The paper considers the issues of website text content translation taking into account the translators' background knowledge; special aspects of information security system, basic errors as well as factors, which contribute to the emergence of secondary texts in the course of localization. The relevance of our research is further proved by a large number of errors in website texts and lack of their final and distinct classification. The structure of Internet discourse is determined by the genre specificity and is characterized by heterogeneity, whereas the basic constitutive feature is the electronically mediated channel of communication, which gives rise to all others. Undoubtedly, the uniqueness of Internet discourse manifests itself not only in its structure and specific features, but also at various levels of the language system. The need for certain types of text content on a website is determined by the type of the website and its subject matter. A translator's practical understanding of translation quality is largely shaped via their understanding of translation errors. The examples of original versions and translations of specialized texts taken from the Cook County and the International Paralympic Committee oficial sites, general analysis of the specialized language of Internet sites, available classifications of translation errors and the experimental analysis assisted in considering translation errors, which led to the conclusion that translation errors appeared due to the translator's misunderstanding of specialized texts specifics, abbreviations, terms and diferences in English and Ukrainian grammar structures. The paper proves that this problem assumes particular significance when we refer to professional website translation, whose main purpose is to ensure efective and clear communication between, for instance, public authorities and local residents.
Development of modern society is characterized by such tendencies as globalization and informatization intensification, which leads to extension and simplification of international links and contacts. In the age of globalization it is essential for each country to be present on the Internet for maintaining national identity. Information security could be achieved by building an information security system (ISS), which is a comprehensive set of organizational measures, technical and technological means that prevent unauthorized access to information.
Total computerization of the world and the pursuit of new capabilities among developers, update and
launch of new software products, attempts to ensure maximum compatibility of software with other
digital tools and programs, other industrial and technical advance novelties and inventions introduce
new items to the market almost daily, which should be described and translated into as many languages
as possible to reach the end user and increase sales [
Since translation is constantly regarded as a means to provide communication between communicants
speaking diferent languages by translating a message of a source text into a target language, the
translation should reproduce the main communicative dominant of the original, provide the recipient
with detailed information about the sense of the source message [
In modern scientific discourse, the term ‘localization’ is interpreted in diferent ways. For example,
the Cambridge Dictionary defines localization as the process of adapting a product or service to the
requirements of a particular country or region [
Therefore, localization can be described as the process of adapting a product to the specifics of a particular market, taking into account linguistic, cultural, legal and other contextual factors. It adapts a product or content to a specific cultural context to better suit consumer preferences. Localization can completely change the tone of the text, specialised terms and idioms, with a view to cultural characteristics. Unlike translation, which remains close to the original, localization creates content that is understandable and relevant to a specific target audience. Localization is the best choice for markets with significant cultural diferences, while translation is efective where these diferences are minimal.
Prior to doing any localization one should determine who, what, to whom and why communicates as
well as how the message is transmitted. Answers to these questions are significant since they reveal
lexical, grammatical, stylistic, syntactic and semantic text characteristics [
The purpose of the given research is to analyze translation of the electronic articles text content,
typology of information security systems, basic errors and their causes in translations of website texts,
which will definitely facilitate finding ways of their elimination as the quality of any translation is
determined by detecting errors or absence of specific shortcomings in localization. It is generally
believed that qualitative translation is such a translation that does not contain serious shortcomings
(errors). Translator’s practical perception of the translation quality is mainly built via understanding
errors in translation [
We live in the age of digital technologies development. Worldwide Internet has never been so popular in
its entire history. The comprehensive automation of global systems and the pursuit of new capabilities
among developers are driving the continual update and introduction of innovative digital applications.
Simultaneously, eforts are being made to enhance software compatibility with a broad array of other
digital tools, and language plays a crucial role in this context. This is complemented by ongoing industrial
and technological advancements, alongside the frequent launch of new inventions and innovations,
with new market items emerging almost daily [
In light of the rapid development of computer technologies, identification and study of the Internetdiscourse and emergence of a new linguistic research line – Internet-linguistics – are becoming relevant in the field of the humanities. Thus, there are fundamental studies devoted to the particular genres of the Internet-discourse in modern linguistic research: forums (N.H. Lukashenko), computer conferences (O.M. Halychkina), Internet-news (N.V. Kolomiiets’), blogs (T.M. Hermashova, K.V. Lazutkina, S.V. Zaborovs’ka). Linguocultural (O.V. Lutovynova) and gender features (A.N. Haifullina, O.I. Horoshko, L.F. Kompantseva) of the Internet-discourse are being studied. Considerable attention is paid to the study of the Internet discourse from the viewpoint of cognitive translation, comparative and cognitivepragmatic approaches (V.H. Zhurs’ka, L.L. Slavova, L.F. Kompantseva) and quality assessment of machine translation (A.V. Biriukov).
