Стратегии перевода терминов сферы «Высшее образование» с английского языка на русский

Challenging globalization processes within higher education result in integrating HEIs into the global educational area, and it is one of the basic requirements of the education system in the 21st century.

The Russian higher educational system has been modernized since the beginning of the year 2000. To clear up the term itself, let us give the definition of the term Modernization. According to E. Dneprov [14] modernization is a complex renovation of certain educational system points and the educational activity in compliance with modern life conditions. Preserving the best traditions of the Russian higher education, these changes concern the content, technologies, and organization of the educational activity with some rudiments of the past.

Higher education modernization is an integrative process and at the same time it is a part of the whole modernization process of the Russian society focused on the innovative Economics development. To build and integrate innovative economics, Russia needs to elaborate and use new knowledge, competences, management systems, and scientific discoveries which should be transformed into new technologies and production. With reference to the above, it is strategically important for the society to maintain 3 tasks:

1) to develop and effectively use independent public Higher education assessment system, which enables to transit from one educational program to another;

2) to involve employers into the educational policy and build the Higher education quality standards taking into account the newest tendencies;

3) to integrate Russia and the global educational area.

Due to its specific cultural and geographical location, the Russian Federation foreign policy is aimed at the European Union countries, on the one hand, and to the countries of the Southeast region on the other. Providing our scientific interests, we turned our attention to the peculiarities of higher education in Asian countries such as Malaysia, China, Korea etc. In the given article we mostly dwell on the HEI terms in Russia and Malaysia and the choice of the investigating material in Russian and English is determined by the extralinguistic factor, namely the governments’ aim to achieve a sustainable growth trend. According to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

The aim of the research is to study English metaterms (common language units which are used in the HEI system and applied in all study areas (Humanities, Business and Social sciences, Engineering, Science and Technology etc.) in the higher education sphere in both Malaysian and Russian systems and reveal their translation problems, with the source language being English and Russian as the target one. Consequently, we have taken the key terms of the Malaysian and the European education systems and tried to work out the best translation strategy for rendering these terms into Russian as the world HEI community is in urgent need to ensure profound exchange of ideas, students and degree programs. And the term vocabulary in all educational systems in developed countries should be comparable and applicable.

Nowadays, the intensity of cross-cultural contacts is becoming more and more apparent, expanding the range of interaction spheres between representatives of different cultures, and therefore increasing the number of situations that require participation of an interpreter and translator. During the period of massive penetration of English as a language of global communication into the intercultural space, it is necessary to improve the quality of the interpreter, and this imposes special obligations on him/her, namely to serve an adequate retranslator of the message from the sender to the recipient and a transmitter of the information expressed in one language by means of another.

One of the long-standing challenges of translation studies has been the task of algorithmizing a translation process and devising a model which would have a sufficient prognostic potential to account for translators’ divergent choices given in similar/identical contexts. Conventional translation theory as well as some contemporary approaches within the framework of translation studies view the mechanism of translation as a system of transformations on various language tiers which result in a translated version of the text which is compatible (among commonly employed terms are equivalent or adequate translation) with the original (see works [10], [11], [18]).

Many popular translation models are aimed at identifying a hierarchy of overlapping and differentiating features in the original and the translation. The situational-denotative model proposed by I.I. Revzin and V.Yu. Rozentsveig [19] views translation as a series of cognitive transformations: a sequence of language units (words) – an arrangement of denotates (objects) with a focus on their relations (situation) – recoding this situation in a different language. Alternatively, the semantic translation model by J. Catford [4] focuses on analyzing the semantics of language units. This analysis results in a semantic map featuring the number and the arrangement of the smallest semantic units (semes). These findings are employed when deciding which foreign word or word combination offers an identical or similar semantic structure. It is not critical to find a word which features identical semantics: in some cases this job proves futile. It is crucial that semantic structures are relatively close (as in a popular example by V.N. Komissarov: студент – student, where the number of semes present is different, though these differences are insignificant and can’t prevent us from employing student as an equivalent of студент in an English translation of the text). Similar principles lay the foundation for other translation models: transformational model based on the premises of the generative grammar by N. Chomsky, three-phase model by O. Kade, interpretational model by D. Seleskovitch and M. Lederer [12], correlative model described by A.V. Fedorov [7], L.S. Barkhudarov [2], etc. At the same time, there exists a hermeneutical model proposed by the Russian professor E.A. Morozkina [16], according to which the interpreter is to get over the hermeneutical modality circles.

