Специфіка перекладу абревіатур, акронімів та скорочень у суспільно - політичному дискурсі

Abstract

The paper is devoted to abbreviations, acronyms and contractions (clippings) and the ways used by translators to reproduce them in socio-political discourse. The research aim is to study the types of shortenings used in socio-political communication, and to explore approaches to their translation, performing a content analysis of documents from the United Nations country team website of Ukraine, as well as other official Internet sources. According to the aim, the tasks of the current master research are the following: to study socio-political discourse as a special type of communication; to explore the concepts of “abbreviation”, “acronym” and “contraction” (“clipping”) in historical retrospect; to examine shortenings and features of their functioning in socio-political discourse; to elucidate theoretical bases of translation of English abbreviations, acronyms and contractions into Ukrainian; and to fulfil the content analysis of the resources from official website of the UN Office in Ukraine for the usage and methods of translation of abbreviations, acronyms and contractions. The scientific novelty includes the implementation of one of the first attempts at a comprehensive study of the usage and translation of shortenings in the texts of socio-political orientation. Moreover, a wide range of English sources that has not previously been the subject of a special study is explored. The study found that discourse is an intermediate phenomenon between oral communication on the one hand and fixed text on the other. It can be considered in the narrow sense as a text or conversation, or in the broad sense – as a written or linguistic result of communicative action. Socio-political discourse is a subcategory of political discourse that encompasses all language structures, subjects and addressees in the politics and society sphere. Socio-political discourse is a type of institutional discourse that unites texts created in specific circumstances. Such texts include reports and their translations published on the official website of the UN Office in Ukraine. It has been stated that the first abbreviations of words have been used in political records since ancient times to save time and space resources in the context of exchanging large amounts of information that is especially relevant in the field of socio-political communication. All kinds of abbreviations of words and phrases can be generally called “shortenings”. “Abbreviation” or “initial shortenings” are considered a subtype of shortenings for the first letters and sounds in words and original phrases. “Acronym” is an abbreviation that is more similar to a word in pronunciation and sound characteristics. In addition, there are “contractions” or “clippings”, which are abbreviated versions of single words. The study considers the following types of shortenings: contractions (clippings) of the word base (apocope, apheresis, syncope, mixed type) and abbreviations (alphabetic abbreviations, acronyms, alphabetic, compounds, graphic and Latin abbreviations). Telescopic words are also considered in the context of contractions. Classification of acronyms includes sound and letter-sound acronyms, backronyms and recursive acronyms. The general classification is supplemented by syllabic abbreviations (acronyms), homonymic acronyms and tautological abbreviations. During the study, special symbols are also added to the list of abbreviations. According to the results of practical research, it was found that within the institutional socio-political discourse, most of the analyzed shortenings are abbreviations, in particular, alphabetical abbreviations and acronyms. Translation analysis has shown that most abbreviations, acronyms and contractions are translated in one or two ways – completely or by using equivalents in Ukrainian language. It is proved that a large number of abbreviations and acronyms, which are mostly used to denote proper names, including states, organizations, socio-political initiatives and documents characterizes institutional socio-political discourse. Texts of institutional socio-political discourse have fewer abbreviations compared to media texts of socio-political orientation, due to the lower degree of formality of the latter. Shortenings that cause the most difficulty in translation include those that are used without accompanying decipherment in the source text or have several interpretations; abbreviations that do not correspond to the full version of the translation or have only a descriptive translation; shortenings that have different reproductions in different texts due to transliteration errors; sometimes – homonymic acronyms, spelling and pronunciation of which are similar to ordinary words; acronyms and recursive acronyms as words that give rise to new phrases; English abbreviations that are transcoded versions or equivalent for abbreviations from other languages; uncommon graphic and Latin abbreviations; telescopic words, etc. Translating the mentioned shortenings, a translator should follow the pragmatic principles of translation, logic and, if necessary, be creative, analyzing the context and structure of abbreviations, acronyms and contractions, using reference books and official sources, comparing different variants of shortenings’ reproductions to choose or create one that suits the context and communicative situation.