Draft:Leonora Chernyakhovskaya
Russian-American linguist and translation theorist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Leonora Alexandrovna Chernyakhovskaya (Russian: Леонора Александровна Черняховская; also transliterated as Tchernyakhovskaya and Cherniakhovskaia; born June 8, 1940) is a Russian-American linguist, translation theorist, and educator. She holds two doctoral degrees from the Moscow Maurice Thorez Institute of Foreign Languages (presently Moscow State Linguistic University) — in Linguistics and in Cross-Cultural Communications — and completed post-doctoral studies at the Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori, University of Trieste, Italy.
 | Review waiting, please be patient.
This may take 3 months or more, since drafts are reviewed in no specific order. There are 4,287 pending submissions waiting for review.
Where to get help
How to improve a draft
You can also browse Wikipedia:Featured articles and Wikipedia:Good articles to find examples of Wikipedia's best writing on topics similar to your proposed article. Improving your odds of a speedy review To improve your odds of a faster review, tag your draft with relevant WikiProject tags using the button below. This will let reviewers know a new draft has been submitted in their area of interest. For instance, if you wrote about a female astronomer, you would want to add the Biography, Astronomy, and Women scientists tags. Editor resources
Reviewer tools
|
Leonora Chernyakhovskaya | |
|---|---|
Леонора Александровна Черняховская | |
| Born | June 8, 1940 Soviet Union |
| Alma mater | Moscow Maurice Thorez Institute of Foreign Languages; University of Trieste |
| Occupations | Linguist, translation theorist, educator |
| Employer(s) | Kingsborough Community College, CUNY (retired) |
| Known for | Translation and Sense Structure (1976) |
Chernyakhovskaya is the author of more than 100 published works in the theory of translation, text linguistics, and cross-cultural communications. Her monograph Perevod i smyslovaya struktura (Translation and Sense Structure, Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniya, 1976) has been cited over 430 times and is recognized as a foundational text in the Russian school of translation studies.[1] Independent scholars have described her as "a leading Russian and now also American scholar" in the field of translation theory.[2]
She served as Professor and Deputy Chairperson of the Chair of Translation at the Maurice Thorez Institute, and as founding Rector of the Moscow International School of Translation and Interpreting — the first private post-graduate translator training institution in Russia. She later relocated to New York, where she taught at Kingsborough Community College, CUNY. She remains an active member of the Union of Translators of Russia (Союз переводчиков России).
Research and contributions
Chernyakhovskaya's scholarly work is centered on the semantic and informational dimensions of language, text, and translation. She is associated with the Leningrad school of linguistics[3] and is recognized as one of the principal theorists of the informational approach to translation in Russian linguistics.
Her theoretical work was shaped in part by her encounter with physicist and philosopher B.G. Kuznetsov, who introduced her to mathematical logic, quantum mechanics, and the philosophy of science during her doctoral studies. This interdisciplinary influence led her to develop the informational approach to translation (информационный подход к переводу) — a psycholinguistic theory that focuses on the semantic structure of meaning as it passes "through" language, common to both source and target texts.[4]
Her core theoretical contribution is the formulation of translation as a structural transformation of a speech work in which the content plan is preserved while the expression plan changes.[5] This definition has been widely cited and applied by subsequent scholars in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Poland, France, Canada, Japan, Slovenia, and Serbia.[6][7]
Her 1976 monograph Perevod i smyslovaya struktura (Translation and Sense Structure) received immediate international attention, including a review in the Bulletin of the Japan Association for Russian Studies in 1977.[8] Her 1983 article on the semantic structure of the text, published in Voprosy Yazykoznaniya, has been cited over 190 times and remains a reference point in Russian text linguistics.[9]
Her work has been incorporated into translator training programs at universities across Russia and the post-Soviet states, and is cited as foundational in textbooks on translation theory.[10][11]
Early life and education
Leonora Alexandrovna Chernyakhovskaya was born on June 8, 1940, in the Soviet Union. She completed all three of her advanced degrees at the Moscow Maurice Thorez Institute of Foreign Languages (now Moscow State Linguistic University), earning a Master of Arts in Education and English as a Second Language, followed by a doctorate in Comparative Linguistics and Translation, and a second doctorate in Cross-Cultural Communications, Translation, and Interpreting.