Even such a superficial overview of approaches to modeling translating suggests that conventional translation models focus on individual practical steps, relevant when translating; still, they shouldn’t be seen as tools to model translating as a complex activity. Besides, they have limited prognostic potential and can hardly be employed when algorithmizing a translator’s work with terms.

Terminology is the core of any educational and scientific text, and the ability to translate terms is prevalent nowadays. We assume from the fact that terms are universal units and are translatable irrespective of their application sphere. Any term has its own sense, and the translator’s goal is to decipher it. As interpretation is described by many linguists as an instrument for decoding the information in a linguistic unit ([8], [21], [22]), we may render the English term unit into Russian by means of interpretation (the notions interpretation, rendering and translation are not strictly differentiated in this work). 

Paul Ricoeur, the French philosopher and one of the leading philosophical hermeneutics representatives, associates interpretation with a special work of thinking, “which consists in deciphering the meaning behind the obvious meaning, in disclosing the levels of meaning contained in the literal meaning” [21].  

Thus, we can say that interpretation is not only a technical process that allows you to interpret the words of the author and reveal the meaning; it is also a creative activity that depends on the intellectual level and extra-linguistic knowledge.

This is a qualitative study meant to identify translation problems in dealing with English metaterms in the higher education sphere. The study employed various translations of English stimulus language units (metaterms) made by two focus-groups to verify the findings. The first focus-group (G1) comprised 10 Russian-speaking students of Applied linguistics (Russian, English languages) and Practice and Theory of Translation from Bashkir State University, Russia, whereas the second group (G2) included 10 professional translators. The overall research material was taken from education documents (Statement for the Module-rating system of learning and assessment in Bashkir State University [23]), scientific journals [17], [5], and HEI official web-sites of Malaysia [24].

The questionnaire included 90 context-free English metaterms denoting higher education sphere realias and functioning in Russia and Asia. The data from the questionnaire have been analyzed using the transformational approach, a comparative analysis of the translation, and interpretational approach. Thus, our experiment may be defined as a forwarded experiment for selecting translation equivalents.

Two groups (G1, G2) were given a questionnaire of 90 context-free metaterms and the recipients had to translate them into Russian without reference to any manuals or on-line dictionaries. Consequently, they based on their language and background knowledge. The students were 19-20 year-old male and female young people with 1) intermediate English level (“Applied linguistics (Russian, English languages)” bachelor program); 2) an upper-intermediate and advanced level of English (“Practice and Theory of Translation” bachelor program), who study in Bashkir State University (Russia). The group of translators consisted mostly of women, who had an advanced or professional level of English and about 5-10-year experience of translating. Table 1 shows 10 term units as chosen in the result of the forwarded experiment for selecting translation equivalents.

As far is known, the basic requirements for the term to meet are accuracy, consistency and uniqueness. These conditions are ideal requirements for the term, however, in practice, terms are found to be ambiguous and non-universal, therefore the uniqueness of the term is not a prerequisite, but only a trend or a state that any term system seeks. In practice, the uniqueness of the term is conditioned by the restrictions of each terminological field. However, even within the same field, the term cannot have one but several lexical meanings, since the meaning of the term is determined both by the objective content of the concept in question and a certain subjectivity of the researcher aimed at clarifying the conceptual content of the term. The controversy in term unit uniqueness should be obviously taken into account when translating the term from English into Russian.

Let us present some results of a comparative translation analysis of the units of the terminological field “Higher Education” in Russian and English, used:

1) in Russia;

2) in Malaysia;

3) in both countries.

The research procedure and material are as follows.

Firstly, a pre-translation analysis of the original units has been carried out. Extra-linguistic factors that influence a method for translating a terminological unit from one language into another have been identified.

Secondly, the correspondences/equivalents in the target language have been found. Thirdly, our own versions of the term translations are presented (we mean the cases when translation correspondences/equivalents are not found in any reference literature).

Articles from the scientific and tutorial journals “Higher Education in Russia” [17] (the original is Russian), “Tuning Journal for Higher Education” [5] (the original is English), as well as the documents posted on the official websites of Malaysia [24] served as research materials. In total, 90 terminological units were taken, and 10 terminological units were selected to demonstrate the results of the forwarded experiment for selecting translation equivalents.

The problem of the English-Russian term translation is directly related to choosing a suitable translation method from the available: we applied to transliteration, equivalent correspondences, semantic or word-formation calque or descriptive translation. In some cases, the commenting was used to achieve adequacy. Talking about all the terms  at our disposal (90 units), 43 units must be commented on. This amounts to 48% of the total number of original units. If we consider the results of the experiment described above, commenting in English is mandatory when translating the following units  from English into Russian (4 out of 10 or 40%): continuous assessment (Russian Federation), intermediate assessment (Russian Federation), grade point average (Russian Federation), Learning Audit Instrument (Asian countries).

