Dr. Carlos F. Márquez Linares Dr. Enrique F. Quero Gervilla Doctoral Programme in Languages, Texts and Contexts Faculty of Translation and Interpreting university of granada

RECOMMENDED TRANSLATION: Calque and DT Коэффициент соотношения собственных и заёмных средств Koefficient sootnoshenija sobstvennyh i zaemnyh sredstv L.t.: coefficient of the ration between own and borrowed means AND Calque (figurative meaning) = leverage (Финансовый) рычаг (Finansovyj) rychag Financial leverage

The Russian terms represent a product of accelerated development of the terminology field and borrowing from another language. First of all, some of the sources list the term under financial leverage: “the debt-to-equity ratio (debt/equity ratio, D/E) is a financial ratio indicating the relative proportion of entity's equity and debt used to finance an entity's assets. This ratio is also known as financial leverage” (Audit IT). In the IFC glossary, the term leverage is separated

with a comma and stands next to debt-to-equity ratio. However, the term debt-to-equity ratio is an independent term, though related to the term (financial) leverage:

Debt/equity ratio

A measure of a company's financial leverage. Debt/equity ratio is equal to long-term debt divided by common shareholders' eTqyupiitcya.lly the data from the prior fiscal year is used in the calculation. Investing in a company with a higher debt/equity ratio may be riskier, especially in times of rising interest rates, due to the additional interest that has to be paid out for the debt (InvestorWords).
Leverage

The use of credit to enhance one's speculative capacity (Merriam-Webster).

The second term is used in its figurative meaning in English. In LGP the term is used to denote an "action of a lever", "power or force of a lever" and "advantage for accomplishing a purpose" (Online Etymology Dictionary). The word became a financial term as far back as 1933 (ibidem).

The first term is special because of its form, which represents a fertile pattern in the English language, but is difficult to borrow as Pure Calque into Russian. The pattern “NOUN (attributive position) +NOUN” in general is difficult to reproduce in Russian, because of the Russian case

system (we must reverse the term word order, andadujseectaivne or put the noun thine

attributive position in a proper case (usually genitive case), adding prepositions if necessary).

Pure Calque with the same wordiomrpdoerssiisble under such a construction; however, Calque

with a reversed word order has not been completely dismissed: коэффициент долг/акционерный капитал (Lingvo; Academic) (koefficient dolg/aktzionernyj capital; L.t.: coefficient debt/joint-stock capital).

Though Pure Calque is difficult to implement, it does not interfere with the opportunity to borrow some elements of the term with the help of Calque, e.g.:

• 
  cоотношение между собственными и заемными средствами (IFC; Academic) (sootnoshenie mezhdu sobstvennymi i zaemnymi sredstvami; L.t.: ratio between own and borrowed means);
  
• 
  отношение задолженности к собственному капиталу (оtnoshenie zadolzhennosti k sobstevennomu kapitalu; L.t.: ratio (relation) between liabilities and one´s own capital) (Lingvo; Academic).
  

The form of the term debt-to-equity ratio is difficult to reproduce not only because a nominative unit is in the attributive position, but also because it represents a compound term (two nouns and a preposition). The examples of translation into Russian, mentioned above, represent the Calque and Descriptive Translation method, comprising Calque elements (“соотношение” (ratio), “заёмный” (debt, an adjective), “к” (to, a preposition)) and descriptive elements (“средства” (means), “капитал” (capital), “между” (between), “собственный” (own, an adjective)). The existence of two and more options of Calque and DT with different descriptive elements shows the unstable and inconcise term content in English. This is mainly attributed to the term component “equity”, which has several descriptive equivalents in Russian: акция без фиксированного дивиденда (a share without a fixed dividend), собственный капитал (one’s own capital), собственные средства (one’s own means), чистая доля в средствах (a pure share out of the means), ценные бумаги (bonds) etc. (Lingvo Economics). The concise form of the English term triggers the different use of prepositions when translated, i.e.”между”, “к”, оr a conjunction “и”: соотношение собственных и заемных средств (Academic) (sootnoshenie zaemnyh i sobstvennyh sredstv/sootnoshenie sobstevennyh i zaemnyh sredstv; L.t.: ratio of own and borrowed means).

