Translation of occasionalisms in media texts: philological aspect

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Translation of occasionalisms in media texts: philological aspect

Zhanna Maksymchuk,

Teacher of the Department of Foreign languages and Information-Communicative technologies, West Ukrainian National University (Ternopil, Ukraine)

Abstract

The aim of the study is to examine the functioning and translation of English occasionalisms into Ukrainian and vice versa in the media texts, namely a social media site Instagram. Information and explanatory functions, which are the subject of the whole article, are only its secondary purpose. Communicative-pragmatic and functional features of social networks are investigated and we analyze which translational transformations are the best to be used in a specific situation to achieve the goal, namely to influence the audience and be conducive to manipulating consciousness for useful purposes.

The article presents an analysis of the fundamental aspects of the translation of occasionalisms, their structural- grammatical and lexical functions. As a result of studying the term “occasionalism”, the following main methods of its formation are distinguished: affixal method (prefix and suffixal methods), composite, conversion, reduction, inverse derivation, fusion, borrowing from other languages and abbreviation. Also the following main methods of translating occasionalisms are distinguished: functional replacement, transcription, transliteration, descriptive translation (explication), reduction, expansion and borrowing. In addition to this, we have assumed the main translation teaching methods of occasionalisms namely cognitive and audio-visual methods.

The cognitive method is aimed at forming the future translator's cognitive skills, which make it possible to determine the type and purpose of information, to highlight its main content, to build ways of solving problems while translating these lexical units, to be able to form them, to have some judgments and to show creativity. The audiovisual teaching method can be used to build and test models of translation competencies that determine the knowledge and cognitive components necessary for effective translation work. In addition, key aspects have found their way into translator training profiles and quality standards for translation services. Central to the acquisition of translation competence is reflection on decisions and actions during the translation process, as well as various process studies.

Keywords: occasionalism, media translation, neologism, cognitive method, audio-visual method.

Анотація

ПЕРЕКЛАД ОКАЗЮНАЛІЗМІВ У СОЦІАЛЬНИХ МЕРЕЖАХ: Філологічний АСПЕКТ

Жанна Максимчук, викладач кафедри іноземних мов та інформаційно-комунікаційних технологій, Західноукраїнський національний університет (м. Тернопіль, Україна)

Мета статті - розглянути функціонування та переклад англійських оказіоналізмів українською мовою та навпаки в масмедійних текстах, зокрема соціальної мережі «Instagram». Досліджуються комунікативно-прагматичні і функціональні особливості соціальних мереж та те, які перекладацькі трансформації найкраще застосувати в конкретній ситуації для досягнення мети, а саме: вплинути на аудиторію та бути спроможним маніпулювати свідомістю в корисливих цілях, інформаційно-пояснювальні функції. Подано аналіз основних аспектів перекладу оказіоналізмів, їх структурно-граматичної та лексичної функцій. У результаті дослідження терміна «оказіоналізм» виокремлено такі основні способи його утворення: афіксальний спосіб (префіксальний та суфіксальний способи), композитний, конверсія, редукція, зворотна деривація, фузія, запозичення з інших мов та абревіація. Також виокремлюють такі основні способи перекладу оказіоналізмів: функціональна заміна, транскрипція, транслітерація, описовий переклад (експлікація), скорочення, розширення та запозичення. Констатовано основні методи навчання перекладу оказіоналізмів, зокрема когнітивні та аудіовізуальні методи. Когнітивний метод навчання спрямований на формування в майбутнього перекладача когнітивних умінь, які дають змогу визначати тип і призначення інформації, виділяти її основний зміст, будувати засоби розв'язання завдань під час перекладу цих лексичних одиниць, уміти формувати їх, мати власні судження та проявляти креативність. Аудіовізуальний метод навчання може бути використаний для побудови та тестування моделей перекладацьких компетенцій, що визначають знання та когнітивні компоненти, необхідні для ефективної перекладацької роботи. Крім того, ключові аспекти знайшли свій шлях до профілів підготовки перекладачів і стандартів якості перекладацьких послуг. Центральна роль у набутті перекладацької компетенції полягає в обмірковуванні рішень і дій під час процесу перекладу, а також різноманітних досліджень процесу.

