The challenges of translating English, Italian and Russian psychological terms

Mikhalchenkova Irina Vladimirovna Lecturer; Department of Foreign Languages; Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Odintsovo Branch Novosportivnaya str., 3, Odintsovo, Russia, 143007 iviebooks@mail.ru

Introduction

Recently, there has been an increased interest in psychology not only from representatives of the scientific community, but also among a wide audience. More and more people are striving to develop "mindfulness", work through "childhood traumas" and achieve general well-being, which leads to an increase in demand for psychological services. This growing interest is accompanied by the emergence of many educational programs in the field of psychology, both at the basic level and at the level of continuing education programs. As a result, the involvement of society in psychological topics has initiated a terminology boom in social networks and mass media. Today, it has become commonplace to mention concepts such as "abuser" in the context of a relationship with a partner who demonstrates his negative qualities and restricts the freedom of his significant other; to defend "personal boundaries" and express concern about "emotional burnout."

At the same time, psychologists and mental health professionals are actively developing their online presence by publishing expert information rich in specialized terminology. This dynamic interaction between the professional and public spheres has contributed to the integration of highly specialized psychological terms into everyday language, reflecting a broader trend towards the democratization of psychological discourse.

In addition, national terminological systems are rapidly developing, constantly being enriched with new lexical units, mainly due to borrowings from the English language. Due to the active interaction of the terminology systems of English, Russian and Italian in the field of psychology and the need for the translation of large amounts of information, the problem of accurate translation of terms representing new scientific concepts becomes especially relevant.

This article is aimed at investigating the difficulties associated with translating psychological terminology from English into Russian and Italian and developing possible ways to overcome these difficulties.

Term: definition, features, classification

In this article, the term is understood as "a lexical unit of a certain language for special purposes, denoting a general — concrete or abstract — concept of the theory of a certain special field of knowledge or activity" ^{[1, p. 96]}.

Terms are words in a special function that arise as a result of the theoretical understanding of a particular concept or subject, the identification of its essential features within a certain scientific paradigm. Terminological units are elements of a terminological system, have a number of features, they are also called requirements for a term, according to which they should have the same meaning for all people, regardless of their individual experience and beliefs ^[1].

Because of this, any term has a definition, an unambiguous interpretation, is characterized by stylistic neutrality and lack of expression, and also does not have synonyms and homonyms that can cause the phenomenon of ambiguity and inconsistency of the term with the reflected concept. It is worth noting that some scientists dispute the unambiguity of terminological signs ^{[2, pp. 103-104]}.

According to V. M. Leychik, one of the main characteristics of the term is the presence of its deep interrelation with other terms ^[1]. For translators working with scientific texts, it is extremely important to understand the relationship of a particular term with other elements of the terminology system to which it belongs. This is due to the fact that the narrowing or distortion of the meaning of a term in translation negatively affects its systemic role in a particular field of knowledge and in the terminological description. In this regard, "the main requirement for the translation of a term is an accurate translation of its content, taking into account the peculiarities of the interaction of the terminological systems of the source and "receiving" languages" ^{[3, p. 86]}. The translator, guided by these requirements, can assess how successful and appropriate is the choice of a particular method of translating terms.

Since we are considering the term in psychological discourse, let us turn to the concept of a "psychological term".

As A. A. Lobanova notes, "a psychological term is a unit of language intended to denote concepts and subjects of psychology, as well as its branches"; these terminological units constitute the main content of texts on psychological subjects ^{[4, p. 48]}.

The vast majority of vocabulary in modern psychological dictionaries falls on fields related to psychology, and most of the concepts of the psychological terminology system originated from Latin and Greek ^[5]. Currently, most of the new psychology terms appear in the British and American versions of the English language ^{[4, p. 48]}. Despite its active development and interaction with related branches of scientific knowledge, the psychological macro-terminological system is still insufficiently studied.

Currently, there is a real terminological boom in mass media, where terminological units of a psychological orientation very often began to appear. The active process of narrowly focused psychological terms entering the common language allows us to identify one of the characteristic features of such terms — proximity to everyday life. According to Sam Laigland, "psychological terminological units are really widely used in everyday life, appearing in various contexts and helping us to describe, explain and predict people's actions and behavior" ^[6].