As shown in table 18, Calque and DT is widely used for the translation of the term debt-to- equity ratio into Russian. This descriptive method of translation proves to be justifiable. It allows a translator to retain the vital components of the English term: “ratio”, “debt” and “equity”. It extends the term to a certain limit, without making its form unwieldy. It shapes the main idea of the content of the source term, delineating the main (not irrelevant) semantical components: “собственный”, “средство” and “между”. In this respect, Calque and DT can be considered to be a descriptive semantic Calque to some extent.

The main disadvantage of Calque and DT is that the term form is neither fixed nor strict, as it could be with Pure Calque. This fact is proved by the diverse patterns of descriptive translation for the term debt-to-equity ratio. Word order is not fixed within the Russian term, i.e. the term components appear in different positions: cоотношение заемных и собственных средств or соотношение собственных и заемных средств (Academic) (sootnoshenie zaemnyh i sobstvennyh sredstv/sootnoshenie sobstevennyh i zaemnyh sredstv; L.t.: ratio of own and borrowed (borrowed and owned) means). Synonyms for term components are widely used:

“соотношение” (sootnoshenie; correlation), “отношение” (otnoshenie, relation), “коэффициент” (koefficient), etc. Each modification of a term form creates a new unit, whose adequacy and suitability should be carefully examined by a translator.

The main goal of the present case study was to trace all the usages of a term in Russian, using Ruscorpora as the main source of examples. The analysis of the Russian contexts revealed the term forms, which are slightly modified but not mentioned in the glossaries or dictionaries: отношение задолженности к собственным средствам (Ruscorpora) (оtnoshenie zadolzhennosti k sobstevennym sredstvam; L.t.: ratio (relation) between liabilities and one´s own means); коэффициент соотношения собственных и заёмных средств (Ruscorpora) (koefficient sootnoshenija sobstvennyh i zaemnyh sredstv; L.t.: coefficient of the ratio between own and borrowed means). The analysis of Ruscorpora revealed that the Calque and DT method is the most relevant translation method for the term debt-to-equity ratio. The study of the corpus dismissed several translation versions and showed the frequent usage of others. The term коэффициент соотношения собственных и заёмных средств (Ruscorpora) (koefficient sootnoshenija sobstvennyh i zaemnyh sredstv; L.t.: coefficient of the ratio between own and borrowed means) is represented in as many as 16 documents belonging to Economics and related fields. This Russian term is followed by the term offered in the dictionary: соотношение собственных и заемных средств (Academic) (sootnoshenie sobstevennyh i zaemnyh sredstv; L.t.: ratio of own and borrowed means), which is used in 13 Ruscorpora newspaper corpus documents and 3 main corpus documents. Although the usage of the term is frequent, it can sometimes be used as a comment on the main term (transcription of the term leverage): “леверидж (соотношение собственных и заемных средств)” (Alekseevskih & Shirmanova, 2014. Ruscorpora).

The mentioned previously Russian term with a comment leads to two descriptive translation scenarios. The first one is aimed at a short and innovative term form, and the second one gives priority to the content of a term.

When translation focuses on conciseness, it is important to incorporate the term form into the system of the native language. Otherwise the translator runs risks coining a new word with little practical use. It is also important to not commit any errors, neither orthographical nor stylistic ones, when dealing with transliteration, transcription, Calque or the search for a direct

equivalent. As far as the term debt-to-equity ratio is concerned, its form does not contribute to the possibility of implementing Direct Loan. Neither the construction, nor the term components can be easily reproduced in Russian. This may be the reason why the concise, innovative and figurative English term leverage, being close in meaning to the term debt-to-equity ratio, is favored by translators and is used instead of the latter term. This is proved by the abovementioned term containing the transcription of the therm leverage and the comment based on debt-to-equity ratio term.

