STRUCTURAL AND SEMANTIC PARTICULARITIES OF TRANSLATION EQUIVALENTS OF FOREIGN TERMS DENOTING FOOTBALLERS’ ROLES TO PLAY ON THE FIELD IN RUSSIAN AND PORTUGUESE

The fixed meaning and the variability of symbolic language codes changing principle is inapplicable when translating certain football terms to denote footballers’ roles to play on the field. These social media football terms are not yet enshrined in English dictionaries; what is more, these terms tend to change their original meaning when translated from English into Portuguese and Russian. The reluctance of the target languages to accept the given football terms leads to the use of Russian and Portuguese local traditional football terminology instead. Therefore, as distinct from the original, this terminology lacks semantic precision, leading to distortion and further confusion. With regard to structure and meaning, the Russian language has two translation patterns to render the meaning of the given football terms. These are neutral word collocations which narrow down the given English terms and professional football jargon which can be compared to the meaning of the term as enshrined in the English-English dictionary entry. Conversely, the Portuguese language has only one pattern to translate the given terms, i.e. neutral football terms that also distort the original meaning of the terms in English. Surprisingly, this distortion is different from the one in the Russian translations of them. The disparity in meaning caused by artificially adapted terms denoting footballers’ roles to play on the field in the way they exist in the target languages of translation is apparent when translating the terms from one target language to the other. The pattern leads to distortion in translation and consequent communication failure. Such a shortcoming can be avoided if all the four dimensions of such football terms are taken into consideration. The latter include player location, function, role to play on the field and personality. The research findings may have practical application for students of Russian and Portuguese as well as interpreters and translators.