Issues on Business Vocabulary Acquisition by Russian Tertiary ESP Students

Abstract

The present paper examines key issues regarding the differences in structural and semantic characteristics of economic term systems in Business English and Russian, which pose major translation challenges and cause problems in intercultural professional communication. Difficulties in vocabulary acquisition caused by non-equivalence in Russian and English business lexis are analyzed. The article attempts to describe some common types of non-equivalence caused by lacunas, non-equivalent words and culture-specific words in Business English. As the infusion of English vocabulary into contemporary Russian is rapid and widespread, many recent borrowings have several variants of spelling, being either exact transliteration or having modified spelling assimilated to the Russian language patterns. The article emphasizes the importance of differentiated approach to the identification, selection and arrangement of the lexical material. Contrastive sociolinguistic research aimed at revealing some common and distinguishing features in the terminological competence of the Russian and English-speaking business communication participants is described. The implications of business vocabulary acquisition for the formation of intercultural professional communicative competence of Russian ESP economics students are highlighted.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s5p242