THE PROBLEM OF TRANSLATING ENGLISH-LANGUAGE MILITARY TERMINOLOGY (the example of the series “The Pacific”)

Abstract

Mistakes occurring when translating English military terminology in the TV series about war are considered. The demand for high quality translation of such series is explained by continuous development of the movie industry and everlasting popularity of the abovementioned genre in our country. The Pacific, American television series produced by HBO, became the material for analysis. The series focuses on the United States Marine Corps’ actions in the Pacific Theater of Operations within the wider Pacific War. It centers on the experiences of three Marines (Eugene Sledge, Robert Leckie and John Basilone) who were all in different regiments of the 1st Marine Division. A rigorous methodology for differentiation of the categories of the most common mistakes is provided. For this purpose the definitions of translation and series are provided as well as a classification of translation mistakes with four distinctive categories, which is used for sorting examples of the most common mistakes made in the process of translating military terminology in this series. It was shown that some categories contain more sentences with mistakes and examples of the most common translation mistakes are explained. The final point is the conclusion in which it is claimed that those translating the TV series about war usually lack both training in the English and Russian languages, and background knowledge in the sphere of translating English military terminology.