LEXICAL AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF THE ENGLISH ACCOUNTING DISCOURSE TERMINOLOGY

Abstract

The article considers lexical and semantic features of translating English accounting terminology into Ukrainian and substantiates the appropriateness of certain lexical translation transformations using International Accounting and Financial Reporting Standards, materials of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) as the examples. In the process of Ukraine’s European integration and extention of international trade, the integration of the Ukrainian communication environment with the English-speaking business environment is increasing. It is established that in order to achieve the most accurate translation, the translator should have a deep knowledge of professional terminology in both Ukrainian and English, as well as has to be able to conduct a thorough analysis of the lexical and semantic features of accounting texts, using appropriate translation techniques. The article investigates the essence of accounting discourse as a specific professional sphere of communication and its language manifestations, including regulatory documents, financial statements, professional qualifications and other specialized texts, as well as oral communication of professionals in the field of accounting, economic analysis, auditing and taxation. The peculiarities of accounting discourse and the importance of accurate, unambiguous, objective and understandable translation of professional terms for the target audience are emphasized. It is found that during the translation of accounting terminology we should consider various types of equivalence of lexical units, the wide use of internationalisms and polysemantic words; it complicates the use of translation techniques to accurately convey the meaning of the text to the target audience. The frequent use of the potential of affixation for formation of English accounting terms is highlighted. It is proven that the most appropriate transformations used for translation of the English accounting discourse terminology into Ukrainian include generalization, specification, calculation, transcoding and descriptive translation.