Ключові слова: оказіоналізм, медійний переклад, неологізм, когнітивний метод, аудіовізуальний метод.

INTRODUCTION

translation occasionalisms media text

The problem formulation. The most crucial condition for the existence of a language is its ongoing development, which is expressed in the appearance of new words. The process of learning about the world, the emergence of new concepts, alterations in social life, progress in science and technology occur continuously, which requires the language to provide speakers with the necessary number of new lexical units. A large number of new words appear in a language every year, which requires researchers not only to record, but also to analyze them.

The Internet, especially social media, as a new communicative environment is developing rapidly, accordingly, there is a need to investigate and describe occasionalisms, find out how to identify them in the text, translate properly and be able to teach future professionals to do it .

Blogging is the personalization and segmentation of journalism in the process of its massification. It is also the universalization and addition of the content of published texts, because it is its own reflection of the essence of the Internet as a universal network of one humanity. As a result, we must understand that the process of translation will be different. First of all, a blogger can hold a reflective and philosophical position, which is usually very rarely offered by a journalist. They can synthesize new mindsets and motivational guidelines. Moreover, a blogger can create and spread new meanings and new perspectives both about the world in general and about any location in the world.

Such people can generate a new discourse, tying and correlating it with the new proposed practice. That is why, in order to form the system of thoughts of a viewer, listener, reader, a blogger or influencer must be flawless in terms of language design which is in dire need of expressive means. Stamps are contraindicated for social media celebrities that fill the media space with busyness of thoughts, dryness of presentation. Consequently, in recent years, linguists have paid considerable attention to virtual discourse. The theme of the appearance of occasionalisms in the language system, about the principles of their creation, classification, functioning have always attracted the interest of linguists. Taking into consideration the fact that the combination of occasionalisms and social media sites is rather challenging and flexible, we must focus our attention not only on the process of translation but also on preparing future translators to this issue.

Analysis of recent research and publications. Numerous domestic and foreign works are devoted to the study of these language units. Thus, the problems of the emergence and functioning of occasionalisms were taken into consideration by such Ukrainian linguists as O. Gabinska, O. Zemska, M. Kalniyazov, O. Lykov, V. Lopatin, N. Feldman, E. Khanpira and others (Selivanova O., 2021, p. 90).

Practical lexicographic problems of occasionalisms were also dealt with English and American linguists: J. Algeo, R. Bayen, J. Cannon, K. Kurtler, V. Lee, J. Simson and others (Selivanova O., 2021, p. 90).

AIM AND TASKS RESEARCH

The aim of the study is to explore and analyze the translation teaching methods of occasionalisms.

This aim implies the following tasks of the research:

1) to give definition to such notions as discourse, social media discourse, occasionalisms;

2) to analyze models of the creation of occasionalisms;

3) to find out the main methods of translating occasionalisms;

4) to explore the main translation teaching methods of occasionalisms.

The subject area of this study is occasionalisms in the social media discourse. The specific topic of the study is social media content namely a social media platform Instagram.

RESEARCH METHODS

Research methods observation; surveying students, analyzing the results of student surveys, assessing the level of foreign language proficiency and translation skills, as well as exploring and solving problems with its subject and the desired improvement of the level of its mastery. The research was carried out on the basis of West Ukrainian National University, taking into account a survey among students of the Department of Foreign languages and Information-Communicative technologies.

