Translation of the grammatical meaning of past tense forms in a professional text (on the example of the railroad theme)

Abstract

The subject of this article is the grammatical category of tense. The majority of linguists tend to define tense, the ratio of action to the moment of speech. The object of this research is the ways of translating past tense forms from English to Russian. The goal of this article consists in the analysis of functionality of the forms of expression of past tense in a professional text and translation techniques. The sentences selected via method of continuous sampling from online publications dedicated to the topic of transport, served as the material for this research. Analysis is conducted on 5,680 sentences. Examination of the language material employs the method of continuous sampling and quantitative analysis is used. Despite the fact that the grammatical category of tense in both English and Russian languages is well studied, translation of the category of tense has not been scrutinized within the framework of linguistic translation studies, which substantiates the relevance of this work. The novelty lies in systematization and quantitative description of the techniques of translation past tense forms from English to Russian. It is established that there are three main techniques of translating past tense forms into Russian: 1) using nonverbal means or infinitive verbs; 2) using nonpast tense forms; 3) using past tense forms. The choice of perfective or imperfective verb in translation is determined by the presence of additional grammatical meanings in the tense, as well as the context