Russian-English Dictionary Research Articles

Lexicographic description of vocabulary with a negative emotional evaluation in English-Russian dictionaries

Lexicographic description of vocabulary with a negative emotional evaluation in English-Russian dictionaries

Штурманский морской англо-русский словарь как часть «Курса кораблевождения»

The artilce considers the English-Russian Navigation dictionary in the context of its creation. The dictionary evolved from a small appendix to a textbook into a separate edition, which is a part of a multi-volume Marine Navigation Course. The Navigation Dictionary as part of the Marine Navigation Course ed. by Yakov Lapushkin was published twice: in 1947 by Nikolay Rybakov and in 1960 by Tamara Rutkovskaya. The representatives of the professional naval, academic, and scientific community, including the well-known lexicographer Alexander Taube, contributed to this dictionary. A comparative analysis of the sources shows the continuity between these dictionaries in their content, design and structure. The demand for the new 1960 version was explained by a rapid scientific and technological progress, as well as by the requirements to take into account not only British, but also American sources due to the increasing role of the United States in the navigation in this period. The need to create a navigation dictionary, including both special terminology and basic commands, was justified in the textbooks by Nikolay Rybakov, and in the preface to the dictionary by Tamara Rutkovskaya by the role that this language played in professional naval communication. Navigators needed a modern English-Russian dictionary that could be used for reading foreign manuals, for communication with pilots; such professional skills should have been obtained in the course of studies. Nowadays, old dictionaries compiled scores of years ago, remain a valuable source of information on the history of the Russian scientific and technical thought and professional communication.

Cross-Linguistic Correspondences and Current Problems in Terminography

The paper investigates the current development of digital technologies, its terminology, the problems in cross-linguistic terminography and shows that at present terminography becomes an autonomous and leading multidimensional linguistic digital discipline. Its most urgent task is to create effective digital termilonological resources of cross-linguistic correspondences to authentic extended language-specific and idiomatic digital terminology in English, including its equivalents in Russian. A wide collection of corpus data, compiled for the last five years (over 1 mil. words) out of leading authentic journals and books in English on Natural Language Processing (NLP) and corresponding authentic texts in Russian, provided with translation of titles, abstracts and key words from Russian into English, as well as the analysis of computer translation systems, shows that contemporary English-Russian dictionaries and digital lexicographic resources need serious improvement. It can be based on contemporary linguistic knowledge in cross-linguistic English–Russian and Russian–English correspondences, particularly concerning “translation universals”, such as explication, implication and normalization.

Репрезентация военного термина и его переводных эквивалентов в англо-русских онлайн-словарях

The study aims to identify the potential of English-Russian dictionaries in the selection of translation equivalents as exemplified by the English military terms used to denote the main types of weapons and military vehicles. The authors refine U Heid’s algorithm of access to an e-dictionary and apply it to the analysis of three online translation dictionaries (Cambridge Dictionary, Multitran and Lingvo Live) in the situation of selecting translation equivalents to the military terms that denote main types of weapons and military equipment used by the US and NATO armed forces. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that the authors for the first time conduct a comparative analysis of online dictionaries in the situation of selecting a translation equivalent to a special (military) term. As a result of analysing the representation of military terminology in English-Russian online dictionaries, the authors prove that Multitran is superior to Lingvo Live and the Cambridge Dictionary in the selection of translation equivalents to military terms, substantiate the importance of a user’s participation in the process of expanding and editing an online dictionary corpus, reveal drawbacks of online dictionaries and provide practical recommendations for the optimisation of an e-dictionary.

Особенности лексикографического описания прагматем в двуязычных словарях-разговорниках

The article focuses on the analysis of lexicographic description of pragmatemes (pragmatically constrained phrasemes). 609 pragmatemes were selected employing a continuous sampling method from four English-Russian and Russian-English electronic phrasebooks. The results of the quantitative analysis show that on average pragmatemes comprise no more than 20% of the total number of the units listed in the phrasebooks; they are most commonly found in sections with basic expressions (e.g. greetings, goodbyes, and apologies). It has been revealed that the structure of a dictionary entry, which contains a pragmateme is characterized by uniformity, since in most cases it includes three components: a lemma, translation and practical transcription (or audio recording). Additional information about the lemma is sparse and disordered. It is concluded that the Russian-English and English-Russian phrasebooks available on the Internet do not provide information necessary for the adequate use and correct understanding of pragmatemes. This finding indicates the need to create a high-quality English-Russian and/or Russian-English dictionary of pragmatemes. The parameters of the potential dictionary of pragmatemes are suggested taking into account speech specifics of these units. The results of the research and speech material may be useful for linguists, lexicographers, translators and teachers of foreign languages interested in mono- or interdisciplinary studies of pragmatemes.

