Translation of new sociological terminology: challenges and solutions

Abstract

Rapid development of concepts in modern sociology leads to the emergence of a large number of neological terms. Currently, the academic language of Russian sociology sees an active expansion of foreign language terminology and translated terms reflecting changes in the English-language social picture of the world. However, the lack of consistency in intra-lingual and inter-lingual translation of new terms may complicate the understanding of this terminology by representatives of multilingual academic schools. This study aims to analyse modern English sociological terms and translated borrowings in Russian, to explore their form and conceptual content in two languages, the degree of their conventionality in the sci­entific thesaurus of multilingual sociological schools and the possibility of an adequate trans­fer of terminological meaning from English into Russian. The authors view the sociological term as a cognitive, linguistic and cultural phenomenon, and study its synchronic and dia­chronic variability. The article is an attempt to illuminate the problem from a purely linguis­tic and translation point of view and to point out the need for combining efforts to systematise and harmonise the English and Russian terminologies of sociology.

Keywords

• sociological term
• sociological concepts
• sociological nomenclature
• neologisms
• translation