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Problems of the mediation function of East Asian English variants for Russian communicants

Z.G. Proshina

UDC 81`24

https://doi.org/10.20339/PhS.6-21.206

 

Proshina Zoya G.,

Doctor of Philology, Professor of the

Theory in Teaching Foreign Languages Department

Lomonosov Moscow State University

e-mail: proshinazoya@yandex.ru

 

Communicating with Chinese, Japanese, and Korean users in English is a challenge for Russians, even if they have a perfect command of English. This is due to the fact that while performing a global function and retaining local features, the English language, non-native to its users, has specific phonetic features revealed as an accent in oral speech, as well as certain graphic innovations, which aggravates translating proper names and culture-loaded words into Russian in a written form of communication. The challenges result from co-existence of several transliteration systems in these languages, non-traditional sound and letter correlations as compared with British and American Englishes, non-traditional translation correlations when transliterating from Roman to Cyrillic. Translation problems proper are complicated by lexico-semantic and pragmatic factors, which can be interpreted only on the cultural basis. These challenges make it necessary to integrate the World Englishes paradigm into the courses of English departments, as well as preparing special textbooks and reference sources.

Keywords: English as a lingua franca, a variety of English, East Asian Englishes, understanding, phono-graphical level, semantics, pragmatics.

 

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