STYLISTICALLY MARKED LINGUISTIC UNITS IN ENGLISH AND UKRAINIAN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE AND THE CHALLENGES OF THEIR TRANSLATION

Abstract

This study examines stylistically marked linguistic units in business correspondence and identifies the principal challenges associated with their translation from English into Ukrainian. The increasing volume of intercultural communication in a globalized and digitized business environment heightens the need for precise rendering of formal tone and pragmatic intent. By combining contrastive, pragmatic, and contextual text analyses with results drawn from an empirical translation experiment involving professional translators, the research classifies five categories of marked units – politeness formulas, euphemisms, phraseological expressions, idioms, and corporate jargon – and evaluates the consequences of literal calquing. Findings indicate that direct word-for-word transfer often fails to preserve register, disrupts cultural expectations, and diminishes the pragmatic impact of the source message. To address these issues, the study advocates adaptive translation strategies such as modulation, functional equivalence, compensation, and culturally informed restructuring that maintain both semantic fidelity and appropriate stylistic nuance. The conclusions emphasize the necessity for systematic translator training, including the development of specialized glossaries, sensitivity to pragmatic functions, and anticipatory analysis of intercultural norms. Directions for future research include large-scale corpus studies of business documents across sectors, assessment of automated translation tools’ capacity to retain pragmatic effects, and integration of targeted training modules on business jargon translation into translator education programs. The presented insights offer both theoretical contribution and practical guidance for enhancing the quality of intercultural business communication.