Ecology of translation: contemporary trends and approaches

The article deals with the principles and approaches of translation ecology as an independent developing area of research. Using the achievements of Russian researchers in the sphere of synchronous dynamics of language, synergetic linguistics, ecolinguistics, as well as the author's theory of harmonization of translation space we have formulated the object, subject, and purpose of translation ecology. The authors of the article rely on the tenets of the Linguistic Ecology, according to which language is presented as an ecosystem, therefore, translation can be considered as a process of interaction of at least two ecosystems: the source language and the target language, which required an extended interpretation of the model space translation by introduction of a special natural and biological field. The conception of translation space has received expanded interpretation: the additional natural and biological field which produces ecological meaning was introduced. The literary Russian text (the fragment of the novel of the contemporary Russian writer A. Ivanov “The geographer has drunk his globe”) and its professional French translation were used as the data for the analysis. The analysis is accompanied by linguistic and translation comments that illustrate some of the provisions of translation ecology. The article proves that the dynamics of ecological senses in the natural biological field can be a measure of the degree of translation harmony.