TRANSLATING LEXICAL GAPS IN ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN PUBLICISTIC DISCOURSE

The present article deals with various processes that lie within the formation of lexical gaps, or lacunas, in English and Russian publicistic discourse, as well as the possible strategies that could be applied when translating them. The aim of this research was to establish the most efficient strategy for translating lexical gaps from Russian into English and from English into Russian.The methodological framework of this paper comprises the works of Russian and foreign linguists who have studied the subject n detail. The information provided in their research was used to define such terms relevant to this study as “lexical gap”, “translation”, “publicistic discourse”, “adequacy”, “equivalence”, etc. These definitions were used as the foundation of the terminological framework of this paper.Throughout the research, the mechanisms of the process of the formation of lexical gaps in publicistic discourse, as well as the means of translating them from Russian into English and vice versa, were assessed. In order to estimate the practical effectiveness of these translation strategies, modern news articles published on the websites of The New York Times, The Guardian and the Russian newspaper “Komsomolskaia pravda” were analyzed together with their translations into Russian and English, respectively. These sources were chosen due to their popularity among readers. Moreover, publicistic discourse is a good representation of how lexical gaps are used in modern language, as news articles discuss topical issues using the lacunas which are especially popular at the time.The results of this research have shown that, although not easily, a certain level of adequacy and equivalence can be reached when translating lexical gaps from Russian into English and from English into Russian. The strategy that proved to be the most effective is the strategy of eliminating or, more specifically, filling or compensating of lexical gaps.