According to our observations, the terms of the considered English sphere are in most cases translated into Russian with the help of transliteration (it being rather predictable, since these are the so-called international units): mobility – мобильность, modernization – модернизация, credit – кредит; calque translation: student-centered learning – студентоцентрированное обучение, m-learning (mobile learning) – мобильное обучение; semantic calque: lifelong learning – непрерывное обучение, soft skills – гибкие навыки. In some cases we witnessed descriptive translation with comments: access arrangements – подготовительные мероприятия перед сдачей экзамена, access course – подготовительные курсы для взрослых. Other English terms are rendered into Russian by:

1) equivalents, e.g. learning – обучение; education – образование; academic advising / scientific advising – научное консультирование, rating system of assessment – рейтинговая система оценки успеваемости. In this case two variants of translation are used;

2) descriptive translation: academic board – профессорско-преподавательский состав;

3) semantic calque: senior tutor – старший преподаватель, continuing professional programs – основная образовательная программа; word-formation calque: intermediate assessment – промежуточный рейтинг;

4) calque: bachelor – бакалавр, master – магистр.

Let us turn to the features of interpreting the term units having several translation variants: case study, soft skills, hard skills. The variety of translations is caused by extra linguistic factors. In Russian soft skills corresponds to мягкие навыки and гибкие навыки and they are both adequate with the form and content corresponding to the ones of the source language (гибкие навыки or мягкие навыки (soft skills) – a complex of non-specialized, career-related, super-professional skills that are responsible for successful participation in the work process, high productivity and are transparent, i.e. not related to a specific subject area), whereas the translation variants are a temporary language phenomenon and the Russian society is sure to stop using one of the duplets as the language strives to get rid of the double elements. Another example is case study that can be rendered as кейс-стади or кейс стади (by transliteration) or метод ситуационного анализа, метод конкретных случаев (by descriptive translation). Here we take into account the stylistic reference of the context: it is preferable to use descriptive translation in official and scientific texts, in others transliteration is applied. In case of Russian texts, case study often retains its graphic appearance, i.e. seems like a case study. The question arises regarding the spelling norm of the target language: which spelling to choose: кейс-стади, кейс стади or case study? The fact is that you can find all the listed graphic variants of the word in the texts of different styles, we think that the relative equality of these options is due to the language mode and their non-registration in dictionaries, reference books and Russian grammars. The term hard skills is translated as профессиональные навыки by semantic calque, and as твердые навыки/ жесткие навыки by calque. In Russian reference literature, we find the following definition of the term hard skills – they are the basic skills of professional activity. It is noteworthy that such terminological units as case study, soft skills, hard skills are neologisms both in the source and target languages and are often translated from English into Russian by the help of English graphics.

It should also be noted that most of these terms are international (module-rating system of assessment, professional practice, soft skills, academic advisor, associate professor, etc.), which undoubtedly facilitates the semantic and formal qualities transfer of the original language unit in translation, however, there are cases when the terms are culturally marked, and their rendering requires some translation commentary. In our opinion, the term postgraduate, which is traditional for the Russian linguistic culture, is quite indicative in this regard. The described phenomenon is typical for the English space only, and the meaning of the word postgraduate is not familiar to the Russian culture native speaker. A postgraduate course is a much deeper analysis including a detailed study of the subject matter and covering the broader themes than an undergraduate degree covers. Students of a postgraduate course obtain a stronger understanding of the relevant issues and are sure to be considered experts or specialists in the field. It turns out that this term is not eligible for universality (internationality), but is unique and culturally marked.

In this paper, an innovative way of solving the above problems by developing optimal strategies for interpreting the meaning of terms has been proposed. Attempts to model the interpretation process in various science branches have shown that interpretation depends on certain knowledge availability in the world of the addressee: the richer the world model in this problem area, the deeper the penetration of the text meaning [1]. Thus, it turns out that interpretation is determined by a number of strategies related to the language field functioning in the discourse, and it is the strategies that organize the real course of interpretation and combine the goals and means of interpretation.

The first type of strategies is semantized strategies focused on the level of linguistic semantics and aimed at identifying direct and indirect meanings of the term. Elements of its lexical and grammatical organization foreground the direct or contextual meanings of words and facilitate meaningful and factual information extraction from it.

