CULTURE-SPECIFIC VOCABULARY IN ENGLISH POPULAR SCIENCE ARTICLES IN COMPARISON AND TRANSLATION

Abstract

The article deals with culture-specific vocabulary in English popular science articles examined within the aspects of comparison and translation. The concept of popular science substyle and its features, as a variety of academic style, aimed at popularising scientific knowledge and ensuring its accessibility to a broad audience are defined. The genre and stylistic features of English-language popular science articles are examined. Particularly, we analyse culture-specific lexical units that reflect the national and cultural specificity of English popular science discourse. These include proper names, realia, phraseological units, interjections, terms, and other notions. Such elements play an important role in popular science texts and help authors interact effectively with their readers. Special attention is paid to translation issues. Translators of popular science articles must consider the importance of culture-specific vocabulary and, when necessary, preserve the pragmatic value of the text by adapting it to the target audience. The structural and semantic features of English culture-specific vocabulary are examined. We also analyse translation techniques used in rendering culture-specific lexical units from English into Ukrainian, and determine that both direct and oblique translation, as well as “overt” and “covert” approaches to translation (J. House), are used. The direct translation is combined with the “overt” approach, and is common for rendering well-known geographical names, names of companies, institutions, etc. The oblique translation accompanies the “covert” approach, and is common for culture-specific units that have no equivalents in the target language, thus, requiring adaptation. We conclude that translators of popular science articles often combine both approaches within a single text to ensure adequacy and pragmatic equivalence.