RESULTS OF THE RESEARCH

The term “discourse” has got a lot of definitions and is used in many subjects. It is a piece of speech, regardless of the form of its presentation that consists of cultural, social and ideological factors. “Social media discourse” is a set of frames that are all enacted at the same time by official online news sources, organizations and individuals. Social media language is the unstable inner language system which is characterized by the specific lingua-stylistic features (Selivanova O.O., 2021, p. 54). Mass media language is considered to be the unique sign system with the specific correlation of verbal and audio-visual components peculiar to the Internet. More and more words are appearing every day since bloggers want to draw followers' attention to their personality and manipulate. That is why they are required to be extraordinary and generate new content. That is the way occasionalisms are created but they exist only in a unique environment and are likely to be used many times.

The terms "occasionalism" and "occasional word" are considered universally recognized and used by many linguists. Occasionalisms (author's neologism) are speech units that are formed according to standard and new word- formation models, with a characteristic expressive color and individual character. According to L. Danilova, "...the term "occasionalism" is the most appropriate contrast from "individual neologism", "poetic neologism", "neologism context" and a number of others. It quite clearly defines the specifics of such words, formed individually by a specific author: to serve a minimal context, a certain private case, a certain speech situation; these words do not pretend to be established in the language, to enter into general usage" (Selivanova O.O., 2021, p. 89).

There are three ways of occasionalisms appearing:

1) word-formation derivation - formation of new words from the existing in language morphemes through known (usually productive) models; the most common methods of formation of occasionalisms are suffixation, prefixation,

prefixation-suffixation, stem-composition, and often in combination with suffixation, stem truncation (inverse derivation), fusion and conversion;

2) semantic derivation - the process of appearance of semantic derivative meanings, co-meanings, semantic connotations;

3) borrowings from other languages or subsystems of the language - from dialects, vernacular, slang (Maslova S.,2020, p. 67).

Some problems while translating are also related to the decoding of the semantic structure of these new units. This process has a subjective nature, because occasionalisms are not registered in dictionaries, and the context implies different meanings. Thus, the adequacy of the translation depends on how the translator reconstructed the meaning, whether they correctly interpreted the associations (Guz W., 2020, p. 227), whether they have received enough background knowledge to discover all the implicit meanings.

Therefore, for the interpretation and reproduction of occasionalisms in translation, not only the context and situation are significant, but also the translator's bilingual skills (knowledge of the structure of the original language and translation), translation (knowledge of translation theory), extralinguistic (industry and background knowledge), personal (behavioral and cognitive mechanisms) and strategic competences (the ability to coordinate all of the above components) (Munday, J., 2021). The context and at the same time the paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations with occasionalisms help to narrow the circle of possible interpretations, but the choice of the only correct meaning of occasionalism is up to the translator.

After summarizing scientific developments on this issue, we can state four ways of translating occasionalisms of social networks.

1. Transliteration and transcription. These are translation techniques based on the transfer of a graphic image or sound form of a foreign word. This method is used in the case of reproduction of occasionalisms for instance proper names, occasionalisms-names, objects, etc. Such translated occasionalisms often require further explanation or clarification. This way of translation we can witness with the word “рашист” in the Ukrainian language and “rashist” in the English one. Moreover, there is a Ukrainian occasionalism чорнобаїти, which can be translated as “chornobaites” (Benjamin Medison, 2022).

2. Adaptive transcoding is used if the usual transliteration or transcription is not enough to make the newly formed word sound natural. As a result, certain adaptations of morphemes or lexemes to the lexical and grammatical norms of the source language take place. Let us take a look at the same word “рашист”, but according to some translators the English equivalent “russist” is better. They state that if we want to make our followers get used to us faster, we have to adapt the occasionalisms to the target language as much as we can in order to make them sound natural (Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 2022).

3. Functional replacement. It is such a grammatical transformation in which a part of speech changes due to the lack of direct equivalents. As an example, we can take an English phrase “drink-themed quiz”. It can be translated as “тематична алкогольна вікторина” or “тематична п'яна вікторина”. We have altered the order of words but saved past participle to make the translation more natural and impressive. The difference between these two ways of translation is what kind of audience it must be done for. If it's related to a hotel / restaurant or as in our case it has been taken from an Instagram account of British online newspaper “The Economist”, the first alternative is suitable but when we deal with a blogger or an influencer and our task is to reveal their personality, the second translation is perfect (Zhanna Maksymchuk, 2022).

