to reduce translators’ cognitive load due to the redistribution of intellectual resources between a person and a computer, but, on the other hand, requires a rapid development of new skills related to procedure knowledge in the process of using translation automation technologies. Thus, the current research focuses on the problems of the declarative and procedural knowledge ratio in the modern translation act with the use of specialized tools, as well as the issues of eco-friendly allocation of resources that contribute to reducing translators’ cognitive load and timely identification of factors that unreasonably increase the cognitive costs of translators. 

 The article addresses English–Russian dictionary translations and their quality, specifically those translations offered by electronic dictionaries, in terms of their equivalence and acceptability in the target language.  The shared opinion of the authors, one of whom is a native Russian-speaking scholar in English Studies, while the other is a native English-speaking scholar in Russian Studies, is based on the belief that examples of inadequate dictionary translations should not be ignored by either translation market participants, or those with responsibilities for preparing future translators, since these cases may establish unacceptable translation precedents.  The relevance of these issues is due to the easy accessibility and enormous popularity of electronic dictionaries as a source of instant knowledge. Another reason why the quality of English-Russian translations in bilingual electronic dictionaries may cause a significant problem is that they are used, along with other resources, as corpora for machine translation software. Examples of dictionary translations are analysed in detail and contrasted against alternative and semantically divergent readings. 

Any human activity takes place within the context of limitations. Any translator, being a decision-maker, faces a constant challenge to overcome external (contextual) and internal (personal) limitations. Differences observed in translators’ decision-making behaviour under limitations are manifested in the time spent to make a decision, in the number of decision-making stages, etc. These differences come from both the translator’s personality characteristics and the degree of his or her awareness while acting under limitations. An unconscious approach to translation activity leads to increasing eff orts or to decision-making errors and, as a consequence, to a lower quality of translation. The translator’s task is therefore to be able to recognise external and internal factors limiting the decision-making process, and to choose an optimal strategy in each translation situation.

This report presents the results of an experimental study of translation as decision-making, obtained by the method of written verbalisation of the translation process. The types of limitations revealed in this study and the frequent errors coming from an unconscious approach to translation activity allowed us to come to conclusions that may contribute to improving translation didactics and, in general, to expanding the translator’s potential to achieve the best result possible.

In recent years, unprecedented growth of the demand for language services has brought many conveniences to the interpretation market, interpretation practitioners, interpretation educators, interpretation learners and interpretation customers, optimized the translation mode, improved the translation environment, accelerated translation speed and reduced translation costs. The application of interpreting technology represented by speech recognition technology brings convenience to interpreters and also puts higher requirements on the technical level of interpreters. We have noticed that there is still a large gap in the research into the use of the innovative interpreting technology in the field of Russian-Chinese interpreting. Therefore, this paper explores the feasibility of the technology to improve the quality of Russian-Chinese consecutive interpreting through contrast experiments. It is expected that our research results will be beneficial to the people engaged in interpreting work. 

Relevance. The abbreviations in Russian and Polish alike are considered on the basis of translation as transmitters of categorical meanings. A number of types of abbreviations are taken into consideration: initial, morphemic (based on the constriction of compound lingual complexes) and discursive graphic abbreviations in general use. Special attention is paid to various peculiarities (including linguocultural one) of Russian and Polish abbreviations. One of the distinctions between Polish and Russian abbreviations is the fact that in the Russian language there are many abbreviations with understandable motivated structures because their elements representing full nominations are morphemic ones. In the Polish language, the main part of abbreviations is made of the first letters of the full nominations. The peculiarities of the use of abbreviations in both languages are explained. It is a noteworthy fact that they are often used in different discourses without decoding. Abbreviations are considered as a complex structured integrative whole. The correlations between abbreviation and its primary full nomination are analyzed. An approach to abbreviations seen from the starting point of mental processes is presented.

Results. The basic results consist in the generalization of an analysis of the development and functioning of contemporary abbreviations in the Russian and Polish languages. It was determined that the creation of abbreviations is conducted by mental exchange of categorical semantic elements of the formations. The aforementioned phenomena are described as semantic lingual universals.