Thus, we may argue that philological study at the beginning of the 21st century formulated corresponding theoretical foundations and accumulated empirical material to study virtual communication originating on the Internet. Among the numerous challenges associated with Internet discourse, particular scholarly attention should be directed toward the attributes of website textual content and the recurrent errors observed in the translation of English-language materials into Ukrainian. Defining the criteria for quality assessment of translated texts of diferent styles and thematic scope is an urgent challenge of modern linguistics, which needs further profound reserach. These factors determine the relevance of the given study.
Problematics of the study has determined its methodology. Multidimensional nature of the work stipulated holistic character of the research methodology. The contrastive translation method of analysis of source texts and their translation by appealing to elements of linguopragmatic analysis constitute the methodological basis of the research. The definitive method was used in the work with the view to form the theoretical basis of the research, namely to substantiate key concepts of the research; the general scientific methods of information analysis and synthesis were involved to clarify the principles of ISS features classification; the method of quantitative analysis – to provide frequency quantitative indicators of the use of Internet-communication basic concepts; the linguistic-descriptive method – to reveal and substantiate formal-structural and language features of the studied texts; the method of comparative analysis of source (original) and target (translated) texts in the practical part of the study; the methods of inductive and deductive analysis were used to define the search direction from accumulation of the text material to systematization, as well as to formulate theoretical generalizations and conclusions.
From the perspective of many researchers, the language of the Internet can be attributed to a special type due to its functional dynamism, and a series of new tendencies in communicative-pragmatic organization. From the linguistic standpoint, Internet is special communicative environment. The emergence of a new phenomenon is determined by its paradigm formation. And it is the cognitivepragmatic factor that is a theoretical and factual basis for the norm and paradigm of the network language formation.
Internet-discourse as a form of communication is characterized by the features distinguishing it from other types of discourse. We attribute a communication channel, a communicative goal, a type of communicant, chronotope, genre organization of discourse, discourse worldview and language incorporation to such constitutive features. The search, transfer, discussion and storage of information can be also attributed to the communicative goals.
It should be noted that the use of data exchange systems is essential for further presence in the
digital world. The speed of making the right decision is a key to successful task performance. Such
technologies allow improving working eficiency and saving time in everyday activity. Vast majority of
all the information loss cases occur because of user errors. This is a common situation for companies
working on-line with ignorant users who do not comply with basic cybersecurity and cyber hygiene
measures. The attacker’s actions should be taken into consideration while building information security
systems as they perpetrate threat by organizing attacks: simple (single-stage) or complex consisting
of a set of interconnected stages. A complex attack can be divided into three stages: surveillance,
penetration (attack) and concealment of attack traces [
The development of ISS entails decision-making under conditions of uncertainty, taking into account
the conflicting interactions among system agents, available information on system states, potential
strategies, and the expected outcomes or payofs associated with those choices. It is reasonable to
conduct optimizing and modeling of the described processes by means of mathematical tools of game
theory. Game theory, for the aforecited tasks, has found broad practical application in various spheres
of national economy including economy, information technologies, industry and military afairs [
When considering the process of digital communication in the context of cybersecurity, Kevin Foltz
highlights three key principles: defining a finite number of authorised participants of the process,
securing the communication channel, and reducing the number of external agents who are not directly
involved in the communication but only facilitate it [
The number of sites on the Internet is ‘of the scale’. Therefore, each site is constantly under conditions
of fierce competition to head the list of search results and capture attention of target visitors. A site, to
become a winner in this fight, needs to have not only an appealing design and a number of links from
various sources, but also a unique content of high quality that will provoke interest among visitors
and provide them with all necessary information. In an efort to increase website trafic, expand their
reach, and achieve commercial success, digital media, large businesses, and others often resort to
generating content using artificial intelligence tools. Deepfake technology, which allows anyone to
create high-quality audio, video or text information that presents what never actually happened in the
most realistic way possible, opens up new opportunities for the film industry, advertising, education,
medicine, entertainment and more. At the same time, it poses one of the greatest cyber threats of our
time, both for ordinary users and for national security, as it is dificult to distinguish artificial data from
authentic data without special tools [
A website is a group of digital pages hosted under a single domain name on the Internet, linked by a
common theme and a single navigation structure. The content and visualisation of each page is created
using the appropriate data markup language (HTML, PHP), style settings (CSS) and scripts (JavaScript).
