Neologisms in Political Discourse: Translation Peculiarities

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of methods and techniques of translating English-language neologisms of political media discourse into Russian. The authors point out the importance of three factors that are decisive in the analysis of neologisms – time, linguistic space and the novelty of the linguistic unit. The research material includes the texts of articles in English and Russian from the socio-political online publications The New Yorker, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, The Spectator, New York Post, Gazeta.ru, Moskovsky Komsomolets, Tsargrad, RBC news portals, Ria-news. A review of theoretical sources on the research problem has shown that neologisms reflect the most relevant trends inherent in a particular period of socio-political development. The authors note that neologisms are specific to a particular language space, since they are based on the conceptual values of representatives of a particular linguistic culture. Their important characteristic is novelty, because they express concepts that had no previous names, respectively, are not recorded in lexicographic sources. The article presents a comprehensive linguistic analysis of neologisms of political mass media discourse, including word-formation, etymological and translation, during which the authors identify the most productive word-formation models and effective ways of translating English-language neologisms into Russian. The authors conclude that the most common ways of forming neologisms are affixation and telescoping. Using the example of the analysis of the research material, the authors demonstrate that the basis of neologisms are proper names and common names, to which international prefixes or suffixes are added, which makes them recognizable. Among the methods of translation, the authors note transliteration with / without explication as the most effective.