The second type of strategies is linguistic and cultural strategies for interpreting the meaning, focused on the deepest level of conceptual semantics and related to the “translation” of the meaning of the term embedded in it by the author into a system of knowledge, ratings, previous experience of the textual information recipient. In other words, to decipher the meaning of the term, the recipient uses cultural values and mentality features of his and the other linguistic and cultural communities. A word or phrase in a text can be culturally marked, and, therefore, carry a certain cultural meaning. In the present work, cultural marking is presented as a phenomenon realized through setting to work the “cultural component” [9].

Cognitive interpretation strategies that target different levels of vertical context help activating local and global term information. Cognitive strategies for interpreting the meaning can be divided into two types of macrostrategies [6]: contextual and textual. Contextual strategies use all relevant information (local and global, including background knowledge of the world), which serves to develop a hypothesis regarding the translation of the term. Textual strategies bring to action the knowledge necessary for the term semantic interpretation.

The integral interaction of all the three interpretation strategies contributes to accumulating necessary and sufficient information and leads to comprehending the term meaning at different layers [3].

Let us see how they really work. The first to be applied is the sematisized strategies connected with the understanding of the meaning of the term. When it comes to interpreting the translator tries to conclude the meaning of the word combination by the meanings of its constituent parts. Consequently, the term “module-rating system of assessment” comprises the units: 

“Assessment – the process of making a judgment or forming an opinion, after considering something or someone carefully”,

“module – one of the separate units of a course of study”,

“rating – a measurement of how good or popular someone or something is”,

“system – a method of organizing or doing things” [15].

At the second stage we deal with linguistic and cultural strategies basing on the cultural background knowledge of the translator and their ability to apply it in their rendering of the unit. Here the inexperienced group of translators rendered the term like Модульно-рейтинговая система оценки результатов обучения that is not quite adequate but equivalent to the original as we do not obtain results of the study but we assess the progress students make. More advanced translators used their background knowledge system and their translation seems closer to the original sense of the term: Модульно-рейтинговая система оценки качества успеваемости студентов”, that is “a scope of measures which intends to provide phased assessment of Core disciplines learning outcomes within which structuring of the content of a discipline is made: the whole content is divided into the modules, and regular learning outcomes assessment is conducted during the semester” [23]. They used addition of the word студентов that helps to comprehend the term in full from the cultural point of view.

At the third stage the cognitive strategies help the translators to activate various areas of knowledge which we see via their versions: модульно-рейтинговая система оценки успеваемости and модульно-рейтинговая система оценивания успеваемости студентов. In the Russian language we face discord between two words оценки and оценивания. And advanced translators due to their experience and the Russian language understanding render it properly.

AfLAi – Learning Audit instrumentcovers a range of evidence-based teacher practices related to Assessment for Learning including sharing learning intentions/ success criteria, questioning/ classroom discussion, feedback and peer and self-assessment etc.At the first stage we apply semantisized strategies to translate and interpret the term properly. As defined by Macmillan On-line dictionary, learning – the process of gainingknowledge and experience, for example, by studying; audit – a carefulexamination of something, especially one done to find the amount, size, or effectiveness of something; instrument – a formallegaldocument such as a will, contract, or deed [15]. Linguistic and cultural strategies are helpful to reveal background knowledge of the translators to adequately translate the term. Inexperienced translators dealt with the term rather freely and translated it as инструмент контроля обучения, that is vague and does not correspond to the definitions of the unit. The second group of respondents gave a better variant инструмент оценки качества обучения, it may be explained by the fact that they were students who were deeper involved in translation theory than the first group. Translators rendered it as инструмент контроля качества обучения, but still the variant lacks modern interpretation of the term and its existing equivalent in Russian educational system фонд оценочных средств (ФОС). It is the third types of strategies (cognitive) that helps us to find this variant of translation and apply it in modern conditions as these strategies use all relevant local and global information including background knowledge of the world.

Terminology is the core thing for any subject area and the educational system in particular. The translation problems of higher education terms are very urgent nowadays as new educational standards integrate into the world scientific sphere and, consequently, fitting and adjusting to the European and Asian standards. 

The given qualitative research comprised three stages: experiment, analysis of the challenges and ways of solving them. The forwarded experiment for selecting translation equivalents revealed different translation problems:

1) presence of translation variations determined by lexical diversity of the word-constituents of the term;

2) cultural and cognitive background of the translators;

3) spelling, lexical and stylistics norms of the source and target languages.

We have studied English metaterms in the higher education sphere in both Asian and Russian systems and worked out three types of translation strategies for rendering the term vocabulary into Russian, namely semantisized, linguistic and cultural and cognitive ones. The experiment revealed that only the integrative and overall approach to translation of such metaterms in Asian and Russian systems may be considered profound and effective.