Lexical and Stylistic Challenges in Translating Popular Science Psychological Discourse (Based on E. Bern’s Monograph “Games People Play“)

Abstract

The paper offers a comprehensive linguistic and translation analysis of the lexical and stylistic challenges encountered during the rendering of English popular science psychological discourse into Ukrainian. The research is based on Eric Berne’s seminal monograph “Games People Play” and its official Ukrainian translation.

The relevance of the study is driven by the growing demand in Ukrainian society for high-quality popular science literature in social psychology, alongside the necessity to theoretically conceptualise the cross-linguistic recoding of texts that merge academic and colloquial styles. Popular science psychological discourse is treated as a complex inter-stylistic phenomenon where the translator’s primary task is to maintain the source text's communicative and pragmatic function — ensuring that scientific frameworks remain highly accessible to a general audience while sustaining reader engagement.

The structural matrix of E. Berne’s monograph dictates a clear differentiation of translation approaches. The theoretical framework, written in an academic yet simplified style to achieve immediate pragmatic impact, heavily relies on mono- and bi-component terms. The study indicates that simple terms are most effectively rendered via equivalent translation and transliteration, whereas complex terms and compound concepts (such as Ego-State) are reproduced through calquing, transliteration, or a combination of both techniques.

In the practical section of the monograph, which focuses on the typology of social games, the discourse shifts towards a colloquial register. This section features emotionally expressive vocabulary, stylistic tropes (epithets, metaphors, metonymies, personifications), slang, and unique onomastic units. While calquing remains the predominant method for translating both conventional and authorial epithets or metaphors, contextual substitution and connotative variation are selectively deployed to improve readability. Metonymic game titles are mostly transferred using direct lexical equivalents.

Special emphasis is placed on the translation of onomastics — the proper names of psychological behavioural scripts («games»), structural roles, and interaction patterns. The analysis demonstrates that accurate pragmatic recoding of these creative capitalised terms requires a flexible application of diverse translation transformations: lexical transformations (concretisation, generalisation, contextual substitution, and descriptive (explicative) translation for non-equivalent culture-bound items); grammatical transformations (reordering to align word sequences with Ukrainian syntactic norms, grammatical tense shifts, and nominalisation (replacing English participles with Ukrainian nouns)); stylistic transformations (attenuating vulgar/slang terms to neutral equivalents, or conversely, intentionally downgrading neutral elements into colloquialisms to replicate the source text's signature humor, sarcasm, or irony).

The study concludes that a successful reception of popular science psychological texts within the Ukrainian linguaculture depends heavily on the harmonious balance between strict semantic equivalence and pragmatic adaptation. This approach preserves the implicit psychological connotations of the source text while adhering strictly to the norms of the target language.