Translation Strategies and the Terminological Representation of Cultural Heritage in the Cross-Border Project HICART I

Abstract

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the translation of the text content of the cross-border cultural project HICART I as a tool for the international representation of the tangible and intangible heritage of the Carpathian region. The relevance of the study is determined by the growing role of digital cultural routes in shaping a positive image of regions, the intensification of cross-border cooperation, and the need to ensure terminological consistency, cultural adequacy, and communicative effectiveness of translation in a multilingual environment. In the context of Ukraine's European integration, the translation of cultural heritage is not only a linguistic transformation, but also a form of cultural mediation and a tool for intercultural communication.

The aim of the article is to identify and systematise translation strategies and terminological solutions in the Ukrainian-English corpus of the HICART I project, taking into account their textual specificity and functional-discursive characteristics.

The empirical basis of the study is the bilingual texts of the HICART I web platform, which cover descriptions of more than 40 cultural heritage sites (including UNESCO World Heritage Sites), narrative route pages, promotional materials, navigation elements, interactive maps, and administrative and project documentation.

The research methodology is based on a combination of a functional approach to translation, terminological analysis, the method of continuous sampling, comparative analysis of Ukrainian and English versions of texts, and discourse analysis. This set of methods allows us to consider translation in a digital environment as an integrated system of interaction between verbal, visual, and cartographic components.

The study identified the dominant methods of translating cultural heritage terms: calquing, transliteration, descriptive translation (explication), functional equivalence, adaptation, and combined strategies. It has been proven that the choice of translation model depends on the genre register of the text (reference, marketing, educational), the communicative purpose and the expectations of the target audience.

The scientific novelty of the work lies in the systematic consideration of the translation of cultural heritage as a multi-level multimodal discourse within the framework of a cross-border digital route. The practical significance of the results is related to the possibility of their use for optimising translation strategies in the field of cultural diplomacy, tourism communication and international digital humanities projects.