Modulation in IT Advertising: Transforming Slang in English-to-Ukrainian Translation

Abstract

The study examines modulation as a translation strategy for rendering English slang in Ukrainian IT advertising, with particular attention to semantic, pragmatic, and stylistic shifts required to preserve the persuasive and expressive potential of the source text. The research aims to determine how modulation contributes to the functional adaptation of slang expressions whose direct equivalents may sound unnatural, obscure, or pragmatically ineffective in Ukrainian advertising discourse. The research material comprises English-language IT advertisements and their Ukrainian translations containing slang, colloquial expressions, metaphorical nominations, and other stylistically marked lexical units. The methodology combines comparative translation analysis, contextual and semantic analysis, and the classification of translation transformations. The findings demonstrate that modulation enables translators to restructure the conceptual perspective of the source expression while retaining its communicative intention and advertising function. The most recurrent shifts involve changes in perspective, semantic specification or generalisation, replacement of source-language imagery, and pragmatic adaptation to Ukrainian linguistic and cultural conventions. The analysis also shows that modulation frequently interacts with contextual substitution, explicitation, and stylistic adaptation rather than functioning as an isolated transformation. Particular attention is paid to cases in which literal translation would neutralise the expressive force of IT slang or produce unnatural target-language formulations. The study concludes that modulation constitutes an important mechanism for balancing semantic correspondence with pragmatic and stylistic adequacy in English–Ukrainian IT advertising translation. Its effective use allows translators to preserve the informal, innovative, and persuasive character of technology-related advertising while adapting culturally and linguistically marked slang to the expectations of Ukrainian target audiences.