Linguistic-semantic modeling of translation transformations in the context of macro-typological asymmetry of the Russian and Arabic languages

Abstract

This paper is focused on the problem of overcoming macro-typological asymmetry in translating texts from Russian into Arabic and from Arabic into Russian. The paper is dedicated to a comprehensive study of the mechanisms of cross-linguistic meaning transfer in cases where direct transfer (transcoding) proves impossible due to structural interference. Particular attention is paid to the deconstruction of complex verbal phrases, metaphorical expressions, and culture-specific vocabulary in the absence of direct dictionary equivalents. The aim of the research is to develop a comprehensive formal model of linguistic-semantic and syntactic transformations for the Russian-Arabic language pair based on dependency grammars, utilizing the empirical data of parallel text corpora. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that, for the first time, the mechanisms for overcoming lexical-syntactic lacunarity between typologically distant languages (such as demetaphorisation, cross-part-of-speech transposition (recategorization), and syntactic reconfiguration) are presented in the form of computable syntactic dependency trees based on a parallel macrotext. Furthermore, the applied potential of Russian-Arabic parallel arrays is substantiated for the first time by applying the principle of corpus triangulation to identify translation patterns. As a result, the key text adaptation strategies (nominal, semantic, and explicative) were identified and systematized. The results obtained showed that achieving pragmatic equivalence is algorithmically impossible without the structural expansion or reduction of the source graph, and that the use of corpora safeguards the translator from subjective deviations and the phenomenon of "translationese".