Language Mediation in Russian Academe: Translation and Me-thodological Aspects

Abstract

The paper deals with language mediation in the Russian academe, focusing specifically on its translation and methodological issues. Current target reference points set out for Russian science demand for close cooperation with international scholars, which cannot be achieved without publishing research results in top-ranking academic journals and integrating into the international academic agenda. The goal of the paper is to present a translation and methodological perspective of challenges in language mediation in the academe. The study aims to expose basic issues of Russian-to-English academic translation and provide an inventory of Russian scholars’ needs in language mediation. The research procedure relies on a complex of methods, including qualitative analysis, benchmarking, and surveying. The empirical database consists of a parallel corpus containing academic contexts totaling 2000 units and data obtained in the course of surveying the faculty of Moscow City University. Parallel contexts were sampled on the eLibrary.ru website, in Scopus and other Elsevier resources while benchmarking employed data available on the ScienceDirect platform. The findings highlighted basic issues relevant for the Russian-to-English academic translation, which include strategies employed in translation of academic journal titles, research paper titles and metadata. Survey results showed the need among academics for more postgraduate professional training programs in academic writing and speaking, language counseling services and a wider coverage of research activities by language workers. The obtained data and results can be applied in the development of Russian-to-English academic translation and editing guidelines as well as in new professional training courses for Russian researchers.