According to N. K. Avanesyan, new psychological terms arise under the influence of extralinguistic and linguistic term-forming factors. They are conditioned by the variety of conceptual connections, the rapid development of psychology, the emergence of new scientific nominations as a result of public interest, the use of modern technologies, the streamlining of scientific knowledge and the exchange of experience ^[7].

There are various general linguistic and private linguistic classifications of terms, including psychological ones, for example, on a functional basis, one can distinguish:

• general scientific (hierarchy, argument);
• interscientific (personality, mobility);
• special (affect, obsession);
• highly specialized terms (perseveration, suggestion).

B. N. Golovin proposed a classification of terms according to their formal structure, based on the morphological and syntactic structure. Professor Golovin distinguishes two types of terms: terms-words and terms–phrases. In accordance with the morphemic structure of the word, "non–derivatives, derivatives, complex terms-words and abbreviations" are distinguished ^[8].

Consider this classification using the example of psychology terms.:

• monosyllabic terms (single-component): intervention (English) — intervention, intervention (Russian), mania (Italian) — mania (Russian), astinenza (Italian) — abstinence (Russian), depressione (Italian) — depression (Russian);
• complex terms: defense mechanism (eng.) — defense mechanism (rus.), active coping (eng.) — active coping (rus.).

Complex terms are divided into:

• two-component:(most common):defense mechanism (eng.) — a defense mechanism (rus.);
• three—component: delusional misidentification syndrome (English) — delusional mistaken identity syndrome (Capgras syndrome), maladaptive coping responses (English) - maladaptive coping behaviors (English), post-traumatic stress disorder (English) — post-traumatic stress disorder (Russian);
• Multicomponent: (delusional mistaken identity syndrome (Capgras syndrome) (English), trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (English) — trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (English).

From the point of view of translation, the following terms stand out:

• terms that have an equivalent in the recipient language:personality disorder (English)/ disturbo di personalità (Italian) — personality disorder (Russian), working memory (English)/ memoria di lavoro (Italian) — working memory (Russian), sleep difficulties (English)/ disturbbi del sonno (Italian) — sleep problems (rus.);
• equivalent terms (or terms that do not have regular correspondences in the recipient language): oddball task (English)/ il compito oddball (Italian) — task to eliminate an unnecessary subject (English), reverse relation (English)/ relazione inversa (Italian) — feedback (Russian), executive attention (English)/ attenzione esecutiva (Italian) — managing attention (rus.).

Terminological units that do not have regular correspondences in the target language are often transmitted through various translation techniques, such as tracing or transliteration/transcription.

D. I. Lebedev, commenting on the current situation in the field of translation of psychological texts, notes that, "unfortunately, currently few translations of special texts can boast of adequacy and, consequently, equivalence" ^[9]. The problem of translation equivalence of scientific psychological texts is caused by the translator's insufficient attention to each individual term in the text, which leads to translation inaccuracies and often even distortion of the meaning of the source text ^[9].

Problems of translation of psychological terms

Thanks to the opening of borders, active international cooperation and exchange of experience and the discovery of new phenomena and concepts, psychological science continues to develop as a system of scientific knowledge and actively replenishes its terminological fund. The active interaction and interchange of national terminological systems with each other inevitably leads to new difficulties in translating terminological units. The psychological science of a particular country, which already has its own conceptual apparatus and a stable terminological system, is not always ready to accept, describe and appropriate new concepts proposed by foreign scientists. Due to the impossibility of rapid and unhindered borrowing of psychological terms and the lack of a unified psychological terminology for all countries, the problem of achieving translation equivalence often arises. Under the circumstances, it is not always possible to achieve a complete and adequate understanding of the original scientific text, which, in turn, entails difficulties in conveying meaning in translation ^{[10, p. 8-11]}.

Let's look at some of the problems that translators may encounter when translating psychological texts from English into Italian and Russian.