Прецеденты двуязычных словарей религиозной лексики в современной России

The compilation of specialized bilingual dictionaries of religious vocabulary in modern Russia is concerned with a number of methodological difficulties caused by the political and cultural history of the Russian area. The English-Russian and German-Russian dictionaries of religious vocabulary considered in the proposed review, compiled in the period from the 1990s to 2021, reflect the author’s solutions to the problems of intercultural communication and adequate translation of relevant meanings. In the peer-reviewed dictionaries, one can observe both various approaches of the excerption of religious vocabulary (special vocabulary of the main world religions, Christian liturgical, biblical, theological, heortological vocabulary, vocabulary of scientific and theological discourses), and different ways of terminography and translation interpretation. The analysis of peer-reviewed publications is methodologically focused on the critical coverage of the following points: the design of the vocabulary, the criteria for the inclusion of nomenclature names (biblical names, toponyms, etc.), the propriety and degree of prevalence of contextual exemplification of the term. There is an obviously positive trend in the development of German-Russian dictionaries, while the state of development of English-Russian dictionaries of religious vocabulary is somewhat inferior to the former in a number of parameters.

Построение и оформление статьи в «Русско-английском словаре фразеологизмов-эвфемизмов»

The paper aims to identify reliable and generally recognised ways of structuring and formatting an entry in bilingual phraseological dictionaries and monolingual dictionaries of euphemisms, on the basis of which entries are organised in the “Russian-English Dictionary of Euphemistic Phraseological Units”. The work is the first to describe the principles of structuring a dictionary entry in a bilingual dictionary of euphemistic phraseological units, which constitutes scientific novelty of the study. As a result of the study, it has been found that the necessary components of an entry are the accounting for and presentation of all types of variants of Russian euphemistic phraseological units, their paradigmatic relations, functional-stylistic, temporal and territorial attributes.

Ways of translating non-equivalent units in the “Russian-English Dictionary of Phraseological Euphemisms”

The problem of adequate presentation of English counterparts of Russian phraseological euphemisms in the “Russian-English Dictionary of Phraseological Euphemisms”, which is the first bilingual dictionary of euphemistic units in both languages is presented. Saving significational-denotational component of meaning of Russian phraseological euphemisms while translating them into English is crucial. The subject is possible ways of adequate transmitting of non-equivalent Russian transferred euphemistic units' semantics. The aim is to determine and present possible ways of translating non-equivalent Russian phraseological euphemisms into English: the right part of the dictionary entry is under study. The research methods are: the method of continuous sampling, the comparative method, the method of phraseological description, developed by A.V. Kunin, the method of analyzing dictionary definitions, component (seme) analysis. The novelty of the research: for the first time possible ways of translation of non-equivalent phraseological euphemisms which combine the characteristic features of both phraseological and euphemistic nomination are discussed. The results prove that there are four ways of translating non-equivalent phraseological euphemisms: with the help of translation loans, lexical, descriptive and combined translation, the last one being most important in providing the necessary information on the euphemistic orientation of Russian phraseological euphemisms. Conclusions are made about the necessity to include additional information about the features of the euphemistic nomination of Russian phraseological euphemisms in the form of descriptive translation into English, in contrast to the way of presenting the translation of non-equivalent phraseological units in existing bilingual phraseological dictionaries.

