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THE PROBLEM OF TRANSLATING BUSINESS COMPANY NAMES FROM RUSSIAN INTO ENGLISH
T. G. Pshenkina, N.N. Bezrukova
Keywords: onomastics, onyms, ergonyms, translation directionality, Russian-English translation, the construal of the mental context. Ключевые слова: ономастика, онимы, эргонимы, направление перевода, конструирование ментального контекста.
1. Introduction
The article focuses on the translation of ergonyms, a group of onyms that denotes names of commercial and non-commercial establishments. The launching of such enterprises all over Russia was brought to life by the economic changes of the late 80s, by the rise of the market economy, as well as by decentralization and, as a result of it, by the attempts of individuals and separate companies to join the world economic community. Alongside with the inevitable political and economic innovations this process could not but affect and be affected by the language situation in the local and global business communication of that period.
In those years English had already emerged as the world's language for the major international domains: international banking, economic affairs and trade among them [Graddol, 1997, p. 8]. The significance of English was profound: if an enterprise wished to strike a deal, gain access or contribute to the world collaboration, English was a gateway to it. However, it became simultaneously clear that the status of English in Russia, on the one hand, and the linguistic properties of ergonyms, as a separate group of onyms, on the other, put some additional obstacles for their translation which centered round the following issues:
Translation directionality. The previously predominant direction in the translation process from English into Russian in a new economic environment gave way to its close coexistence with the opposite direction, translation from Russian into English.
Complex interrelation between economy- and law-bound information within Russian ergonyms and the language conventions of English. The late 20th century witnessed the uprise of a number of enterprises in Russia with a new and diverse forms of organization, with multiple production cycles and
management schemes. It was necessary for an enterprise to incorporate the essential information on its legal, organization and production status in its name. That task immediately revealed that ergonym transfer into a new language cannot so much be a mere shift from one language into the other, but rather a construal of the correlated mental structures with their further verbalization in a target language taking into consideration situational, socio-cultural as well as linguistic conventions of the latter.
The two above-mentioned speculations resulted in the third one, of purely applied character. Given the prominence of ergonyms in business discourse, their translation is to be precise, transparent, elaborate and "structurally-friendly". However, a variety of semantic and syntactic models employed in their naming defy universal and stringent rules of ergonyms translation, and it is the translator who in every particular case has to act as a subtle interpreter and a resolute decision-maker in choosing the translation strategies, tactics, and operations. All this leads us to believe that it is reasonable to try to provide him / her with an algorithm that might be of use while taking some practical steps.
In attempt to develop such an algorithm we will turn to each of the three enumerated points and consider them in turn.
2. Translation directionality
Translation directionality is the factor that has a great impact on the quality of translation in general and translation of company names in particular. Quite obvious for translation experts, this fact is usually ignored by the public at large who have hardly ever thought of it and have never doubted a bilingual's symmetrical ability to translate. Most people believe that a 'true' translator can equally well translate both ways. Neither the results of psychological studies of speech development and language learning, nor the concepts supporting them offered by modern psycholinguists (e.g. [Herdina, Jessner, 2002]) can break through this delusion. As experts put it, the ground to support this erroneous opinion lies in the fact that «people can easily notice a mistake in translation into their mother tongue, whereas to assess the quality of a foreign text one must have a full command of the foreign language» [Shakhova, 2013, p. 48]. Indeed, an English-speaker is sure to have problems in the attempt to understand the *Hours Repair sign, when it refers to watch repair, or *To yourself and *From yourself door signs, while a Russian-speaker with his/her thoughts shaped according to the cultural and linguistic patterns of their native language can easily do a back translation of such phrases into Russian, having confidence in both their meaning and, consequently, the quality of translation.
Most European (especially UK-based) translation scientists never doubted the asymmetries of the translation directionality. Starting with the 17th century, translation masters insisted that translation from one's mother tongue can only be used to improve the foreign language proficiency; otherwise it is an absurd and useless enterprise. P Newmark stated: «The only way for a translation to be natural, precise and ensuring best results is to translate into the language of habitual use» [Newmark, 1998, p. 3]. Less categorical but similar in nature were the recommendations on the legal protection of translators provided by UNESCO. The document stated that a translator should, as far as possible, translate into his own mother tongue. Step by step, most translation schools came to realize that this vector in directionality is most preferable.
