XVII Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2025

Abbreviated lexical units are widely used in the English staff terminology. Their number is large, they make up a significant part of the vocabulary, and they are used both in the oral and in the written language. The presence of shortenings in the language is explained by the general tendency to saving means of expression, to speech compression. Shortenings are formed due to the possibility and necessity of transmitting information contained in multicomponent terminological combinations in one compact lexical unit, which provides compressing the volume of transmitted information. 

Shortening is a type of morphological word formation, in which some part of the sound composition in the original word is omitted.

The examples of English staff shortenings such as clipped words, abbreviations, and acronyms are given in the article and their quantitative analysis is presented. The source of the examples is the US Field Manual 101-5 “Headquarters Organization and Operations”.

Clipped words are formed by dropping one or more syllables from a longer word or phrase with no change in meaning.

During the analysis of military staff terminology 50 clipped words were identified.

1. Apheresis (the loss or omission of a sound or syllable from the beginning of a word) 1 (2%): defense – fence.

2. Syncope (a contraction within a word through the loss of a vowel sound or letter) 23 (46%): bn – battalion (батальон), bde – brigade (бригада).

3. Apocope (the loss of one or more sounds or letters at the end of a word) 26 (52%): app – appendix, cir – circular, telecom cir – telecommunication circular, memo – memorandums, para – paragraph.

L.L. Nelyubin notes that clipped words can be used in sentences in various syntactic functions, taking the appropriate morphological features. They take the plural ending (Bns), the form of the possessive case (Co’s), the forms of the present and past tense (atks, atked), are used with the article (the Cdr) [4].

Abbreviations are divided into letter abbreviations and acronyms. Letter abbreviations are formed from the initial letters of significant words of a phrase and are pronounced by their alphabetical name. For example, SJA [ɛs dʒeɪ eɪ] (Staff Judge Advocate), MFR [ɛm ɛf ɑr] (Memorandum for Record).

Acronyms are pronounced and realized in speech in accordance with the pronunciation norm adopted for ordinary words: COCOM [kokom] – Combatant Command.

In linguistics various approaches to defining abbreviations are noted. V.V. Borisov defines abbreviation as a letter or a short combination of letters that have an alphabetical similarity to the original word or expression and are used instead of this word or expression for brevity [1]. O.D. Meshkov supposes that when an abbreviation is formed, the word becomes shorter compared to its prototypes [3]. K.A. Ganshina holds the opinion that initially an abbreviation does not increase or replenish the dictionary, but simply reduces the original linguistic unit, at the same time, without denying the possibility of transiting the abbreviation into the sphere of the ordinary use and considering that the abbreviation can become an independent word in the course of linguistic development [2].

With all the variety of definitions to abbreviations it is necessary to take into consideration that their main feature is their close connection with the original unit (word or phrase).

It should be noted that the use of abbreviations in the military sphere is limited to a certain inventory list. It’s not recommended to use abbreviations that differ from the officially accepted and legalized abbreviations in the uniform instructions and manuals for all types of the US Armed Forces [4].

In the linguistic literature abbreviations are divided into one-, two-, three-, four- and five-component, depending on the number of their constituent elements. For example, one-component: ID (identify); two-component: DS (Direct Support), three-component EAC (Echelons above Corps), four-component (MGRC – Military Grid Reference System): five-component SOCCE (Special Operations Command and Control Element).

In the process of work with the English staff terms 105 abbreviations were recognized, and the following ways of their formation were determined.

1. Combining the initial letters of constituent words 94 (89%): OPT (Operational Planning Team), JTF (Joint Task Force).

2. Combining the initial letter of a word-building prefix with the first letter of a word 5 (5%): CI – counterintelligence.

3. Combining the initial letters of constituent parts of a compound word 3 (3%): HQ – Headquarters.

4. Combining a clipped word formed by omitting the middle of a word with the first letter of the following word 3 (3%): LNO – LiaisonOfficer.

In the process of work with the English staff literature 65 acronyms were considered, there are the following ways of their formation.

1. Combining the initial letters of words with the initial syllable of a word 19 (35%): SOCOM – Special Operations Command.

2. Combining the initial syllables of each constituent word 15 (27%): TACON (Tactical Control), OPCON (Operation Control), OPSEC (Operations Security).

3. Combining the initial letters of constituent words 14 (25%): EEFI (Essential Elements of Friendly Information), FFIR (Friendly Force Information Requirements).

4. Combining the initial syllable of a word with the following word 3 (5%): CONPLAN (Concept Plan).

5. Combining the initial letter of a word with the following word 2 (4%): OPLAN (Operation Plan).

6. Combining the initial syllable of the first word with a clipped word formed by omitting the middle of a word 2 (4%): SUPPT – Supply Point.

The quantitative analysis of clipped words, acronyms, and abbreviations is given in table 1.

Table 1 – The quantitative analysis of shortenings

The translation of abbreviations into the Russian language can be carried out in the following ways: 1) full borrowing of the abbreviation in Latin letters; 2) transliteration; 3) transcription; 4) translation of the full term underlying the abbreviation; 5) translation of the full term underlying the abbreviation and creation of a Russian abbreviation.

The composition of the military staff terms of modern English is characterized by a variety of shortenings used to compress the amount of information with preserving the overall semantic integrity and significance. Abbreviations differ in the number of components depending on the number of constituent words. Letter abbreviations are the most commonly used type of English-language staff abbreviations. The most common way to form them is to combine the first letters of words. In terms of the frequency of use they are followed by acronyms. They are pronounced like ordinary words, and they are mostly formed by combining the first letters of words with the initial syllable of a word, the first syllables of constituent words, and the first letters of constituent words. The least numerous group of shortenings is clipped words. In the examples considered, omitting the end of a word is the most common.

References

1. Borisov V.V. Abbreviations and acronyms. Military and scientific-technical abbreviations in foreign languages. Moscow: Voenizdat, 1972. – 319 p.

2. Ganshina K.A., Peterson M.N. The Modern French language, Moscow: Sovetskaya Nauka, 1964. 208.

3. Meshkov O.D. Word formation of the modern English language. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniya, 1976. 304 p.

4. Nelyubin L.L. Translation of the US Army combat documents. Moscow: Voenizdat, 1989. 270 p.

5. Staff Organization and operations, 31 May 1997. – 267 pp.