The analysis of Ruscorpora allowed us to identify the favorite translation pattern, which is Pure Calque with figurative meaning: (финансовый) рычаг (Academic) (finansovyj) rychag; L.t.: (financial) leverage)). It is used in as many as 70 Ruscorpora documents (see table 18), which is the leader among other translation patterns for the two English terms. Nevertheless, the term (финансовый) рычаг (Academic) is not unique, as it functions along with another frequent Russian term with figurativeness, retrieved using Calque: кредитное плечо (Academic) (kreditnoje plecho; L.t.: credit shoulder). It can be found in 55 Ruscorpora documents (see table 18). In previous examples the figurative meaning of the source term was preserved; however, translators often decipher the content of such terms. It sometimes results in a descriptive form of a target term: использование кредита для совершения финансовых сделок (finance) (Lingvo) (ispolzovanije kredita dlja sovershenija finansovyh sdelok; L.t.: the use of a credit for the completion of financial transactions).

The frequent usage of Pure Calque shows that the term is partially incorporated into the sphere of Management and it functions with a certain level of success. In addition, the inconvenient phonetic form of the English term for Russian speakers leads to frequent errors or an unstable transcription form. In Ruscorpora two transcription forms are used as equivalents of the English term leverage: левередж and леверидж (see table 18). The terms appear in Ruscorpora with nearly equal frequency, which shows the low quality of transcription as a translation method in this particular case.

The second translation scenario focuses on the content of a term, which implies the search for a Direct Equivalent or the implementation of additional semantic components. The latter is the most undesirable type of descriptive translation, i.e. DT with Additional or Irrelevant Components. It often employs components which can be easily avoided by translators. In

addition to this, this Descriptive Translation method generates a vast amount of unwieldy constructions with only slight differences between them. For example, the term отношение заемных средств к собственным средствам компании (Academic) (оtnoshenie zaemnyh sredstv k sobstbennym sredstvam kompanii; L.t.: relation (ratio) of one means to the borrowed means (ones) of a company) contains a superfluous detail: the word “средство” (sredstvo; L.t.: means). If the term is to be compared with abovementioned terms created by the Calque and DT method, it is obvious that the translator can get rid of the additional component. This detail contributes neither to the transparency of the term form nor to its conciseness. Consequently, it can be considered irrelevant for the explanation and description of the English term debt-to- equity ratio.

The Russian term contains one more component, which extends its form and at the same time limits its meaning: “компании” (kompanii, L.t.: of a company). According to this component, the debt-to-equity ratio can be attributed exclusively to a certain company. The term component proves to be irrelevant due to its concrete meaning (concretization), which only makes the whole term useful in certain contexts. Ruscorpora demonstrates clearly that the term is not frequently used: only one similar, and yet shorter form, was found in the source: cоотношение собственных и заемных средств компании (Ruscorpora) (sootnoshenie sobstevennyh i zaemnyh sredstv kompanii; L.t.: ratio of own and borrowed means of a company). The relevance of additional components within a certain term is controversial.

The DT method which employs extra components borders on the DT and Calque technique. The elements of the term may be considered irrelevant if they are superfluous or, if they add additional meaning to the term. For instance, the term cоотношение собственных и привлеченных средств (Ruscorpora)) (sootnoshenie sobstvennyh i privlechennyh sredstv; L.t.: the ratio of one’s own and attracted means) contains the component “привлечённый” (privlechennyj; attracted). The word is not a Direct Equivalent of the term part “debt”, although it makes reference to a similar meaning in the sphere of Management. This term component is considered as irrelevant because of its inexact meaning, and improperly descriptive nature.

The analysis of all the translations of a single term (debt-to-equity ratio, see table 18) has revealed the most frequently used Russian terms. These terms can be suggested as the most desirable ones:

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