Formation and translation of military terminology

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Formation and translation of military terminology

Struk I.V.

National Aviation University

Semyhinivska T.H.

National Aviation University

Sitko A.V

National Aviation University

This research presents a solution to the current scientific problem of rendering Ukrainian military terms, abbreviations based on official Internet resources, which cover current and official information about events in Ukraine. The material was sampled in the periodfrom February 24, 2022 to March 31, 2022, which secured the selection and analysis of about 380 samples of military terminology. This paper presents an overview of the historical stages of the formation of military terminology. It figures out that the military terminology is characterized by a significant number of shortenings, such as: initial abbreviations, syllabic abbreviations, acronyms, sound-letter abbreviations.

Military terminology is also characterized by a significant number of abbreviations. Analysis of Ukrainian- language information channels and their English-language versions shows that primarily translators resort to consecutive translation, where choosing between transcoding and loan translation, preference is given to loan translation, because transcoding often creates units that do not make sense in the language of translation, a kind of pseudo-word. This primarily concerns the change of case forms, the number of words in a phrase, affixes, word order, morphological or syntactic status of the word. It should be borne in mind that the translated term must conform to the language of the translation. In some cases, when it comes to unidentified munition, alphanumeric identifiers are used, which must be also taken into account by the translator.

The analysis of the translation of military terms revealed that for rendering military terms the following methods were mostly used: full borrowing of the English abbreviation, which constitutes, full translation and creation on its basis of the Ukrainian abbreviation. The least used methods were full translation, sound-letter transcription, transliteration, transcription, translation and transcription.

Key words: military terminology, terminological system, abbreviations, loan translation, transcoding

Струк І. В., Семигінівська Т. Г., Сітко А. В. ФОРМУВАННЯ ТА ПЕРЕКЛАД ВІЙСЬКОВОЇ ТЕРМІНОЛОГІЇ

У статті проаналізовано особливості творення військової термінології та переклад лексем військової тематики з огляду на ситуацію, яка склалась на території України з 24 лютого 2022 року.

Зокрема, увагу зосереджено на класифікації військових термінів, беручи до уваги зміни, які відбуваються у військовій науці і техніці, що характерні для певних історичних періодів.

Виокремлено відмінні риси військових матеріалів на лексичному рівні на противагу галузевим текстам іншої приналежності, якими можна визначити велику кількість скорочень, що є характерним як для англійської, так і української мов.

Автори досліджують найбільш продуктивні шляхи відтворення військової термінології. У результаті засвідчено переважне використання перекладачами послідовного перекладу під час відтворення термінів військової тематики, де обираючи між транскодуванням та калькуванням, перевага надається калькуванню. При цьому увага звертається на те, що калькування при перекладі військових термінів вживається лише у випадку, коли утворений таким чином перекладний відповідник не порушує норми вживання і сполучуваності слів в мові перекладу. Автори наголошують, що доволі часто перекладачам доводиться вдаватись до різного роду трансформацій. У першу чергу це стосується зміни відмінкових форм, кількості слів у словосполученні, афіксів, порядку слів, морфологічного або синтаксичного статусу слова. Варто пам'ятати, що перекладений термін має відповідати нормам мови, на яку здійснюється переклад. Також зазначається, що в окремих випадках, коли мова іде про зброю невідомого походження використовуються буквені та цифрові ідентифікатори, що також має враховувати перекладач. Під час аналізу фактичного матеріалу було з'ясовано, що найбільше військові терміни були перекладені такими прийомами, як-от: повне запозичення скорочення, що становить, переклад повної і створення на його основі англомовного скорочення. Найменш вживаними виявилися звуко-буквене транскрибування і транслітерація, транскрибування.

Ключові слова: військова термінологія, термінологічна система, абревіатури, калькування, транскодування.

Introduction

military terminology lexeme

Terms are one of the main ways of linguistic expression of special knowledge, which appear to facilitate the process of communication during professional and scientific activities. They “consolidate existing knowledge, explaining scientific concepts, categories and principles of their systematization, patterns of a particular field of knowledge and activities” [10, c. 29].

Related Research. In recent decades, domestic military experts and linguists have joined in solving the problems of linguistic interoperability of Ukraine with the countries of the North Atlantic Alliance. In particular, V.V. Balabin [1] studied modern American slang as a problem of translation, D.V. Vasylenko

[3] studied the military vocabulary of the English language of the XX - early XXI century, Yu.A. Zatsny

[4] analyzed the Anglo-Ukrainian counterparts in the field of international counter-terrorism, while S.Ya. Yanchuk [12] analyzed the specifics of the translation of military documentation of UN and NATO peacekeeping missions.