1. The problem of correlating a foreign term with the system of scientific concepts already existing in national psychology.

The modern process of borrowing lexical units cannot boast of sufficient attention to the cognitive–conceptual connections that are established between a new word or phrase included in a terminology system and term elements already existing in it.

The lack of an orderly procedure for borrowing terms leads to the fact that several variants of the name of a single concept can exist in parallel in scientific discourse. We are talking about the so-called phenomenon of multiple correspondence ^{[3, p. 86]}. According to M. E. Kupriyanova, when translating terminological units, this phenomenon is "unacceptable for achieving a uniform understanding of academic terms" ^[11] and contradicts one of the main requirements for the term — the desire for unambiguity and the absence of synonymy.

In order to prevent the spread of another batch of synonymous terms, the translator should find out whether there is an established equivalent of the terminological unit in question in the translation language, accepted by the scientific community.

Let's consider the problem of correlating a foreign term with the existing system of scientific concepts in national psychology using the example of the English-language term developmental trauma and possible variants of its translation into Russian and Italian.

On the website of the American Psychological Association (APA) Thesauri are published annually, reflecting current changes in the terminological units of the national psychological terminology system of the USA. In the next version of such a thesaurus, it was noted that the term developmental trauma will now be used in scientific discourse, instead of the term childhood trauma ^[16].

When analyzing Russian-language texts on this topic, it was revealed that in Russian psychological science, in scientific articles and periodicals, the equivalent of the term developmental trauma (childhood trauma) is the term childhood trauma. A calculated translation of this term is developmental trauma, which is found only in articles by expert psychologists on various Internet forums and in their publications on social networks. For example, on the website b17.ru — the largest psychological portal, a source of psychological help and information about psychologists. In one of her articles, psychologist Yana Yaremchuk considers such a phenomenon as developmental trauma, rather than childhood psychological trauma ^[17].

It is worth adding that the variant developmental trauma is found as a synonym for the term child psychological trauma in the book "The ABC of a Happy Family" by Diana Mashkova ^[18] and other authors, but is not yet fixed in the dictionary of psychological terms.

Thus, it is better for the translator to give preference to the term childhood trauma, which is well-established in Russian psychological science.

In recent Italian scientific articles, like the English one, the term t rauma dello sviluppo (developmental trauma) is preferred instead of trauma dell'infanzia (trauma infantile), although both variants are often used in parallel in the text in order to avoid repetition.

Another source of difficulties for the translator is the translation of the titles of the works of famous psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, the official names of their concepts and the official names of syndromes and disorders adopted by a specific national scientific community.

Russian Russian translation For example, when translating Sigmund Freud's scientific work "Mourning and Melancholia" from English into Russian, the question may arise as to how to translate the term mourning into Russian. According to some dictionaries, including the Cambridge dictionary (English–Russian version), the word mourning is translated into Russian as mourning, sorrow. Other dictionaries provide translation options: sadness, sorrow, grief ^[19]. However, the translator must remember that in the Russian tradition, this work of Freud is called "Sadness and Melancholy", other translation options are unacceptable. There will be no difficulties in translating the title of the work of the famous Austrian psychoanalyst in Italian, since the English word mourning has an equivalent in Italian — lutto, "Lutto e M elanconia".

If the translation process is designed correctly, the problem of terminological equivalence can be avoided. Even at the pre-translation stage, a semantic analysis of the original scientific text should be carried out and an attempt should be made to find the works of scientists on a given topic in the translation language in order to identify established concepts and terms and compile a glossary. Pre–translation analysis of the text and familiarization with the concepts and concepts accepted in the national scientific system will allow the translator to pay attention to the peculiarities of the linguistic and extralinguistic contexts of the use of a particular term in the source text and take into account the likelihood of several interpretations of terms in the donor language and the recipient language. If possible, it is worth consulting with the client of the translation and with specialists working in the approach described in the original scientific text, for example, in the case of the translation of Freud's work, with a psychoanalyst.

