PROBLEMS OF TRANSLATING LEXICO-PHRASEOLOGICAL COMPONENTS OF ENGINEERING PROFESSIONAL DISCOURSE: A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF UKRAINIAN AND ENGLISH
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/folium/2026.8.7Keywords:
engineering professional discourse; lexicophraseological components; contrastive analysis; translation of professional texts; English; Ukrainian; English for Specific Purposes.Abstract
The article examines the problems of translating lexico-phraseological components of engineering professional discourse in Ukrainian and English. The relevance of the study stems from the fact that, despite the traditional view of engineering discourse as stylistically neutral and predominantly terminological, it actively employs lexico-phraseological units that perform important nominative and cognitive functions and simultaneously create additional challenges for translators. The aim of the paper is to conduct a contrastive analysis of lexico-phraseological components of engineering professional discourse and to identify the main problems arising in their translation from English into Ukrainian. The research material comprises English and Ukrainian professional texts in the field of applied mechanics and mechanical ngineering, including texts and translation tasks from an English for Specific Purposes textbook used for training mechanical engineering students at Kyiv National University of Technologies and Design. The methodological framework combines methods of contrastive lexicology, contextual-semantic analysis and translation studies. The article outlines a typology of lexico-phraseological components in engineering discourse (terminologized word combinations, semi-idiomatic constructions, metaphorical units with deactivated imagery) and analyses their Ukrainian counterparts. The study demonstrates that the translation of such units cannot usually be performed through literal calquing and requires the use of descriptive and transformational strategies in accordance with the norms of Ukrainian professional language. The contrastive analysis confirms structural asymmetry between English and Ukrainian, in particular the predominance of verbal models in English and nominal constructions in Ukrainian. The findings have practical implications for courses in English for Specific Purposes, translation studies and contrastive lexicology, as they can be used to develop learners’ ability to analyse professional collocations, select adequate translation equivalents and avoid semantic imbalance between source and target texts.
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