RESTAURANT MENUS IN TRANSLATION PERSPECTIVE

This article focuses on one of the challenging though less studied issues in translation studies related to semantic units associated with food culture realia as well as gastronomic discourse in translation perspective. This research offers a comparative analysis of restaurant menus in the English vs Russian language. What needs to be done is to investigate into menu translation deficiencies. The goal and objective of the article is to analyze the menu translation of restaurants in Moscow. In fact, the study features mainly lexical gaps which are hard to translate. Continuous sampling helps opt for restaurant menus in Moscow and London. Nevertheless, the main focus is on Moscow restaurant menus as it is relevant to reveal translation deficiencies. The research shows that on the lexical level the relevant mistakes are related to transliteration, wrong translation of ingredients as well as dishes, and omission of some information. The crucial point is that gastronomic realia are expected to be studied from cultural as well as linguistic stand. As a result, the research will enable translators to translate the menus, and in this way determine customers' perception of restaurants. The report looks into translation deficiencies and translation patterns which take into account language- and culture-specific features. It offers professional translators some guidelines associated with menu translation. Keywords: gastronomic discourse; xenogenicity; translation perspective; translation deficiencies; menu; transliteration