Yet, the experts recognize that there may appear the circumstances that will require translation in the opposite direction, from one's mother tongue into a foreign language. This is exactly the case with ergonyms, the names of the Russian business companies, who look for a niche in the foreign market and, first and foremost, should properly introduce themselves.
Before proceeding to translation issues we would like to outline some general theoretical aspects of the problem relevant for further research, namely, referential status of ergonym, their hyponymy/hyperonymy relationship with other onyms.
3. Ergonyms: literature survey and general consideration
The term ergonym is viewed differently in various research papers. In a narrow sense it is defined as a proper name of a commercial company, in a broader usage it stands for a proper name of any institution referring to a group of people organized according to some business interest. Such terminological fuzziness is present in other theoretical issues of ergonymy as well, for example, the place of ergonyms among other onyms and their relations to close onyms (Russian onomastic tradition presupposes specific terms for such onyms, for example, urbonyms, toponyms, emporonyms, pragmatonyms, oikodomonyms, etc). The study of the taxonomy of onomastic terms reveals different approaches. Some scholars consider ergonyms as equal co-hyponyms to other basic naming groups such as toponyms, anthroponyms, phytonyms, etc. Others consider ergonyms as a subclass of urbonyms (names of city institutions), and urbonyms in their turn are regarded as a subclass of toponyms. Still others think of ergonyms as a subclass between toponyms and commercial names.
For all the above mentioned terminological disputes in onomastics it is worth mentioning the cognitive approach according to which an ergonym is viewed as a concept with a dominant characteristic in its contents which
unites in its ergonymic conceptual field a whole group of different proper names [Larina, 2006; Langendonck, 2007]. In the present research we understand an ergonym (from the Greek 'Epyov - deed) as a term which stands for a proper name of an establishment referring to a group of people organized according to some business interest such as a union, a society, an enterprise, or a sector [Podolskaya, 1988, p. 151]. The analysis of scientific data published in Russian science journals and research papers devoted to ergonyms enabled us to summarize the peculiarities of the group of onyms under study. The most important among them are:
• Ergonyms constitute a class of their own in onomastic space; because ergonyms are less stable lexical units than other onyms, subject to change, more dependent on economic, social, political and other types of extralinguistic situations, they occupy a peripheral position in the onomastic field in relation to other more salient onyms (toponyms, anthroponyms). Another distinctive feature of ergonyms is a great variety of semantic and syntactic models according to which their structure can be organized (a company can choose for its name any language unit: from a graphical sign to a complete sentence).
• Apart from other proper names, the semantics of ergonyms includes pragmatic and connotative meanings, and alongside with typical onymic functions of informing, identificating and differentiating, ergonyms may perform advertising and aesthetic functions.
• An ergonym is a result of secondary nomination and it can be built on the basis of common names or other proper names.
• Ergonyms are a separate class of onyms but there might be cases when the boundary line between ergonyms and adjacent onyms is very obscure and it enables linguists to refer ergonyms to some other classes of onyms. For example, ergonyms are sometimes regarded as a subclass of toponyms because they are attached to their geographic location. But there are cases when companies may have only virtual presence or they may be connected to several buildings in different locations. Thus the topographic criteria cannot be used to add ergonyms to the class of toponyms. Another case - ergonyms are not necessarily urbonyms, they may also refer to rural establishments (vikonyms). Ergonyms should also be separated from anthroponyms. A company, which has a registered (legal) name and acts as a legal entity, has got its own name in Russian onomastics - temonym, and are similar in their individualizing function to anthroponyms.
• Ergonyms can be names of both commercial and non-commercial establishments in different fields of human activity (administrative establishments, manufacturing and trade companies, medical and educational institutions, cultural and entertaining establishments, etc).
Company names receive different classifications based on various criteria. They can be grouped according to the word-building means, according to their pragmatics, as well as to chief function, sematic and cultural peculiarities, lexical and syntactic structures, degree of motivation of their meaning, etc. In the translation research of ergonyms three classifications are important. The first one reflects how a company name is connected with what the company is actually doing or where it is located. According to the degree of motivation of their meaning company names can be real (direct), symbolic (or expressive) and mixed [Superanskaya, 1973, p. 195]. Direct names are usually indicative of the company's actual business and may include a toponym, which is connected with the location of the company, e.g. «Барнаульский вагоноремонтный завод» - Barnaul Rail-Car Repair Plant.
