Ukrainian Translation of English Lexicalized Constructions: A Case of BBC News and BBC News Ukraine Headlines

Abstract

Drawing on the headlines from the BBC News and BBC News Ukraine websites, the paper seeks to identify the patterns of translating English lexicalized constructions consisting of fixed and non-fixed elements. The fixed component is considered to be a stable island of reliability that has a phonological form unchanged in different contexts, while the non-fixed component is dependent and selected according to the communicative situation. The paper is the first study finding that English lexicalized constructions in BBC News headlines are translated on the BBC News Ukraine website according to four semantic patterns: re-perspectivation, generalization or specification of the meaning of the Ukrainian components of the English lexicalized constructions, as well as grammaticalization. The implementation of the re-perspectivation pattern involves shifting the focus of attention from one feature of a referent in the original to a different one in the translation with the help of adjectives or nouns. Within the generalization translation pattern of English lexicalized constructions, the semantics of their components shifts from the basic categorization level, associated with the speakers’ perceptual experience, to the superordinate level involving generalization. According to the specification pattern, the semantics of the English lexicalized constructions’ components shifts in translation from the basic to the subordinate categorization level, focusing on the specific features of referents. The shifts in the categorization levels, characteristic of the generalization and specification translation patterns, results from the peculiarities of the British and Ukrainian worldviews brought about by the nations’ histories and lifestyles. The grammaticalization patterns render the English lexicalized constructions into Ukrainian by the prepositional structures denoting CONTAINER and by the relative structures specifying the features of referents.