International Journal of Philology

Editing official business style texts: Overcoming the consequences of Russian-Ukrainian bilingualism

Tetiana Naumova, Oksana Shchepka
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Abstract

The purpose of the study was to identify the role of editing official business style texts by linguists in overcoming the consequences of Russian-Ukrainian bilingualism. The methodology included methods for analysing official business texts of different periods using content analysis, expert evaluation, and comparison methods. Special attention was paid to identifying errors caused by bilingualism and establishing changes in texts before and after 2014. The results of the study showed that the impact of bilingualism on official business texts is substantial, especially in documents created before 2014. Errors related to calque in Russian constructions, incorrect use of case forms, and lexical borrowings reduce the quality of documents and violate language norms. After 2014, the number of such errors decreased due to the active introduction of Ukrainian-language standards in official records, which allowed improving the grammatical and stylistic accuracy of texts. Overcoming bilingualism is a necessary task in the context of forming a linguistic identity since it can lead to inconsistencies in official documents, which reduces their legal force and clarity. Preserving linguistic identity through the correct use of the Ukrainian language in an official business style is important for the formation of national identity and improving communication in the legal and administrative spheres. In the course of the study, linguists determined that most errors in official business texts were caused by the influence of bilingualism, in particular, calque, the use of improper vocabulary, and the violation of syntactic norms. Editing texts allowed increasing their compliance with Ukrainian language standards, eliminating lexical borrowings, and improving stylistic clarity. The practical importance of this paper is to improve the quality of the language of documents, which affects the effectiveness of communication in public and private institutions, contributes to the implementation of language identity, and ensures legal accuracy

Keywords

speech interference; surzhyk; code mixing; stylistic consistency; terminological accuracy

Suggested citation
Naumova, T., & Shchepka, O. (2024). Editing official business style texts: Overcoming the consequences of Russian-Ukrainian bilingualism. International Journal of Philology, 15(4), 89-103. https://doi.org/10.31548/philolog/4.2024.89
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