Translatological features of Sovietisms in computer gaming discourse

The subject of the study is the specificity of the transmission of Sovietisms into English and German in the contemporary computer gaming discourse. Sovietisms are understood as linguistic units that emerged during the existence of the USSR (1922–1991) and are an integral part of Soviet culture. The era of the Soviet Union is marked by significant events for all humanity, such as the first human spaceflight, gigantic construction projects, and more. Interest in the USSR has not diminished to this day, as evidenced by works of modern literary prose and cinema, as well as the computer games that are particularly popular among the youth. The latter are of special interest because they are released simultaneously in several languages, and during their localization, translators inevitably face the problem of conveying Sovietisms into one language or another. The study was conducted using the material from the popular computer game "Atomic Heart" by "Mundfish," in which Sovietisms were identified in the original version in Russian through a complete sampling method, context analysis of the game's localizations for English- and German-speaking audiences was performed, and various ways of conveying the identified Sovietisms into the respective languages were compared. The results allowed the authors to conclude that Sovietisms, as indicators of the historical and cultural realities of the Soviet era, have not lost their relevance in contemporary linguistic studies, as they enable the analysis of the mechanisms for preserving nationally specific vocabulary in the context of globalization, as well as the pragmatic and semantic shifts in its usage. As a special category of realities in the Russian language, rich with social and ideological subtext, Sovietisms find their "second birth" in modern discourses, including computer gaming discourse. In the virtual worlds of computer games, Sovietisms participate in constructing stereotypical narratives and mythologizing the Soviet past. To successfully address the issue of translating Sovietisms into foreign languages, it is important to understand the cultural and historical connotations of the Soviet period and strive to convey, through the means of translation, the emotional or evaluative meanings ingrained in the linguistic consciousness of native Russian speakers, which were formed by the specific historical experience and culture of the Soviet era.