Inter-lingual correspondence between the conceptual systems of patent law in Russia and the United States

Due to its deep connection with international law and the requirement to register patents in every country where protection of an invention is sought, patent law requires an immense number of translations every year. Nevertheless, considerable diversity in national patent legislations around the world hinders translation of patent documentation because of significant terminology differences. This paper studies patent law terminology equivalence in Russian and U.S. patent law. The main objective is to identify concept correlation between the main patent law terms in the U.S. and Russian legal systems and to classify the identified term-pairs according to their degree of equivalency, pointing out problematic cases and suggesting ways of their resolution for better translation of documents in this field. This objective is reached through comparative definitional analysis of the key patent law terminological units extracted from legislation texts, monolingual term glossaries, and bilingual term dictionaries. Notwithstanding the predominance of full equivalents, the research shows that national patent law systems preserve their characteristic features which result in a significant number of partially equivalent and non-equivalent terms, many of which are related to the very basic patent law concepts such as patentability. However, no currently existing bilingual English-Russian or Russian-English dictionary provides up-to-date and accurate information about Russian and American patent law terms with all necessary remarks concerning possible differences between the concepts. The research results can serve as the basis for compilation of a specialised bilingual glossary of Russian and American patent terms which can be used as a reference during translation of patent documentation.

Methods of translating nonequivalent units in the Russian-English Dictionary of Phraseological Euphemisms

This article explores the problem of adequate translation of English equivalents of the Russian phraseological euphemisms in the compiled by the authors “Russian-English Dictionary of Phraseological Euphemisms” – the first bilingual dictionary of euphemisms. Special attention is given to preservation of the significative and denotative component of the meaning of Russian phraseological euphemisms in their translating into English. The subject of this research is the methods of adequate transmission of the semantics of nonequivalent reinterpreted Russian euphemisms. The goal lies in the description of possible methods of translating nonequivalent Russian phraseological euphemisms into English: the right part of the dictionary entry is still under study. The novelty of this research lies in the discussion of possible methods of translating nonequivalent phraseological euphemisms that combine the characteristic features of both phraseological and euphemistic nominations. These typical characteristics are reflected in the right part of the dictionary entry. The acquires results prove that existence of four methods of translating nonequivalent phraseological euphemisms: using loanwords, lexical, descriptive and compound translation; the letter is crucial in delivering necessary information on the Russian phraseological euphemisms. The conclusion is made on the need to include additional information on the peculiarities of euphemistic nomination of the Russian phraseological euphemisms in form of descriptive translation into English, as opposed to the method of translating nonequivalent phraseological units in the existing bilingual phraseological dictionaries.

Terminological Analysis of the Term “Monograph”

Today the term “monograph” requires careful consideration, since the essence of the term itself is being changed over time and it takes into account the changing conditions in scholarly communication. The purpose of article is by means of the terminological analysis to identify the essential attributes of monograph, reflected in its various definitions. The article considers the terminological analysis of the term “monograph” according to a number of attributes: its material structure, intended purpose, presentation of material, coverage, number of authors, target audience, functions of a monograph for an author and a reader. The author used Russian language and English language dictionaries and research results as the main sources. There considered several approaches to understanding the term “monograph” (natural science interpretation of a monograph as a description of individual types and subjects, a monograph as a treatise on a single theme or problem, and a monograph as a separate publication in the form of a book). Main results are: the determination of the the attributes of a monograph reflecting its essence from the point of view of Russian speaking and English speaking practice, as well as the attributes of a scholarly monograph. The distinction among scholarly, industrial-practical and popular science monographs is typical only for Russian speaking practice, while monograph is primarily a treatise (scientific edition) for English sources. A reputational function of a monograph can become the prevailing function for an author, and sometimes it can be the only one purpose to write it. It is concluded that the main attributes of a scholarly monograph can be considered: the intended purpose - a scholarly one; the coverage - one theme or a problem; the number of authors - one or more authors; the target audience - specialists; the function for an author - the reputational one; the function for a reader - the informative one.

Russian for All Occasions: A Polythematic Russian-English Dictionary of Collocations and Expressions. The Authors Reflect on the Idea Behind the Dictionary, the Problems Encountered and How They Were Solved

ABSTRACT The authors discuss the problems of compiling a bilingual dictionary ‘for all occasions’. The first part of the article deals with the aims and the concept of the dictionary within a wider lexicographical tradition. Among the problems discussed are: what type of entries it should have, which topics to include and how to organise them to make the dictionary usable and useful, how best to divide the dictionary into different units and sub-units, what sources to use, what range of styles to cover. The second part discusses the principles used in compiling the English entries of the dictionary and the differences between the two languages which this process revealed, as well as the need to provide additional explanations in the form of notes.