The content of a website can contain information in various formats: text, graphics and multimedia
(audio, video, animation, etc.). The multilingual nature of the Internet drives the rapid translation of
content to reach a broader global audience as eficiently as possible. Therefore, machine translation
systems are increasingly being used in combination with artificial intelligence technologies to improve
the eficiency of the translation process and reduce the costs associated with its various stages [
Translation is a multifaceted phenomenon of diferent kinds and implies work with texts of various
styles and genres. The Ukrainian Association of Translators and Interpreters by developing a
“Professional Standard: Translator” and “Professional Standard: Interpreter” of 2025 established parameters of
written translation quality that define translation as qualitative if: (1) translation meets the requirements
of a customer and corresponds to the source text in terms of the content, sense and design; (2) translation
is free of grammar, spelling and punctuation errors; (3) terminology of translation complies with the
specialized subject area of the source text; (4) translation maintains the uniformity of terms, names,
legends, abbreviations and symbols [
There are several classifications of translation errors (for instance, classifications of K. Nord, A.V. Shevnina, D.M. Buzadzhi). H.. Khalymonyk in the article “On the Problem of Typology of Translation Errors” ofers a classification of translation mistakes, which illustrates errors in the most accurate and practical way, we believe, that are typical for translation of the sport and taxation policy specialized texts, in particular, their oficial version that is an object of our analysis. Thus, the scholar provides the following classification of errors in the translated text:
1. Content errors (distortion of information, incomplete or redundant translation, untranslated snippets, loss of narration succession).
2. Terminological errors (violation of terminology uniformity, inconsistency of terms to glossary, dictionaries, definite industry standards).
3. Language errors (grammatical, lexical, spelling, punctuation).
4. Stylistic errors (style inconsistency of the chosen language means, text incoherence, disagreement of the sentence structure, incompliance of fixed expressions with the particular genre).
5. ulture specific errors (irrelevant references to cultural sites of the language of translation, erroneous
translation of ethno-specific concepts, citations, allusions etc.) [
Translation typology, developed by H.. Khalymonyk is, in our opinion, the most convenient to perform our tasks, namely to analyze errors in specialized Internet-texts, in particular, IPC Swimming Rules and Regulations (website of the International Paralympic Committee) and the regional public information program on the governmental tax policy indicated on the oficial website of Cook County (Illinois, the USA). The choice of texts is explained by our access to bilingual texts, whose translation was done not by specialists of the National Paralympic Committee of Ukraine but by the translators of the DEIR Translation Agency (Dnipro city, Ukraine). The choice of the regional public information program on the Cook County governmental tax policy is inspired by the important step for all Ukrainians, in particular, the decision of the Cook County self-administration to provide translation of all tax files into Ukrainian. It is widely known that Cook County (Illinois) is the 16th largest self-administration in the world. The population of this county is over 5 mln people that includes Chicago city with its suburbs. Ukrainian was chosen among 22 most widely used languages in this region. According to the ofice representatives, there have been around 27,000 information downloads in Ukrainian on their website since 2006. Thus, they decided to use Ukrainian on a wider scale. Maria Pappas, Cook County Treasurer claimed that her institution is perhaps the only US state resource providing services in Ukrainian.
Such a choice was made for ‘testing integrity’, since we consider necessary to analyze translations of ‘the English language Internet’ segments taking into consideration the most popular websites among Ukrainian audience (without reference to .ua domain), in accordance with the statistics of the Language Policy Portal. This will facilitate in revealing learning skills which translators of Internet-space texts have/do not have to possess. The results of the analysis are presented in Figure 1.
