Mediation in Russia: Coming to Terms with Mediation Terminology

Abstract

Mediation was introduced in Russia in 2010 but its implementation is still hampered by controversies over the use of mediation terminology (MT) borrowed from English. This study presents the results of a joint research initiated by a group of linguists and specialists developing legal standards for mediation in Russia to bring into the foreground the study of mediation terminology and to suggest directions for its systematization. The research uses structural and semantic analysis building a model of source language terminology (English) based on the terminological evidence of 2263 units to elaborate standards which could be applied to Russian MT. Besides, the results of the Nuclear-Peripheral analysis (that ensures translation equivalence by preserving nuclear area of semantics in both languages) laid the basis for MT Translation Project that suggested strategies for translating the collected terms into Russian.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6p302