2. The problem of multiple matching.

Often, in the national psychological terminology system, there may be several concepts accepted by the scientific community related to the term to be translated. In this case, the translator needs to make a choice: choose an equivalent appropriate for the given context or create a "new synonym" by borrowing a foreign terminological unit.

Translators often encounter a situation where an equivalent exists in the "receiving" language and is actively used by specialists, but has not yet been recorded in dictionaries.

Let's consider the problem of multiple compliance using the example of the term behavioral intervention, which has the following possible translation options in Russian: behavioral intervention, behavioral intervention, behavior correction.

The first equivalent is behavioral intervention, which is found in the "Psychological Encyclopedia" by R. Corsini and A. Auerbach and is a tracing paper from English ^[12]. The preservation of the literal meaning of the original lexical unit in the translation allowed reflecting in the Russian version the behaviorist orientation of the term and the view of behavioral therapy as a system of measures aimed at helping the client through the active participation of the therapist in changing patterns of his behavior.

There is another equivalent to the English—language term - behavioral intervention, and it is the result of borrowing a foreign term through transcription and transliteration. Unlike the first variant, this term has an opaque internal form, which may make it difficult for non-specialists in the field to understand the scientific concept. The term behavioral intervention is revealed in Elena Valeryevna Zmanovskaya's book Deviantology. Psychology of deviant behavior". In this paper, the author characterizes this type of intervention as "... a rather authoritarian system involving the control of a specialist over the behavior of another person" ^[13].

The third way to translate the term behavioral intervention into Russian is to correct behavior. It should be clarified that this phrase is equivalent to the English-language concept only in certain contexts. For example, the term behavior correction is found in articles and works by psychologists dealing with patients with Down syndrome, for example, in the translation of the work of K. M. Fili and E. A. Jones "Addressing challenging behavior in children with Down syndrome: The use of applied behaviour analysis for assessment and intervention // Down Syndrome Research and Practice» ^[14].

Thus, the translator needs to pay special attention to the analysis of the source text and its context, and when translating, it is worth giving preference to names that reveal the content of the designated concept to a greater extent.

In Italian, there is a direct equivalent to the English—language term intervento comportamentale, so in this case, the translator will not have a problem with multiple matching.

3. The problem of transferring the terminological meaning of a commonly used word in translation.

The problem of synonymous terminological units existing in parallel in the national scientific system creates another difficulty for the translator — distinguishing the terminological and commonly used meanings of a word when there is a close relationship between these two meanings, since the terminological meaning has not yet been fully formed as a separate level in the structure of the word ^{[3, p. 88]}.

One of the areas of psychology in which one can often encounter a similar problem is forensic psychology. For example, the two-component term forensic treatment includes the treatment element, which in psychological discourse, in addition to the general meaning of "treatment", can acquire terminological meaning.

Literally, this term means judicial treatment. Judicial treatment, compulsory treatment, or compulsory medical measures are psychotherapeutic and/or psychiatric care provided to persons who have committed an offense and are serving their sentences in prison or have already been released from prison. Compulsory psychiatric treatment is one of the measures of state coercion that are applied by a court decision against a person who has violated a criminal law, and includes compulsory treatment of persons declared insane by a court ^[15].

An analysis of the content of the terminological phrase forensic treatment shows that the meaning of the word treatment in its composition is narrower than the meaning of this word in non-terminological usage. The word treatment does not fully reflect the content of the term, as it does not provide an opportunity to form an idea of the complex of measures taken in relation to a prisoner/ former prisoner within the framework of therapy. Probably, the most accurate terminological meaning of the word can be expressed by clarifying the meaning of the commonly used word — help. Thus, the term forensic psychological and psychiatric care can become an adequate equivalent to the English-language term forensic treatment.

In Italian, the equivalent of the English-language term is the term trattamento psichiatrico forense. Often the clarifying component "psychiatric care" is omitted and the option trattamento forense remains.

Thus, in order to overcome the problem of transferring a commonly used word in its terminological meaning, the translator needs to form a complete understanding of the conceptual content of the term even at the stage of pre-translation analysis of the text and conduct a thorough analysis of the functioning of this terminological unit in a particular scientific text at the stage of choosing a translation equivalent.

