Russian Translation Studies: To Be or Not to Be as an Academic Science?

The paper deals with the study of the problems of Russian translation studies formation as an academic science in its theoretical and applied forms. The formation and development history of the famous linguistic translation theory (LTT), which up to the present day has been an officially recognized institutional discipline for scientific and educational activities in the Russian Federation, is traced. In today’s Russian scientific community, along with LTT, new transdisciplinary scientific, theoretical and methodological types of research in the field of translation theory and practice are actively developing. At the current historical stage of development, translation studies is interpreted as a social and humanitarian transdisciplinary science at the intersection of linguistics, cultural studies, communication theory, comparative literature, semiotics, sociology, history, as well as philosophy, hermeneutics, ethnopsycholinguistics and cognitive science, information theory and other related academic sciences and phenomena like “localization” within the framework of algo-cognitive culture. Three groups of paradigms operating in modern Russian translation theory and methodology have been identified: (a) linguistic profile, (b) cognitive profile, (c) discursive profile. Groups “b” and “c” can form the basis for the academic translation paradigm. Three types of discourses are introduced into scientific circulation. 1. Translation studies discourse, associated with academic discourse in its theoretical and didactic varieties. 2. Translation discourse which is theoretically and practically based on the first one and serves the translator as their theoretical and practical basis for generating the third type, viz. translated discourse. The last one is a resultant product addressed to the recipients’ reflection sphere. As a result, the author’s “discursive-game cognitive-hermeneutic paradigm” has been proposed as a preliminary model of the desired “academic-type translation studies paradigm”.