Modern Professional Language of Robotics (Terminological Family “Robot”)

The article is devoted to the study of the terminological family with the base term “robot”. The issues concerning the structure of the terminological family, its basic lexical units, the most productive models of term formation and most frequent grammatical forms of terms are considered. Particular emphasis is placed on the specifics of the terminological family. The characteristic features of terminological elements used in the formation of new terms are defined. It is emphasised that the emergence of terminological combinations is a common way of forming new special words. In the course of study, it was found that the terminological family with the base term “robot” belongs to the class of highly deployed families. A five-stage model of the terminological family is presented. About 200 derived terms have been analysed at the five stages of term formation relating to the present state of language development. The scientific hypothesis that the emergence of terms-specifiers of the original concept is the way of forming a special professional terminological family has been proved. The material for research includes the “English-Russian Explanatory Dictionary” by E. M. Proydakov and L. A. Teplitskiy (Moscow, 2019), monographs, scientific publications on robotics in peer-reviewed journals in 2010—2021.

TO THE PROBLEM OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS REFLECTION IN DICTIONARIES OF DIFFERENT TYPES

Statement of the problem. The article is devoted to a detailed analysis of the phraseological units of the English language of various thematic groups and the features of their registration in the English-English and English-Russian dictionaries and reference books. Features that distinguish phraseological units from free phrases are studied. More than that, the question of belonging proverbs to phraseological stock is studied. Then phraseological units selected by the continuous sampling method are classified according to different grounds, and a detailed analysis of the features of their reflection in the analyzed sources is carried out. Results. Phraseological units are classified into some categories according to the following criteria: function in communication, determined by their structural and semantic features and thematic division. Phraseological units-euphemisms related to several thematic groups, including death, curse words and pregnancy are studied. The characteristic features of microstructure organization of each individual source are described. Conclusion. The analysis of English phraseological units registration showed that this lexis is reflected in dictionaries in a proper way. Theoretical literature analysis shows justification of proverbs inclusion into phraseological stock as they are a part of national cultural heritage and are reproduced in speech in the basic form. Further, the author comes to a conclusion that dictionary type and addressee of the reference book determine features of microstructure organization and their components (definition, translation equivalent, illustrative example, grammar, stylistic, regional and etymological labels, graphic illustration).

METAPHORICAL CONCEPTUALIZATION IN THE ENGLISH IDIOMS THAT BELONG TO THE ALIMENTARY CODE

Figurative structure of idioms reflects cultural codes that make linguistic picture of the world. Food and national cuisine represent a specific culture area. Idioms specify an English alimentary code and its axiological vector. The purpose of the article is to analyze metaphorical models presented in the idioms of the English alimentary code. 256 idioms of the English alimentary code make the object of the research. The idioms under analysis have been selected by the continuous sampling method from the bilingual Big English-Russian Phraseological Dictionary by A. V. Kunin. The descriptive method and the elements of the comparative-historical method were applied in the course of analysis. Metaphorical model GASTRONOMIC IMAGES is STATE OF A PERSON is represented by the frames ‘Physical parameters of a person’, ‘Satiety’, ‘Emotional state of a person’. The frame ‘Physical parameters of a person’ is represented by the slots ‘Constitution’, ‘State of health’. The slot ‘State of health’ is represented by lexemes denoting food and cooking attributes. Frame ‘Satiety’ is represented by slots ‘Basic need for food’, ‘State of intoxication’. Hunger and satiety are verbalized through anthropomorphic, natural and artifact metaphors. Frame ‘Emotional state of a person’ is represented by the slots ‘Pleasure’, ‘Confidence’, ‘Suffering/Humiliation’. Idioms of the English alimentary code corresponding to the given metaphorical models have been revealed. It was stated that they reflect gastronomic images. The analysis suggests the predominance of anthropomorphic, zoomorphic and artifact metaphors. Key components are represented by the lexemes denoting food, feelings of satiety and hunger, and the process of eating.

20th-century Soviet–Russian dictionary front matter: focus on the linguistic norm

Two iconic twentieth-century print dictionaries provide a sampling of dictionary front matter in the Soviet–Russian lexicographic tradition; they demonstrate how front matter was used for overt and covert messaging about the linguistic norm. First is the one-volume bilingual English–Russian dictionary of Vladimir Karlovich Muller, and second is the one-volume monolingual Russian dictionary of Sergei Ivanovich Ozhegov; later it was published with Ozhegov and Nataliia Iul’evna Shvedova listed as co-authors. Both dictionaries were revised and reprinted over many decades. Only two editions of each dictionary are in focus, although there were more than sixty editions of Muller, 23 of Ozhegov, and several of Ozhegov and Shvedova.

