New Slang Expressions-Neologisms to Denote the Phenomena of War: A Translation Aspect of the Neglect

Abstract

The phenomenon of war broadcasts military discourse, which is often considered a “separate language” full of stylistic figures: rhetoric, puns, metaphors, and neologisms. The latter often function as keys to ideology and thus reflect a certain vision of the world. Such categories pose significant challenges for translation, as these “ideological keys” are often incomprehensible to the target audience. First of all, these are terms with connotations that refer to socio-cultural reality, socio-cultural reality, or derived from connotations known only to the military, which are difficult to translate and, according to some scholars, are untranslatable. The purpose of the article is to propose a theoretical model and a methodological description of the ways of translating slang expressions-neologisms of military discourse that have entered the English language as a result of the war in Ukraine. The result of the work is an analysis of the ways in which Ukrainian slang expressions-neologisms entered the English language and the ways in which they can be translated. Each neologism characterizes a certain category according to the criterion of the channel through which it spreads - through peer-to-peer networks and through the media, respectively. The application of the theory of innovation diffusion to neologism provides food for thought about the typology of speakers in terms of their sensitivity and adaptability to neologisms. The difference between disparaging slang expressions-neologisms, in particular, dysphemisms and ethnic slurs and neologisms with ironic connotations is noted. The conclusions of the study formulated the ways of translating neologisms: borrowing, calquing, literal translation, transposition, modulation, equivalence, adaptation, and translation methods: a combination of calquing/literal translation with explanation or definition, deletion and replacement, and translation by equivalent with the creation of own neologism.