Ergonyms .lexico-syntactic classification is vast and includes a lot of types. Within the framework of the present paper we will mention only those types, which pose a challenge for the translator. To these types we refer abbreviated ergonyms («СибЦКТИ-БКЗ», «ЖБИ Сибири», «ХИМ-ТЕХПРОМ»), ergonyms created by means of wordplay, including visual graphic wordplay («ПирГород», «КрепостьС», «МАГиЯ», «ХмелеФФ», «ПолзуновЪ», «АлТайна»), ergonyms involving numbers («40 градусов», «21 ТОННА», «7-я верста»), loaned ergonyms that have been transliterated into Russian and phonetically, (not semantically) more or less assimilated in it («Парадиз», «Грейс», «Хаус Сити»), and, finally, loaned names with mixed language graphics («Поляна House», «И^а», «МИLLИТАРИ club», «ASBA-Консалтинг»). In the present paper we will deal only with the abbreviated ergonyms, further research could be conducted to study other types of ergonyms in the light of translation.
According to the third classification names of establishments can be grouped according to the type of organization they serve to name. The ergonymic space of Altai Krai can be represented by the following six groups of ergonyms which refer to different spheres of human activity: to economic sphere (business companies, manufacturing companies, banks, etc); trade (shops, boutiques, malls, etc); service industry (hotels, restaurants, repair shops, etc); entertainment, sports, arts and culture, (museums, theaters, clubs, stadiums, etc); education and science (universities, colleges, schools, etc); and public administration.
One more theoretical problem to mention before proceeding to the translation issues is the structure of ergonym. The ideas developed today in onomastics can be generally confined to two contrasting approaches [Kozerenko, 2007, Poseiko, 2014]. According to the first approach a company name is a simple nomination consisting of one or more proper
names. The nomenclature term (known also as appellative, classifier, or ergonymic term) in this approach is not considered as a part of the ergonym. According to the second approach which we hold to in the present paper an ergonym is a two-component structure consisting of equally important parts: the proper name and the appellative. From the translational point of view it is relevant to consider the company name with all its components, including the appellative (plant, bank, restaurant, hotel, university, etc.) and other possible nominations like abbreviation for a form of a business entity or other names of organizational formation of a company.
4. Dealing with ergonyms in translation
Contemporary translation studies hold the idea that a translator is assigned with various roles (functions), a mediating role being an essential one. Our approach rests and develops on the assumptions of cognitive paradigm and we believe that translation is a mediating thought- and- speech activity and it is based on the creation of the integrated mental models and structures that are coordinated in the minds of the participants in the process of intercultural communication [Bell, 1997]. In its turn, it is the language signs, words and word combinations, which act as coordinators, kind of anchors that provide an access to cognitive structures of an individual. Given the exceptional role of language form (a body of the sign) in inducing the meaning and generating the essence of the utterance, and being aware that translation is a selective activity we propose a three-staged recommendations aimed at developing an algorithm for a thorough ergonyms translation that will take into consideration the property of all its structural components as well as semantic and pragmatic links between them.
4.1. Stage one: choosing global strategy
Traditional textbooks on translation studies usually outline some general trends in the translation of proper names, with no attention given to the specific problems that arise directly in the translation process. Today, Russian-English Translation textbook by D.I. Yermolovich [Yermolovich, 2014] is considered to be the most authoritative and comprehensive source of the rules for translating ergonyms, which reflects the peculiarities of their translation. The basic principles stated in this textbook as well as our translation experience enable us to classify the major challenges in translating ergonyms (for this task we have decided on the names of business establishments only) from Russian into English into 3 groups which roughly correspond to the stages of the translation strategy. Translation strategy is «a general program of the translator's activity worked out on the basis of the general approach to translation in a specific
communicative situation, determined by the particular parameters of this situation and the translation goal, determining in its turn, the character of the character of the translator's professional behavior»[Sdobnikov, 2012, p. 861].
The first stage or a group of problems includes the choice of a global strategy and translation tactics and operations. «Tactics are a systematized set of translation operations performed to implement a chosen translation strategy and to achieve the translation goal. A translation operation in its turn is any action of a translator within the process of creating a text in the target language» [Sdobnikov, 2012, p. 862].