Research Goals

Despite its undeniable practical value, these works cannot fully fill the gaps in the theoretical justification of military terminology translation, especially given the increasing political and military tension in our geopolitical region, in particular, the actual state of war in which Ukraine found itself, which causes the use of previously unknown models of weapons, the purposeful filling of the Ukrainian segment of the Internet with misinformation [5], and, accordingly, simultaneous functioning of several terms to denote one concept, inaccuracies in the nomination and the like.

The present paper considers 380 samples of names of military equipment and weapons, selected by continuous sampling from the Ukraine NOW Telegram channel (number of contributors - 21K) and its English-language version with the number of contributors of 19.1K, which covers official and current information about events in Ukraine. The material was compiled and analyzed in the period from February 24, 2022 to March 31, 2022.

2. Translation studies: an overview of historical stages ofmilitary terminology development. Ukrainian researchers (including D.V. Vasylenko) argue that complex military terms mainly reflect the changes that occur in military science and technology, characteristic of certain historical periods, and offer the following classification: (1) World War I - the development and improvement of artillery and aviation (aircraft carrier, air service); (2) World War II - the further development of aviation, the beginning of rocketry (area bombing, pilotless bomb); (3) the Vietnam War - introduction of helicopters, the use of napalm fire (helicopter battalion, helicopter delivery); (4) the Korean War - creation of new models of aircraft, nuclear warheads (air strike, air bomber); (5) War on Terror - the emergence of high-precision weapons based on the latest computer and digital technologies (guided bomb, armor-piercing bomb); (6) Cold War (a confrontation between the US, Western democracies and the USSR) - the development of atomic, bacteriological, chemical weapons, improvement of missiles and rocket carriers (atomic age, intercontinental ballistic missile, intermediate range ballistic missile).

We see it necessary to supplement this classification by item 7 - War in Ukraine, which includes the development and implementation of hypersonic weapons (hypersonic Kinzhal missile), unmanned aerial vehicles (The Bayraktar TB2 drone, UAVs) and cyber weapons [6] (АРТ- 28). In general, the composition of special military vocabulary includes nomenclature units (nomens and onyms), which form a set of special names that relate to certain concepts and actualize subject relations, for example: БМ-21 «Град» - BM-21 “Grad”; БМ-21К «Верба» - BM-21K Verba; БМ-21УМ «Берест» - BM-21 UM Berest; вантажівки забезпечення «Урал» - Ural support trucks, ПЗРК «Ігла» - MANPADS “Igla”; система радіоелектронної боротьби «Красуха-4» - Krasukha-4 electronic warfare (EW) system; важка вогнеметна система залпового вогню ТОС-1А «Солнцепек» - The TOS-1A Solntsepek heavy flamethrower system (TOS).

The emergence of military reductions dates back to the World War I. During this period, the names of military formations, for example, were mostly contracted, «зенітна артилерія» -“AA, antiaircraft”. New words, which are coined as a result of reduction are built on the basis of the existing lexical-and-grammatical material and in accordance with the laws of word formation of the English language. We observe only a structural transformation of lexical units. In general, there are the following types of abbreviations: 1) initial abbreviations: alpha- betisms (MLRS - Multiple Launch Rocket System); acronyms (JATO - Jet-assisted take off); sound-letter abbreviations (FRAGO - Fragment of an Order); letter-sound abbreviations (JDAM - Joint Direct Attack Munition); 2) syllabic abbreviations (recon, reconnaissance). Individual morphemes are truncated in the process of syllabic abbreviations formation.