4. Borrowing. It is a lexical transformation in which words or expressions are taken directly from the source language and decoded into the target language. Let us take a look at the phrase “scroodg-economist” taken from the Instagram account “The Economist”. It is the name of one of the headings on this account. In the English language the common way of this phrase is scrooge-economist, but they decided to be extraordinary, omitting the last “e” in the first word. Unfortunately, in the Ukrainian language there are no words that can end with a silent letter. Consequently, this occasionalism can be translated as “Скрудж-економіст” (The Economist, 2022).

5. Descriptive translating. This technique requires including some description in order to clarify and make the target text understandable, for instance The pair of words "deficit - surplus" in the English translation is a rather tricky thing. We can say "deficit", but "proficit" does not exist.

Volodymyr Oleksandrovych somehow caught on to this linguistic hook. Speaking about the budget surplus, he used the expression "budget proficit". In this situation it is better to add the description “budget proficit (surplus)” and rescue the authority of the president.

1. Reduction. The aim of this translation technique is to remove some units, which are considered unnecessary, in the target language.

2. Expansion. This translation technique is the opposite of reduction. A translator adds some words so as to make the target text more structural and understandable (Chernovaty L.,2021, p. 116).

The last two translation techniques are not illustrated by examples due to their absence during the research, but this does not mean that these methods do not exist. Each formed occasionalism is unique, so we consider it appropriate to include these methods in the general list in order to preserve the systematicity of the classification (Tsaryk, O., Rybina, N., & Sokol, M., 2018, p. 227).

It is important to note that the choice of the appropriate method of translation depends on the audience an occasionalism is aimed at, which is demonstrated above. If we speak about the main translation teaching methods of occasionalisms, cognitive and audio-visual methods are the best options to deal with this issue.

The cognitive teaching method is aimed at the formation of cognitive skills in a future translator, which allows them to determine the type and purpose of information, highlight its main content, build ways to solve problems while translating these lexical units, be able to make their own judgments and show creativity. It's really crucial to be able to identify the best equivalent in order to fulfill the main task of bloggers.

They are able to offer social innovations, new ideas, new ways of thinking, even those that are controversial and not accepted by the general public. A blogger doesn't only directly call for and motivate certain actions, but also organizes these actions during the entire process of their implementation, carrying out technologically complex interactive processes in the network, that is, work not only in the text, but also in the comments to their text. As a result, a translator ought to be able to comprehend which translation technique works in a specific situation (Chernovaty L., 2021, p. 230).

The audio-visual teaching method can be used to build and test models of translation competences setting out the knowledge and cognitive components aimed necessary for effective translation work. Furthermore the key aspects have found their way into translator training profiles and translation service quality standards. A central role in acquiring translation competence is to reflect on decisions and actions during the translation process, and various process research methods have been used in translator training to encourage self-reflection (Tsaryk, O., Rybina, N., & Sokol, M., 2018, p. 227).

CONCLUSIONS AND PROSPECTS OF FURTHER RESEARCH

Thus, The aim of the study is to analyze the main translation teaching methods of occasionalisms in higher educational institutions. In the process of occasionalisms translation teaching, it is worth focusing on the cognitive teaching and audio-visual teaching methods, the formation of communicative competence in the Ukrainian and English languages, it is significant to develop linguistic, sociolinguistic, discursive, strategic, social competence. The substantiation of the main principles of learning the process of translation of social media texts provides an opportunity to confirm the effectiveness of the usage of cognitive teaching and audio-visual teaching methods in the process of practicing and acquiring translation skills .

Prospects for further investigations consist in the study of the teacher's tasks regarding the correct choice and combination of teaching methods in accordance with the educational material and the level of students' knowledge in the process of learning translation of social media content.

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