EXPRESSIVE MEANS IN ENGLISH POPULAR SCIENCE TEXTS AND WAYS OF THEIR TRANSLATION INTO UKRAINIAN

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of expressive linguistic means in English popular science (pop-sci) texts as well as the ways of their translation into Ukrainian. The paper proves that expressiveness is one of the main features that differentiate popular science texts from scientific texts proper. The paper describes the functions of expressive means in the pop-sci book “Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventure of a curious Character” by R.P. Feynman. The research highlights the specificity of translating the emotional vocabulary and other emotives as multilevel language and speech units used to denote and manifest emotions as those that provide expressiveness of pop-sci. Accentuated expressiveness of pop-sci texts, provoked by both their content and pragmatics, is reached, along with emotively charged elements, by the use of numerous explanations, lexical repetitions, and the emphatic focus on the potential reader. The double objective of the popular science text, i.e. to convey cognitive information to the reader while capturing him/her with this information, leads to the polemic nature of such texts, which is the reason for their expressivity and the presence of evaluation. Expressive elements help to strengthen the argumentation, facilitate the perception and understanding of the most intricate contexts that contain new ideas and concepts. Expressiveness is a property of text or its part that conveys meaning with increased intensity and results in an emotional or logical reinforcement. The specificity of pop-sci texts expressiveness is in its dialogical orientation in the context of emotionally charged pragmatic impact. The translation of expressively marked emotional vocabulary and other emotives consists is aimed to fully convey by means of target language not only cognitively rational but also emotional information, in order to exercise a similar pragmatic impact on the target reader.