In the perspective of the development of military terminology, we will mention such a phenomenon as euphemia, the deliberate replacement of a sign of a certain concept with a descriptive name or other sign that is used to prevent communicative conflicts [7]. The Ukrainian researcher B.V. Tkhir notes that “euphemisms are characterized by high sensitivity to historical changes in the material and spiritual life of society. Euphemised units are very unstable formations, they rapidly become trite; this is due not only to the property of emotional vocabulary to quickly become trite, but also to the fact that once a word becomes usable, it again closely associates with the term and loses its euphemistic properties” [11]. In this context, we can cite the phrase “Like it or don't like it, it's your duty, my beauty”, which appeared during a press conference, at which, following talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, the Russian president again complained of the Ukrainian authorities as for their unwillingness to comply with Minsk agreements.” The phrase was discussed, interpreted and compared with lines from songs, movies, etc. for a long time. To which the President of Ukraine fired back: “We are not his. ... `My (Ukraine)' is a slight overstatement.” Therefore, the main function of euphemism in military terminology is camouflage. Euphemisms are used to: 1) cover up aggressive hostilities, distract from military operations; 2) mitigation of military errors: 3) masking the striking power of weapons and 3) veiling the effects of war, the number of casualties, for example: Краще залишатися вдома, ніж вирушати додому вантажем «200» [14]; - You'd better stay home than return home as a corpse [13].

Euphemisms are also inherent in military substandard vocabulary. Military slang-euphemisms can perform several functions: 1) replace the names of objects and phenomena that can cause fear in humans, such as: death, injury: «мертвий» - “wasted”; threatening weapons, means of mass destruction: “граната” - “baseball”; dangerous military actions: «атакувати» - “kick butt”; 2) create shocking expressiveness: «дезертирувати» - “hit the bricks”.

In the next section we will analyze the ways of rendering military terminology.

Approaches to the translation of military terminology

Analysis of Ukrainian-language information channel, indicated at the beginning of the article, and its English-language version shows that primarily translators resort to consecutive translation, where choosing between transcoding and loan translation, preference is given to loan translation, because transcoding often creates units that do not make sense in the language of translation, a kind of pseudoword. Loan translation is used only when the translation equivalent formed in this way does not violate the norms of use and combination of words in the target language. It should be noted at once that when translating military terminology, loan translation is not always an ordinary mechanical operation in order to render the original form into the language of translation. Very often we have to resort to various kinds oftransformations. This primarily concerns the change of case forms, the number of words in a phrase, affixes, word order, morphological or syntactic status of the word. It should be borne in mind that the translated term must conform to the language of the translation. Here we agree with the rhetoric of Ukrainian researchers Ye.D. Levin and S.V. Karlyuk [8], who emphasize that military and military-and-technical translations require much greater rigor and unambiguity in the means of conveying terms and content, and therefore “translation of military texts should, on the one hand, always focus on the source and its terminology. Any arbitrary interpretation or change of the text is unacceptable here: the price of error is too high.” Let us recall in this context the well-known example of the Soviet system of counteraction, which was translated into English as Galosh («Галоша») - currently better known as ПРО-1 «Галош». The specifics of the translation of military models of this type should reflect the ability of the term to logically, specifically define objects, phenomena, quality, relationships and processes of military affairs. Therefore, it is quite adequate that, for example, ПФМ-1 «Лепесток» which is a de facto analogue of the American mine BLU-43 /B “Dragontooth”, is rendered into English as PFM-1 or Green Parrot as well as Butterfly Mine or the Russian main battle tank Т-90 «Владімір» in English-language sources is also presented only under the index T-90, and the examples are not limited to this. However, the clear semantic delineation of the boundaries of military terms that result from the tendency of the language for compactness and reliability in the transmission of information provokes the use of transcoding in translation, for example: 1) partial or complete transliteration, for example: переносний зенітно-ракетний комплекс класу «земля-повітря» FIM-92 «Стінгер» - manportable air defense [MANPAD] systems FIM-92 Stinger; реактивні снаряди Торнадо-С - TornadoS rockets; 2) transliteration and literal translation, for example: Американська розвідка заявила, що балістичні ракети «Іскандер», які Росія запускає Україною, містять обманки, які дозволяють обходити протиповітряну оборону та давати неправдиві дані ракетам теплового пошуку [14]; - U.S. intelligence has said the Iskander ballistic missiles that Russia is firing into Ukraine contain tricks that can bypass air defenses and feed false data to heat-seeking missiles [13]; 3) transcription (letter or phonemic rendering of the original lexical unit using the alphabet of the target language), for example: «командер» - “commander”. This method is rare in the practice of military translation. When transcoding the letters of a language, the whole form or most of it can be conveyed; 4) transcription and translation, for example: протитанковий ракетний комплекс FGM-148 «Джавелін» - аnti-Tank Guided Missile FGM-148 Javelin, тактичний ракетний комплекс « Точка-У» - Tochka-U tactical missile system, окрема механізована бригада «Холодний Яр» - separate machanised brigade “Kholodnyi Yar” 5) descriptive translation, i.e., lexical-and-grammatical transformation, in which the lexical unit of the original language is replaced by a phrase that represents a more or less complete explanation or definition of this meaning in the language of translation. It should meet the following requirements: (1) the translation must accurately reflect the basic meaning of the concept; (2) the description should not be too detailed; (3) the syntactic structure of the phrase should not be complicated [2]. With the help of descriptive translation, you can convey the meaning of any non-equivalent word in the original. For example, тактичне завдання з ведення наступального бою - attack problem, час знаходження(літака) на землі - ground time. Quite often this approach is used to translate a military term that has not yet received an official name.

