WAYS OF RENDERING ABBREVIATED NAMES OF OIL AND GAS COMPANIES INTO UKRAINIAN

Abstract

Purpose – to systematize, describe and illustrate ways of translating English names of oil and gas companies which contain abbreviations/acronyms into the Ukrainian language.

Methods: method of translation analysis (by which translation methods, techniques and transformations used to achieve equivalence in rendering the proper names under consideration into Ukrainian are determined); descriptive method (serves as a basis for a comprehensive presentation of the results obtained, namely the description of the translation ways established); method of quantitative calculations (enables defining quantitative characteristics of the studied units, productivity of the translation ways singled out).

Results. The theoretical principles of studying abbreviation as a translation problem are considered. The features of rendering onomastic abbreviations / acronyms in the oil and gas sphere are determined. Ways of translating the names of oil and gas companies that contain abbreviations have been systematized and illustrated, their productivity being quantified. The prospects of further translation research in the direction of studying the peculiarities of rendering onomastic abbreviations/acronyms in the branch terminology are acknowledged and outlined.

Conclusions. It has been found out that the following ways are used to translate the names of the English oil and gas companies that contain abbreviations/acronyms: transfer using foreign-language equivalents; transcoding (transliteration and transcription); transfer (retention) of abbreviations in the original lettering; the creation of new abbreviations in the language of translation; descriptive translation. Based on the results of the method of quantitative calculations, it has been concluded that the most productive ways of rendering this empirical material is to translate English-language shortenings by equivalent shortenings of the Ukrainian language and transliteration, which are numerically identical. Direct inclusion, which involves the transfer (retention) of abbreviations in the original letters and the method of transcription, which are also quantitatively identical, occupy the third and the fourth places in productivity, respectively. The method of creating a new abbreviation in the language of translation is less commonly used – the fifth place, while descriptive translation is almost not used as a separate method, but can be used as an auxiliary one if the company name needs to be deciphered.