First, when a translator encounters ergonym, he should find out whether the company has a registered name in English that is stated in the Certificate of State Registration of a Legal Entity. Since a registered name is a legal one, a translator has to use this variant even if the translation is not correct. When a company does not have a registered name in English, the next step is to choose a translation technique most suitable for each specific case: calque or practical transcription. This choice depends on the degree of motivation of a company name. If a name does not have a figurative meaning and is a direct one, a translator will create a calque in English. Thus, "Барнаульский патронный завод" is translated as Barnaul Cartridge Plant, since this company is a (i) plant which manufactures (ii) cartridges and is located in (iii) Barnaul. In case a company has a symbolic name, a translator is recommended to transcribe it: ЗАО «Эвалар» - ZAO Evalar, группа компаний «Русский сокол» - Russky Sokol Group of Companies. Abbreviated or shortened ergonyms - A.V. Superanskaya views them as a group of proper names between direct and symbolic ergonyms and notes that expanded forms of these abbreviations are generally direct ergonyms -are transcribed or transliterated. For example, ООО «Барнаул РТИ» will be ООО Barnaul RTI Plant in English. There might be an explanation of the abbreviation in the text though - «Барнаульский завод резинотехнических изделий» - and in this case the name is literally translated as Barnaul Mechanical Rubber Goods Plant. It is common practice for us to use a system of practical transcription proposed by D.I. Yermolovich [Yermolovich, 2014, p. 575-576]. It should be noted, however, that a new Russian National Standard GOST Р 7.0.34-2014 was adopted in the late 2014 where a new system of transliteration and encoding of Cyrillic characters into Latin characters was given. Universal implementation of this standard is still questionable, since some of its paragraphs have generated a discussion among the scholars.
4.2. Stage two: pitfalls in translating different parts of ergonym
The second group of controversial issues focuses on the translation of components inserted in the structure of ergonym: toponyms, anthroponyms, abbreviations, nomenclature terms (appellatives) among them.
Nomenclature terms (i.e. plant, factory, corporation, group, company, etc.) should always be translated (using calquing) rather than transliterated. This rule makes all the translation examples from commercial texts and news reports listed below inappropriate: ЗАО «Барнаульский котельный завод» - *ZAO Barnaulsky Kotelny Zavod, ООО «Зеркальная фабрика» -*OOO Zerkalnaya Fabrika.
Another challenge in translating a nomenclature element is connected with realia which can function as an appellative or its part. For example, Russian noun комбинат is defined as'a large industrial enterprise that combines several different enterprises that are related to each other by a technological process or through an administration'. English dictionaries offer a wide range of variants for its translation: centre, combine, integrated works, industrial complex, plant, mill, multi-unit enterprise. None of the suggested examples reveals the semantic structure of the Russian term completely, nevertheless, the emerging data indicate that the most appropriate variants for this type of enterprise in different contexts may be: enterprise, complex, mill, and plant.
Ergonym may include a toponym derived from the name of a locality in which the enterprise is situated: «Волчихинский пивоваренный завод», «Алейский сахарный завод». To translate such toponyms one should restore the original name of the locality, i.e. a noun from which the corresponding adjective was derived, and transcribe it into English: Volchikha Brewery Plant, Aleisk Sugar Plant.
If ergonym includes a memorial anthroponym (the person's name in whose honor the organization was called), it should be transcribed and put in the pre-position to the noun it modifies: «Алейскзернопродукт им. С.Н. Старовойтова» - S.N. Starovoitov Aleiskzernoprodukt Company. If ergonym includes both anthroponym and toponym, its structural pattern can vary, cf. «Алтайский ювелирный завод им. А.Н. Демидова» -A.N. Demidov Jewelry Factory of Altai or Altai A.N. Demidov Jewelry Factory (named after cannot be used in this case).
The translation of ergonyms with abbreviated appellatives in their structure is of special interest. Presently, the appellative part of such ergonyms often indicating the form of business organization is mostly transliterated (ООО, ОАО, ЗАО, ТОО - OOO, OAO, ZAO, TOO). But this way of translation is a comparatively new practice. In the 1980s, at the outset of these forms of business in Russia, their abbreviations appeared as a result of the English versions: Общество с ограниченной ответственно-
стью - ООО was rendered as LLC from English Limited Liability Company. Открытое акционерное общество - ОАО corresponded to OJSC that came from English Open Joint Stock Company.