As mentioned above, the military literature contains many different non-standard lexical items, some of which are abbreviations and acronyms that are widely used in the names of equipment and weapons. As a rule, abbreviations found in technical texts have a dictionary equivalent in the terminological system of the target language. However, our study examines the names of military weapons and equipment by means of Ukrainian, which, as a rule, do not have translation equivalents in the English terminological system. In this regard, we have analyzed different ways in which abbreviations and acronyms are rendered. We will consider each of them separately:

1. Translation by appropriate abbreviation: ППОС (процес планування та оцінки сил) - PARP (Planning and Review Process); РСЗВ (реактивна система залпового вогню) -MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System). In this example, the equivalent was selected from the existing lexical stock of English. Sometimes in such cases the correspondence is created in the process of translation.

2. Translation by the corresponding full form of the word or word combination in the target language: ПТРК - Anti-Tank Missile System; НАР - Aircraft- Launched Rocket; ЗРК «Бук-М1» - “Buk-M1” Surface-to-Air Missile System; АРМ - automated working places; АСУ - automated command and control system.

3. Transcoding of abbreviations or acronyms: проект модернізаціїБТР-70 - BTR-70 modernization project; окуляри нічного бачення ОНБ - night vision ONB googles; гвинтокрил Мі-8 МТВ - Mi-8 MTV Helicopter.

As you can see, such abbreviations are usually accompanied by explanatory words that are translated into English to clarify the message. This way of rendering helps to preserve the original name of military equipment in the translated text, and explanatory words help the reader of the target text to understand what it is about. Transcoding remains the most common way of conveying abbreviations. This method is often used to convey the names of military equipment in English, because, in most cases, they are their own military names that are inherent in the lexical system of the Ukrainian language, so it is better to use transcoding to reproduce them accurately.

4. Transcoding of the full original form of the corresponding abbreviation or acronym: літак Ан-26 - An-26 (Antonov) aircraft. This method is not frequently used for conveying the names of the military equipment and armaments, mostly only in the cases, as given in the example above, that is, when in the Ukrainian text the abbreviation of the name of the equipment is a reduced form or abbreviation of the company-manufacturer.

Thus, analyzing the ways of rendering the names of military equipment and weapons by means of Ukrainian, we can say that such lexical elements are quite common in military literature, so you should be careful when choosing how to render them so as not to distort the content of the original message. In our study, the most productive method was the transcoding of the original abbreviation or acronym. Thus, it is fair to state that the “translator should primarily strive for achieving the equivalence in translation, and then, based on the principle of adequacy, that is semantic selection of the source language, seek to effective ways and methods of translation”, since “the form of linguistic characteristics takes immediate part in conveying their sense” [9, с. 125].

Conclusions

This research presents a solution to the current scientific problem of rendering military terms, abbreviations based on official Internet resources, which cover current and official information about events in Ukraine. The material was sampled in the period from February 24, 2022 to March 31, 2022, which secured the selection and analysis of about 380 samples of military terminology.

The difficult task for a translator is to render military terms that contain culture-specific items that do not exist in the country into which the translation is made. In such cases a translator should resort to the descriptive translation, literal translation, transliteration, or transcription. First of all, the translator must understand and take into account the real meaning of the term in a certain context, and then try to convey the meaning of the concept.

The analysis of the translation of military terms revealed that for rendering military terms the following methods were mostly used: full borrowing of the English abbreviation, which constitutes 28%, full translation and creation on its basis of the Ukrainian abbreviation (24%). The least used methods were full translation (9%), sound-letter transcription (6%), transliteration (7%), transcription (11%), translation and transcription (15%).

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