She subsequently undertook post-doctoral research in Applied Linguistics and Theory of Translation with the Research Group on Theory of Translation at the Institute of Linguistics, USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow, and completed post-doctoral studies in Cross-Cultural Communications at the Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori, University of Trieste, Italy.
Career
Soviet Union
Chernyakhovskaya began her career immediately after graduation with an assignment as a translator on a geological expedition in Sumatra, Indonesia — an experience she later described as formative.[12] She then joined the faculty of the Moscow Maurice Thorez Institute of Foreign Languages (later renamed Moscow State Linguistic University), where she rose from Instructor to Associate Professor, Professor, and Deputy Chairperson of the Chair of Translation. She taught English and Russian as second languages, as well as the Theory and Practice of Translation, Comparative Literature, Comparative Linguistics, and Theory of Communication. She served as scientific advisor for post-graduate students in Comparative Linguistics, Theory of Text, and Theory of Translation.
In parallel, she served as Lecturer and Consultant at the Research and Training Department of the National Center of Translation, Moscow, where she created curricula and delivered lectures and practical training for translators and interpreters across the Soviet Union in the fields of science, engineering, legal, and economic translation.
At the administrative level, she served as Secretary of the Committee on Cross-Cultural Communications, Translation and Interpretation Theory and Methodology at the Ministry of Higher and Professional Education of the USSR, tracking research results across Soviet educational institutions for implementation in translator training programs. She was also a member of the Board of the Russian Union of Translators, where she was responsible for translators' education and professional upgrading, and developed criteria for qualification examinations and the assessment of translators' professional competence.
In 1991, she founded the Moscow International School of Translation and Interpreting (Russian: Московская Международная Школа Переводчиков, ММПШ; also known as MISTI), serving as its Rector — the first institution of its kind in Russia.[13][14] In a 2010 interview she stated: "В России такой школы раньше никогда не было" ("There had never been a school like this in Russia before").
The school was co-founded with leading figures of Soviet translation studies, including professors Vilen Komissarov and Alexander Shveitser, Gely Chernov (former Head of UN Russian–English Translation Services, New York), and Arkady Anfilofyev (former Head of UN Russian–French Translation Services, Paris). Its programs were endorsed by the Institute of Linguistics of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the newly founded Union of Translators of Russia.[15]
Her daughter Olga, herself a graduate of the Moscow Maurice Thorez Institute and a working translator and interpreter at the time, encouraged her to pursue the founding of the school.[16]
In its first year the school operated aboard a ship, the Slavyanov, moored at Moscow's Southern Port, which housed classrooms, a computer lab, dormitory cabins for out-of-town students, and a restaurant. The school later moved to permanent premises in Moscow. At its height the faculty comprised 58 instructors, including 1 academician, 15 professors, and 9 doctors of science, and the school received state accreditation (License 24-1035, 28.01.2002).[17]
The school's founding had coincided with her professional exchanges with the Monterey Institute of International Studies, a leading American graduate school for translation and interpretation. Following Chernyakhovskaya's relocation to New York in 1999, the school continued to operate under her supervision. It closed in 2016 — its 25th anniversary year — after changes in Moscow municipal policy ended the long-term preferential lease arrangements that had made the school's operation financially viable.
United States
Chernyakhovskaya relocated to New York in 1999 and joined the faculty of Kingsborough Community College, City University of New York (CUNY), as an English Language Instructor in the CLIP (College Language Intensive Program), where she developed experimental curricula teaching reading and writing through academic subjects including History of the United States, Comparative Religion, and History and Religions of the Ancient World.