SEMANTIC PROCESSES IN THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH POLYSEMANTIC VERBS WITH EMOTIVE AND EVALUATIVE LEXICO-SEMANTIC VARIANTS

The article deals with semantic structure of polysemantic verbs of present-day English. Polysemantic English verbs having evaluative lexico-semantic variants of meaning are analyzed in the article. It is underlined that lexico-semantic variants of meaning of a polysemantic English verb are joined in its structure with a common dominating semantic component; semantic variants with emotive and evaluative meaning play a significant role in the semantic structure of a polysemantic verb. It is stressed that the semantic variant of verb meaning with a certain evaluative content possesses an independent linguistic status and simultaneously plays an important role in the development of pragmatic meaning of a polysemantic verb. Emotive and evaluative components of meaning of the English verb were defined by means of linguistic definition analysis of meanings on the basis of definitions in the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. The New English-Russian Dictionary edited by professor I.R. Galperin served as material for analysis in our research. Polysemantic English verbs have a great number of lexico-semantic variants of meaning including semantic variants implying evaluation of actions denoted by the verb. Ways of forming these meanings are analyzed in the article, the main ways of forming evaluative meanings of the English verb are considered to be semantic transfer. The most widespread type of semantic transfer of the English verb is change of the subject of the action denoted by the verb from an inanimate object to an animate person. Metaphoric transfer of meaning from denotation of a physical action towards a psychic one is also widespread among English polysemantic verbs. Further development of evaluative meaning of the English verb may be based on transfer of denotation of a concrete action towards an abstract one, simultaneously a referent is evaluated and this evaluation is absolute according to its type. New lexico-semantic variants may be added to the semantic structure of a polysemantic English verb as a result of linguistic process of enantiosemy, i.e. juxtaposition of evaluative meanings of opposite evaluative sign.

ПРИЗНАКИ НОМИНАЦИИ БОЛЕЗНЕЙ В ДИАЛЕКТЕ СКОТС

The article deals with diseases nominations in the Scots dialect. The research material includes the Scottish-English dictionaries - “The Online Scots Dictionary” and “Dictionary of the Scots Language”, “New English-Russian Dictionary” by V. K. Muller, “Linguistic Encyclopaedic Dictionary” edited by V. N. Yartseva and medical information sources to study symptoms and signs of diseases. In the modern world, among the diversity of accents and dialects of the British Isles, Scots has a special place in communicative interaction realisation. It is revealed that the dominant feature of a disease nomination in Scots is the nomination of pain/illness according to its localisation in a particular organ or body part. Colour metaphor has been found to be one of the leading types of the secondary nomination of diseases in the Scots dialect.

Semantic classification of object phraseological units with zoonymic component in English

The paper explores the least studied and, thus, the most disputable and variable aspect in describing phraseological units, which is semantics.The research is based on the semantic and grammatical analysis of 514 phraseological units with a zoonymic component in the English language collected by means of continuous sampling from the English-Russian phraseological dictionaries by professor A.V. Kunin. By analyzing lexicographical definitions, realization of the units in speech, and, in some cases, etymological aspects, we have managed to develop a hierarchy of semes in the structure of their meaning and make up a classification based on a semantic-grammatical principle. This is an essential part in the long process of compiling a dictionary of phraseological units.

Libraries polycultural activities: terminological aspects

The libraries polycultural activities are connected with their work in the polycultural environment. The article deals with the terminology used by libraries for this activities, defines these terms. It reveals reasons for the multicultural librarianship appearance in Europe and creation of IFLA Section «Library services to multicultural populations». The author shows definitions of «multiculturalism» and «multicultural library services» given by the International Guidelines «Library services to multicultural communities»; the difference between the conditions of creation and development of multicultural library services in Europe and the Russian libraries work in the polycultural environment. The paper represents a comparative analysis of such definitions as «multicultural» and «polycultural» by the academic Russian environment and English dictionaries. The author concludes that in our country it would be more correct to use the term «polycultural», which involves the interaction of cultures, unlike the term multicultural meaning the existence of several cultures in a society. That’s why the author speaks about the polycultural activities of Russain libraries, or about their activities in the polycultural environment aimed at interaction and mutual influence of cultures.