Abstract:

Social life development gives a boost to the introduction of new concepts and as a result new terms appear in the language. A certain principle should be applied when translating these terms, and it is important for a teacher to familiarize the students with it.

The main objective of this article is to outline the methods and ways applied when translating complex technical terms from English into Russian.

In order to achieve this objective the following tasks are set:
- to define the requirements to the term to distinguish a word or a word combination from a term or a complex term;
- to analyze the semantic structure of complex terms and interdependence of their components.

A term, or a terminology unit, is the designation of a concept in a particular subject field. According to the structure, terms may be divided into simple and complex. The most difficult to translate are complex terms and, as a matter of fact, they are more frequent in technical texts. For instance, in order to translate a complex technical term valve spool dirt excluding rubber washer steel spacer a thorough analysis of the relations between units should be made before translating the whole complex term. After stating the semantic and grammatical relations between the components one may turn to the term translation.

Another translation difficulty may arise during new complex terms translation. New terms may be created by assigning new meanings to already existing terms or by combining and deleting lexical elements. When a new complex term appears there are usually several equivalents suggested in the target language but in course of time only one is set in the language. In case of an acronym or an abbreviation as a new term it may eventually become a simple term.

The analysis of complex terms aims to provide students with the skills that will enable them to carry out translation work efficiently.

Keywords:

A complex term, a concept, semantic relations, a lexical element.