TRANSLATION OF MILITARY TERMINOLOGY: CHALLENGES AND STRATEGIES OF RENDERING (BASED ON NEWS TEXTS ON THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31652/2786-9083-2026-7(2)-38-48Keywords:
military terminology; translation; English–Ukrainian translation; official documents; military reports; translation transformations; news discourseAbstract
The article examines specific features of translating military terminology in the English–Ukrainian language pair based on official documents and military reports published in English-language media. The relevance of the study is determined by the increasing role of military news in the international information space and the heightened demand for terminological accuracy and pragmatic adequacy of translation in wartime conditions. The aim of the research is to identify major translation difficulties and to substantiate effective strategies for rendering English military terminology into Ukrainian with due regard to doctrinal, legal, and genre-related factors.
The study employs contextual, semantic-terminological, and contrastive analysis. The findings show that the main translation challenges stem from the polyfunctionality of military terms, the multilevel structure of the military terminological system, the high frequency of abbreviations and acronyms, the syntactic complexity of English military discourse, and the rapid process of neologization during armed conflicts. Special attention is paid to false cognates, intersystem collocational constraints, and the risk of shifting the doctrinal or legal status of terms in news translation.
The analysis demonstrates that combining standardized NATO/EU/UN equivalents with modulation, descriptive explication, and collocational normalization ensures terminological precision, communicative clarity, and reference compatibility. The results of the study may be applied in military news translation, institutional communication, and translator training.
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