Сonclusion. The products of the creation of abbreviations in each language have different ways of linguo-formal expression. In translating, that leads to the creation of new linguo-mental entities: complex or simplified neoconcepts.

The study is aimed at identifying indicators of translated Russian-language discourse through the use of textual and lexical parameters in the German-Russian language combination. The work is congruent with descriptive translation studies and does not imply an analysis of the interaction between the original text and its translation: translation as an object of research is not considered in terms of equivalence, adequacy, translation correspondences and transformations. Student translations of journalistic articles of a major news portal served as the material for the study. An attempt is made to identify potentially universal trends in translation from the point of view of the discursive ontology of translation and to establish a set of textual and lexical indicators for analysis. The paper concludes that with the help of exclusively linguistic features, it is possible to identify special characteristics that distinguish translations from texts originally written in the target language. The results can be applied in the field of translation didactics.

The relevance of the research is determined by the need for a complex study and description of the peculiarities of the interpreter’s activity. Language means used in the lawyers’ professional speech are analyzed. Currently, juridical discourse is in the focus of linguistic research as it is among the most popular ones. As a participant in the juridical discourse, any speaker in court tries to assess the case, analyze the material and make conclusions that may be ambiguous. Accordingly, the interpreter takes into account the fact that the participants in the trial can present the same fact in different ways.

The purpose of this work was to identify the features of the interpreter’s speech when dealing with speeches for the defence, which, in fact, is a type of special translation. Translation of such speeches can often come closer to other types of translation in the current context of comprehensive international legal, military and political cooperation.

The research methods are determined by the purpose and objectives of this work. Th ese are the traditional method of discursive analysis, the method of philological analysis, the method of analysis and synthesis, the method of description and classification, directed sampling, the historical and cultural method.

Results. The communicative function and the function of influence keep a certain balance and form a dialectical unity in judicial speech. Th at means, on the one hand, that the interpreter must certainly take into account the expressive and emotional component of any speech for the defence, which can be reached by the use of linguistic means of expressiveness. On the other hand, it should be taken into account that the juridical discourse is quickly growing, lexical units appear in the legal sphere.

Conclusion. The interpreter must have a profound understanding of the identity of the legal discourse to carry out a special type of translation when working with speeches for the defence. As a distinctive feature from the point of view of special translation, the rich terminology of speeches for the defence takes an important place in the process of training professional interpreters and in their professional activities.

This article deals with the strategy for cursive writing training mechanisms in military verbal interpreting work. The authors give a definition of military interpreting work and a brief description of its characteristics. The article analyses the definition of interpreter’s notation and its specificities in terms of military interpreting. The analysis leads to the conclusion that interpreter’s notation improves the quality of interpreting in terms of highlighting the core of the original message, which is essential for both an efficient and fast note-taking of incoming information and interpreting itself, as well as in terms of reducing the memory workload. Many consecutive interpreters use various interpreter`s notation elements in their work, and each of them has their own special writing techniques. Although there are many guidelines available, each specialist develops a personal algorithm. Emphasis is placed on the fact that interpreter`s notation is one of the forms of speech eff orts economy, and by learning of interpreter`s notation methods, any military interpreter simultaneously explores and adapts to speech economy of local dialects, as s/he traces over the incoming information from native speakers. The aim of this article is to review the most common strategies for teaching note-taking in military interpreting, to point out their disadvantages and to propose an original system of procedures and instructions aimed at improving the interpreter’s notation skills. The theoretical significance of the problems reviewed in the article lies in the development and application input of the proposed various models of private notes abbreviations, substitutions and signs in the Russian, Arabic and English languages. The conclusions drawn in the article can be applied in the drafting of lecture courses and practical classes in training Arabic and English military interpreters, as well as in researching the speech eff orts economy principle put into practice by foreign language speakers. This study for the first time attempts to improve the effectiveness of note-taking instruction in military interpreting by applying fundamentally new patterns of exercises developed by the authors during their special interpreting activities in the Middle East.