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

4.

Calque + DT Сверхквалифицированное большинство (Lingvo)

	Sverhkvalificirovannoe bol´shinstvo
	L.t.: overqualified majority
	N.c.: 1 doc. <...>Пакет холдинга в операторе вырастет с 44 до 74%, то есть до сверхквалифицирова нного большинства», пишет в отчете аналитик UniCredit Securities Надежда Голубева. (Dement'ev & Bursak, 2003. Ruscorpora)
RECOMMENDED TRANSLATION: Direct Equivalent Kвалифицированное большинство Kvalificirovannoe bol’shinstvo L.t.: the qualified majority

The Calque and DT translation method can be applied to a term consisting of one word. In this case one part of a word, a full-fledged term component, is translated into the target language using Calque. Other term components are made explicit using descriptive elements. The term supermajority is defined as “a seventy five percent or higher majority of votes required in approving certain changes or decisions in an organization” (Business Dictionary), “a corporate amendment in a company's charter requiring a large majority (anywhere from 67-90%) of shareholders to approve important changes, such as a merger” (Investopedia). The only additional explicit term component in the Russian term квалифицированное большинство голосов (IFC) is голосов (of votes). The term component is relevant because it is implied in the term definition. The term component “majority” has the Direct Equivalent in Russian: “большинство”.

The term component “super” modifying the component “majority” conveys the following meaning in the field of Corporate Governance: “a majority (as two-thirds or three-fifths) greater than a simple majority” (Merriam-Webster).

In Russian the term supermajority can have the following equivalent according to Lingvo dictionary: сверхквалифицированное большинство (Lingvo) (sverhkvalificirovannoe bol´shinstvo, L.t.: overqualified majority). The existence of the synonymic term qualified majority voting (IFC) (see Additional or Irrelevant Components) and its Russian equivalent голосование по принципу квалифицированного большинства (IFC) (golosovanie po principu kvalificirovannogo bol’shinstva, L.t.: the voting under the principle of qualified majority) boosts

the use of the term component квалифицированный (kvalificirovannyj, qualified). In this case the use of the component “сверх-“ (sverh, over) is superfluous and irrelevant because it repeats the meaning contained in the term component “qualified” as opposed to “simple”. In this respect the following term can be used in the field of Corporate Governance: квалифицированное большинство (kvalificirovannoe bol’shinstvo, L.t.: qualified majority) (see table 9).

A great number of examples retrieved from Ruscorpora (see table 9) indicate that the descriptive term form is fixed in Russian: “… для принятия поправок в Устав требуется квалифицированное большинство голосов, то есть не менее семнадцати” (Tatarenkov, 2002. Ruscorpora) (L.t.: for the amendments to be accepted in the Charter the qualified majority of votes is needed, i.e. not less that seventeen). Nevertheless, the Direct Equivalent of the term квалифицированное большинство (Academic) (кvalificirovannoe bol’shinstvo; L.t.: the qualified majority, based on its synonym: qualified majority) can be suggested as the relevant translation for the term supermajority. The Russian term can be found in a total of 103 documents, surpassing all the other term form variations. In addition to this, the term form is transparent and is convenient to use, which is proved by the infrequent use of comments or additional components (see table 9): квалифицированное большинство в две трети (голосов) (Ruscorpora) (kvalifitzirovannoje bol’shinstvo v dve treti (golosov); L.t.: the qualified majority of 2/3 voices).

2. Calque and DT. Calque of the whole term combined with explanation of content

Difficult semantic constructions represent a reason for the use of Calque and DT. Special nouns, based on phrasal verbs (phrasal verb nominatives) can trigger the use of DT. These nouns comprise different sematic components in a short form, for example: buy-out: buying something out. In addition to this, these nouns are often used as a base for coining new terms with figurative meanings. Such a combination of innovative content and concise, grammatically dense form is not easy to shape in Russian.

The translation of one of these English terms is analyzed in the table below (table 10).