She also taught Russian at Kingsborough's Department of Continuing Education, and maintained active cooperation with the American Translators Association and with FIT, the International Federation of Translators. She participated in an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) linguistic research project on the translation of texts in the social sciences, which resulted in a co-authored instructional manual published by ACLS in 2006.[18]
She maintained professional ties with leading figures of Soviet simultaneous interpreting, including Viktor Suhodrev, the personal interpreter of Soviet leaders Khrushchev and Brezhnev.[19]
She is retired from full-time teaching and continues to participate in events organized by the Union of Translators of Russia.
International lectures
Throughout her career, Chernyakhovskaya delivered invited lectures at universities and research institutions across Europe and the United States, including:
- Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (1989)
- University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy (1989)
- New York University, New York, USA (1991)
- Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, German Democratic Republic (1986)
- Columbia University, New York, USA (1994, 1999)
- Middlebury College, Vermont, USA (1999)
- Kent State University, Ohio, USA (1990)
- Belgrade Translation and Interpretation Center, Belgrade, Yugoslavia (1985–1986)
- Bulgaria Center of Translation, Sofia, Bulgaria (1986)
- Linguistic Conference, Plovdiv, Bulgaria (1986)
- Hungary State University, Budapest, Hungary (1987)
- Institute of Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland (1981)
- USSR Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, Moscow (1985–1986)
Selected publications
Monographs and books
- Perevod i smyslovaya struktura [Translation and Sense Structure]. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniya Publishers, 1976. 260 pp. (Cited 431+ times)
- Tekst i perevod [Text and Translation] (co-authored with VN Komissarov and LK Latisheva). Moscow: Nauka (USSR Academy of Sciences), 1988. (Cited 3 times)
- Teoriya rechevoy kommunikatsii [Theory of Speech Communication]. Moscow: Moscow Maurice Thorez Institute of Foreign Languages, 1988. 75 pp.
- Russian-English, English-Russian Pocket Legal Dictionary. New York: Hippocrene Books, 2009.
- Guidelines for the Translation of Social Science Texts (co-author). New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 2006.
Selected articles and chapters
- "Smyslovaya struktura teksta i yeyo edinitsy" [Semantic structure of the text and its units]. Voprosy Yazykoznaniya, No. 6. Moscow, 1983. (Cited 193+ times)
- "Informatsionnaya struktura teksta kak obyekt perevoda" [Information structure of the text as an object of translation]. In: Tekst i perevod, ed. AD Shveitser. Moscow: Nauka, 1988. (Cited 27 times)
- "Sense and its Expression through Language." In: Translation as Social Action: Russian and Bulgarian Perspectives, ed. Palma Zlateva. London: Routledge, 1993/2018.
- "Smysl i yego vyrazheniye cherez yazyk" [Sense and its expression through language]. Kwartalnik neofilologiczny, t. 29, wyd. 1–2. Warsaw, 1982.
- "Informatsionnyy podkhod k perevodu" [Informational approach to translation]. Moscow: Mir, 2009. (Cited 3 times)
- "The Structure of Text Contents." Russian Journal of Communication (Taylor & Francis), 2011.
- "Contrastive English-Russian Studies at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages." Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1976.
Translated works
- Selected short stories by Ray Bradbury (translated from English into Russian)
- E.H. Carr. The Russian Revolution from Lenin to Stalin. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniya Publishers, 1990. (Translated from English into Russian)
- The XIX Party Conference: Minutes. London: Maxwell House Publishers, 1990. (Translated from Russian into English)
- The Yearbook of Perestroika, vols. I–II. London: Maxwell Publishers, 1988–1989. (Co-translated from Russian into English)
- R. Jakobson. "On the Science of Translation." In: Voprosy teorii perevoda v sovremennoy lingvistike. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1978.
- E. Nida. "On the Science of Translation." In: Voprosy teorii perevoda. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1978.
- J.C. Catford. A Linguistic Theory of Translation. In: Voprosy teorii perevoda v sovremennoy lingvistike. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1978.
- M. Halliday. "Language Comparison." In: Voprosy teorii perevoda. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1978.
- Anthology of American Science Fiction. Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya Publishers, 1974. 300 pp. (Translated from English into Russian)