Content errors that we, following H.O. Khalymonyk, consider the most essential leading to
information distortion of the source content are subdivided into two types – literal and free adaptation
[
To avoid errors while localizing professional texts first of all, it is necessary to determine what function the translated text performs. Certainly, pure text types are a rare occasion. For instance, informative texts could have appellative or expressive means with one dominant though. With a view to the text function, one can understand the potential range of addressees, who this text will appeal to – scientists, oficials, ordinary citizens, sportsmen, fans etc.
The text function and the range of addressees (that is pragmatics, in efect) determine the structure, semantics, lexis, grammar, style of the translated text and also corresponding translation strategies accordingly.
It is this comprehensive approach that enables to eliminate shortcomings of translation research
based on statistics. For instance, a term athlete [
It is also worth noting that in today’s environment, translators must not only possess a high level of translation skills, but also be knowledgeable in technology. This includes the ability to efectively use specialised software, in particular localization tools, which have become an integral part of professional activity. Such tools include CAT (Computer-Assisted Translation) tools, machine translation (MT) systems, and the latest artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, such as large language models (LLM) like ChatGPT or DeepL Write.
Machine translation is a translation process based on the use of machine algorithms to find fixed
correspondences between lexical units and grammatical structures of diferent languages characteristic
of a particular type of text [
The emergence of ChatGPT and numerous other AI translation tools has sparked debate about their ability to replace neural machine translation (NMT) due to their high translation quality.
However, a 2023 study by CSA Research showed that ChatGPT has limitations for corporate
translation. Among the most notable issues one can mention limited language support. Models like ChatGPT,
GPT-4, and GPT-4o have been hesitant to ofer comprehensive lists of translatable languages, and testing
has revealed results that vary from highly accurate translations to completely nonsensical outputs. For
example, a passage from the Bible about spiritual gifts (chosen because of the religious nature of most
online content in the relevant language) was translated as a set of winter fishing techniques [
Thus, the issue of the causes of translation errors and their typology is still open and needs to be discussed in the field of Translation Studies. Indeed, the moment when the translated text causes problems in perceiving and understanding could end in failure for the translator. Even an experienced professional translator can make minor errors though. Therefore, everyone should remember the main causes of translation errors to avoid such problems. These translation errors can be as follows: 1) simple grammatical, lexical, phonetic etc. errors depending on the level of translator’s proficiency in the source and target languages. The entire translation may be sometimes ruined by the wrong use of synonymic rows; 2) ignorance of cultural diferences of the source and target languages.
Hence, a good command of vocabulary of the source and target languages is not suficient for adequate translation. Additionally, we have to know usual, structural and linguocultural features of both languages, be capable of using localization tools efectively, taking genre, style, a broad context and cultorological constituents of a text into consideration. Only in this case translation will be equivalent, adequate, and therefore, competent.
The role of background knowledge as an important factor of understanding a text on the one hand, and
culture of a people, on the other – is understudied. There are various definitions of the ‘background
knowledge’ concept, but in this research we are based on the definition given in the Lingvistychna
Entsyklopediya edited by O.O. Selivanova as bilateral understanding of culture-bound terms by the
speaker and listener, which is the basis of communication [
Obviously, background knowledge is a comprehensive multi-level system that has a definite structure and specific content. A translator ought to be aware of a general background knowledge structure as a system comprising the semantic composition of particular linguistic culture background knowledge. First of all, it is needed for an adequate choice of translation techniques while rendering background information from the source into the target language.
Background knowledge explication is needed to fill information gaps about life activity of the source
text language group, the semantic lacunae which translation recipients can have [
According to the results of Cook County and the Paralympic Committee websites research, we can claim that most of the background knowledge explicit elements have been added to the specialized sport texts. Since the audience of these texts is extremely broad, the translator of such texts ought to be oriented at an ‘average recipient’ instead of aiming at a specialist in the field of sport. Explication elements on the Cook County oficial site are realized at the level of translating terms and abbreviations.
Diferences in correlation of explicitness and implicitness of various languages determine localization changes of not only particular words, but also structures of a higher level, namely, individual sentences.
We have already received a confirmation of an idea that the professional text content is suficient to
reveal the meaning of a term, but it is not suficient to verbalize the term in translation appropriately.
