USAGE OF GENDER-NEUTRAL STRATEGIES IN THE TRANSLATION OF OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of strategies for applying gender-neutral strategies and specific tactics in the translation of official business discourse of the European Union. Comparing approaches to introducing inclusivity into the text of Union documentation and determining the practical significance and value for translation activities, particularly in the Ukrainian context, is one of the tools for further research in the context of gender studies and gender linguistics in general. The article examines the difference between English and German in the context of grammatical gender. The use of collective nouns, gender-neutral units, plurals and the use of graphic elements such as asterisks, colons and gender gaps was investigated. In the context of the study, a comparative linguistic analysis was conducted using examples from the English and German versions of the 2024 Rule of Law Report, specifically the section on Austria, where terms for professions in the English original and German translation were compared and a discrepancy in the use of strategies to achieve gender neutrality in the document was identified, allowing a direct correlation between grammatical structure and the choice of means of inclusion in the document to be established. In addition, the influence of graphic symbols on the digital accessibility of text for people with visual impairments in a German-language context was analysed. The results of the study established typological determinism, since the choice of a gender-inclusive strategy is determined by the grammatical structure of the language. It was proven that English effectively realises the potential of lexical neutralisation, while German resorts to the use of graphic elements. The way of highlighting the morphological features of the adaptation of Englishlanguage neutral units to the German language system during the study allowed us to draw direct parallels with the transformation processes in the modern Ukrainian language