A company name may include other abbreviations, and their translation tactics should be chosen on an individual basis. A translator is first of all required to decipher the abbreviation, interpret its semantics, avoid any unnecessary redundancy in it, and at the same time transfer the basic information precisely and completely choosing the most appropriate translation technique depending on the type of the text: transliteration, deciphering through calquing, omission, deciphering the abbreviation and using it as the ergonym postmodifier. For example, БМК in «БМК Меланжист Алтая» stands for «Барнаульский меланжевый комбинат» (Barnaul Melange Factory). Being redundant, the abbreviation should not be deciphered in this case, or it will violate the readibility of the phrase. Instead, the abbreviation should be transliterated, with a possible appelative added: BMK Melanzhist Altaya Enterprise. The abbreviation СКБ (Special Design Bureau) as a part of the ergonym Барнаульское СКБ «Восток» is a nomenclature term. When translated, it needs to be deciphered and put after the proper name - Vostok Special Design Bureau. Further as the text progresses, the nomenclature term can be omitted. There is neither inherent practice specifying the position of the toponym in such constructions, nor strict rules, whatsoever. Thus, the first abbreviation in ФГУП ПО «Алмаз» stands for the form of business entity (federal state unitary enterprise), the second one is a nomenclature term that stands for the type of enterprise (production assosication). When translated, the first abbreviation should be deciphered using an extended postmodifier. Further as the text unfolds it can be omitted. The second abbreviation should be deciphered and can accompany the symbolic name of Almaz (or omitted if it is reiterated in the text): Almaz Production Association, a federal state unitary enterprise.
4.3. Stage three: complying with language norms and conventions of the target language
The third stage of translating ergonyms reflects target language norms and usage. Russian names should be verified to comply with the accepted usage and spelling in English.
• Except minor words, all words used in a company name written in English should be capitalized: «Алтайский завод прецизионных изделий» - Altai Precision Components Plant.
• Quotation marks around ergonyms are used in Russian but not in English: ОАО «Бийский котельный завод» - ОАО Biysk Boiler Plant. An article should not be used with a name of the company in a text, except the
name is accompanied by a classifier: Avangard but the Avangard Cleaning Company.
• Word order may be subject to changing in translation: a nomenclature term follows a name in an English phrase, so it is highly recommended to apply domestication strategy and use an idiomatic English syntactic model. For example, «Завод алюминиевого литья» - Aluminum Castings Plant; Кондитерская фабрика «Алтай» - Altai Confectionary Manufacturing Plant. An abbreviation for a form of legal entity is generally put in the initial position as it is in the Russian language, even though in English it usually follows a company name: ООО Молочная компания «Алтайская буренка» - OOO Altaiskaya Burenka Dairy Company. The syntactic rearrangement in the first example is caused by the necessity to comply with English syntactic rules, while the absence of such a rearrangement in the second example shows that there is no need to restructure a Russian ergonym to conform to an English model and foreignization strategy, which is also used in translating a Russian legal term, is more acceptable in this case. It should also be mentioned that abbreviations for a form of legal entity are less common in English than in Russian; they usually have a certain pragmatic function, so in translation they may be omitted in some contexts.
• A transliterated name that sounds exotic to an English-speaker may be italicized: Барнаульский завод «Кристалл» - Barnaul Kristall Plant. When ergonym has a symbolic component and a direct toponymic one, it is difficult to say how to generate the contextually appropriate word order. This is probably due to the fact that the ergonym structure of this kind is not common in English, and if there is a need to indicate the location of an ergonym in the English language, a toponym appears within parentheses after an ergonym: Kristall Plant (Barnaul).
5. Conclusion
The evidence presented above manifests that ergonyms translation is a sophisticated and complex problem which a translator faces while dealing with Russian-English translation of ergonyms. Proceeding from the analysis made we may say that the study of ergonyms in the sphere of translation embraces a wide range of issues related not only to linguistics and its conventional rules in the target language, but also to socio-economic, legal, and cultural scope of knowledge, manifesting a close bond between the verbalization processes and the human cognition.
Given the exceptional role of language form in inducing the meaning and generating the essence of the utterance, we believe that in the texts on Economy ergonyms act as a kind of anchors that provide an unambiguous
status of the particular business enterprise and, consequently, ensure a successful communication. That is why an adequate translation of ergonyms is an essential thing.
The emerging data enabled us to outline an algorithm in translating ergonyms which includes three steps:
1) choosing the mainstream strategy: to define weather a company has a registered name in English or not, if not to choose a translation technique most suitable for each specific case: calque or practical transcription;
2) considering the structure of the ergonym with all the components inserted in it: toponyms, anthroponyms, abbreviations, and nomenclature terms (appellatives);
3) complying with accepted usage and spelling of ergonymic structure in English.
We hope that the suggested recommendations will enable a translator to develop his / her professional competence, to enhance professional performance and to improve translation efficiency and quality.
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