4. The problem of choosing a translation technique.

If there is no equivalent term in the translation language or if there is a term that does not have a regular match in the "receiving" language, it becomes necessary to borrow a foreign term. At this stage, the translator may be faced with the choice of a translation technique by which the term will be translated. Here are some examples of psychological terms translated using some translation transformations.

Calculating

Posttraumatic stress disorder "posttraumatic stress disorder (rus.), il disturbo post-traumatico da stress (ital.)"; obsessive–compulsive disorder "obsessive-compulsive disorder (rus.), il disturbo ossessivo-compulsivo (ital.)"; self–regulation "self-regulation (rus.), l'autoregolazione emotiva (Italian)"; avoidant attachment style "avoidant type of attachment (Russian), l'attaccamento evitante (Italian)".

Transliteration/ transcription

Conceptualization "conceptualization (rus.), concettualizzazione (ital.)"; remission "remission (rus.), remission (ital.)"; trauma "trauma (rus.), trauma (ital.)".

T rank position

Developmental disorders "developmental disorders (rus.), disturbi dello sviluppo (ital.)"; behavior therapy "behavioral (behavioral) therapy (rus.), terapia comportamentale (ital.)"; emotion dysregulation "disturbance of emotional reaction (rus.), disregolazione emotiva (ital.)".

To oncretization

Psychoeducation "psychological literacy" (rus.). This term was translated into Italian by calculus — "psicoeducazione".

Mineralization

Temperamental profile "psychological portrait" (rus.), ritratto psicologico temperamentale (ital.)".

About the literary translation

Caregiver distress "stress of the caregiver (rus.)". This term has not been translated into Italian, the English—language term caregiver distress is used in texts on this topic, which only in some articles adapts to the grammatical system of the Italian language, acquiring the article and changing the word order to a more characteristic Italian language, "lo stress del caregiver".

5. The problem of translating new terms, author's terms.

Often, when translating new and relevant articles reflecting modern reality, the translator is faced with the difficulty of translating new terms or terms used only by a specific author or a limited number of authors. In this case, the translator is dealing with pre-terms that have not yet entered into the terminological system of either the original language or the target language, and are not terms.

So, relatively recently, terms have appeared on social networks that have not yet been included in official scientific thesauri and terminologies, but are already actively circulating in public speeches and are used in psychological discourse.

One of the new terms is the word "gatsbing" (from English gatsbying), in Italian — "fare gatsbying" (lit. gatsbing). According to the Urban Dictionary, "gatsbing" is the publication of a variety of content on social networks with the sole purpose of attracting the attention of only one specific person ^[20]. This term was coined in the summer of 2018 by the Australian model Matilda Dods, who associated the behavior of modern users of social networks with the behavior of the protagonist of the novel by Francis Scott Fitzgerald. Gatsby threw loud, large—scale parties in the hope that Daisy, his former lover, would look at them.

In such cases, the translator can only borrow a new term, translating it using one of the translation techniques, and write a comment from the translator explaining the meaning and meaning of this concept.

Conclusion

During the study, it was noticed that most of the difficulties arise when translating terms in a pair of English-Russian languages or when selecting Russian-language concepts equivalent to English-speaking ones. A translator who translates from English to Italian with similar problems is much less common.

After analyzing the problems that a translator may encounter when translating psychological texts replete with terms, it was determined that difficulties are often caused by a lack of understanding of the conceptual content of the terms. Difficulties with understanding are caused by the translator's lack of specialized psychological education and lack of a basic understanding of the main phenomena, ideas and concepts of the school or field of psychology within which the translation is carried out.

Thus, a translator working with psychological texts needs to study the terminological system of the recipient language, determine which approach in psychology the text belongs to, familiarize himself with the works of specialists in these fields and look for equivalent terms in them. Before translating, in order to avoid difficulties in choosing an equivalent, it is important to form a complete understanding of the conceptual content of the term and analyze the features of functioning in a particular scientific text. If possible, it is worth seeking advice from experts who can help the translator better understand the terminology and conceptual system of specific areas of psychology.