Abbreviation

Abbreviation, or shortening a word, is one of the most noticeable features of the English language, and it is used both in formal and informal registers.

Based on the level of their usage, abbreviations can be divided into three groups:

· Graphical abbreviations, used only in writing, and, therefore, pronounced and translated in its full form. These abbreviations are widely employed in faxes: e.g., agst = against, f/b = feedback, ETA = expected date of arrival, ETD = expected date of departure, etc. However, though rarely, some of these abbreviations enter the common stock of vocabulary and, pronounced in a shortened way, they become new words of the language: asap = as soon as possible, AGAP= As Gorgeous As Possible.

· Phonetic abbreviations, or a non-standard way of writing some common words based on their pronunciation; typical of advertising. For example, u = you, thru = through. Of the same type is the word OK (all correct). Normally, in translation this type of abbreviation is lost.

· Lexical abbreviations, including initialisms, spoken as individual letters (BBC, MP, USA); acronyms, pronounced as single words (NATO, UNESCO, AIDS; WAP = Wireless Application Protocol); clippings, or parts of words which serve for the whole (ad, phone, sci-fi = science fiction; m-commerce = mobile-commerce, business conducted over a mobile telephone system; e-bucks = electronic money); blends, or words made out of the shortened forms of two other words (brunch= breakfast + lunch, smog = smoke + fog, Eurovision = Europe + television; anetsitized= anesthetized + net + sit = numb from spending many consecutive hours on the Internet).

Initialisms and acronyms may be rendered through transcription (BBC - Би-Би-Си, IBM – Ай-Би-Эм, IREX - АЙРЕКС), transliteration (NATO - НАТО, USIS – ЮСИС, UNESCO – ЮНЕСКО), or their full form can be translated with a calque and then abbreviated (USA – США, AIDS – СПИД, CIA – ЦРУ). To make the word clearer to the receptor, an abbreviation may be deciphered and/or explained: USIS – Информационная служба США, TESOL – международная ассоциация преподавателей английского языка как иностранного. To translate words of this type, it is necessary to consult a special dictionary of abbreviations, both monolingual (e.g., J. Rosenberg, McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Wall Street Acronyms, Initials & Abbreviations. – New York a.o.: McGraw-Hill, 1992; Дюжикова Е.А. Словарь сокращений современного английского языка. – Владивосток: Изд-во Дальневост. Ун-та, 1991) and bilingual (e.g., Волкова Н.О., Никанорова И.А. Англо-русский словарь наиболее употребительных сокращений. – М.: Русский язык, 1993).

A standard form of a translation, if it exists, should be used by a translator. It must be kept in mind that sometimes a standard form can require some shifts, for instance, a change of letters in the initialism: PRC (People’s Republic of China) – КНР (Китайская Народная Республика).

Clippings usually have a regular equivalent in the dictionary (ad – объявление, phone – телефон, sci-fi – научная фантастика).

Blends are either transferred into the target language (through transcription / transliteration (smog – смог), explained (brunch – плотный поздний завтрак; coffee-zilla < coffee + Godzilla – очень крепкий кофе), orsubstituted by an analog (physed – физкультура).

When translating abbreviations, one should pay attention to the style of the text. Whereas in English abbreviations are mostly neutral and can be used both in formal and informal speech, in Russian abbreviations are strongly separated by styles. For example, clippings are typical of very formal style: тяжмашстрой, совнархоз, универсам; these require explanatory translation, which is sometimes combined with transcription. In informal speech, abbreviations with affixes are widely used: телик, видик, велик. As often as not, similar words exist in English: telly, bike. For видик, there is a shortened form, video ( from video set).

Before suggesting a TL equivalent, it is important to find out the precise meaning of the word. Care should be taken of words that differ in various varieties of English, like the informal adjective dinky< which in British English means “small and attractive”: a dinky little bag, while in American English it has the antonymous meaning of “ too small and often not very nice”: It was a really dinky hotel room.

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