Thus, swimming suit [
Hence, when deciding on the need for background knowledge explication in one form or another,
a translator ought to account for: information accessibility and intelligibility for average recipients
of diferent cultures; relevance of information that is diachronic snapshot of interacting cultures;
relevance of information to universal or specific knowledge of various categories; and also associative
and connotative relations arising when using definite background information [
Localization as a tool of interlingual and intercultural communication provides culture adaptation of those peoples whose languages interact by means of proper background knowledge transfer. Formerly literature and folklore were the main sources of nationally-bound background knowledge of a particular culture. In recent decades Internet space has become the leading ‘provider’ of nationally-bound background knowledge. That is, the general globalization tendency turns professional texts, not to mention international, into an object of global background information by virtue of electronic mass media. Localization adapts a product or content to a specific cultural context to better suit consumer preferences. Localization, as we mentioned above, can completely change the tone of a text, specialised terms and idioms, taking into account cultural characteristics. Unlike translation, which remains close to the original, it creates content that is understandable and relevant to a specific target audience.
Localization prioritises the culturally specific experience of the consumer over the literal meaning of
words. Localised content depends on the desires, expectations and cultural preferences of the target
market and therefore has a significant impact on the perception of the same source content in diferent
markets. Such localised content for diferent audiences can vary significantly depending on cultural
characteristics, sometimes appearing completely unrelated [
Among the reasons explaining the need for use of explication in translation of background knowledge verbal representation we can distinguish objective and subjective reasons: on the one hand, the general tendency to contract English compared to expansion tendency in Ukrainian, on the other hand, the translator’s assumption about diference between necessary background knowledge of anticipated recipients of the source and target texts.
The most illustrative example of translation expansion when rendering texts on sport and tax policy
into Ukrainian could be, for objective reasons, the translation of abbreviations and terms, for instance:
DRM (Delegation Registration Meeting) [
Since the tax policy program contained mainly grammatical errors, we propose to outline three groups of errors caused by inadequate background knowledge of the translator on the sport texts material:
1. The translator does not identify background knowledge in the text: “2.4.2.3 Multiple class event,
multiple MQS, multiple medal events” [
2. The translator demonstrated background knowledge, but violated the norms of the target language
in verbal representation: “A medical withdrawal shall be submitted to the Control Room Supervisor on
the IPC Swimming oficial form certified by the team physician or competition medical oficer” [
3. The translator distinguished background knowledge but rendered only its denotative meaning,
that was insuficient: “Matthew Cowdrey, Australia’s most successful Paralympian of all-time, and his
teammate Jacqueline Freney, a winner of eight London 2012 gold medals, are two of the headline names
set for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games para-swimming competition which gets underway on
Thursday 24 July” [
As the results of this research show, the number of translation errors caused by extralinguistic features of specialized sport texts is not large, but such errors are the most dangerous since they lead to source text information loss and content distortion.
Overall, we can argue that background knowledge is one of key success factors of intercultural, international and interlingual communication. Representation and reproduction of background knowledge in specialized website texts has a number of features that should be kept in mind by the translator. The underdeveloped individual cognitive system of the translator, absence or lack of their background knowledge and insuficient practical experience can cause translation errors and communication failure.
Website localization encompasses several levels of adaptation: linguistic, functional, cultural, technical, and legal. Key features include ensuring the accessibility and comprehensibility of content, adapting to cultural diferences (linguistic, visual, structural), and internationalising technical elements such as date format, currency, etc. Modern automated tools, in particular CAT systems, machine translation and artificial intelligence, play a significant role. However, despite the high level of automation, high-quality localization requires the involvement of a qualified specialist to ensure accuracy, stylistic consistency and consideration of cultural realia.
Adequacy of localizing specialized website texts is achieved by means of the following competencies of translators: linguistic and cultural competence in the source and target languages, stylistic competence, as well as digital literacy. We outline translation competence as translator’s knowledge of translation theory basic principles and features of professional translation, ability to use translation equivalents, translation transformations, ways of translating various lingual and speech phenomena. The conducted analysis of translation errors made it possible to speak about lacking sociocultural, linguistic and information-technological competencies and occasionally attentiveness of the translator that can lead to inaccuracy, content nonconformity and information distortion when translating ‘virtual texts’, which can negatively afect an agreement, organization, firm or government institution. This stresses the importance of the complex approach to localizing, which includes linguistic, functional, pragmatic, and digital components.
The authors have not employed any Generative AI tools.