The ukrainian eurolect: advancing translationCompetencies for eu acquis alignment

This study examines the influence of EU English on the style of legislative acts within Ukrainian institutions. Developing a Ukrainian Eurolect is essential for interoperability between Ukraine’s legal framework and the EU acquis, particularly during pre-accession negotiations and screening processes. A significant challenge is ensuring that translators adhere to the stylistic norms of EU legal texts and strengthening institutional capacities for smoother accession procedures. This research aims to raise awareness of Eurolect within the Ukrainian academic community, with a focus on enhancing the skills of institutional translators and linguists. Through a comprehensive literature review and fieldwork observation methods based on the Association4U Project (an EU-funded Project aimed at approximating the Ukrainian legislation with the EU acquis (Paliichuk, 2021), the study specifies the parameters of stylistic consistency in legal discourse translation. The findings draw attention to teaching the basic features of Eurolect: hybrid texts, template-like nature, reproducibility, and horizontality (BednárováGibová, 2016) in the translation of the EU legislation into Ukrainian, showing translation students the unique nature of Eurolect through the implementation of a range of the Project’s deliverables: 1) the 2021-2022 collaboration between the Association4U Project and Borys Grinchenko Kyiv Metropolitan University ensured that 13 lecturers and 20 B.A. undergraduates majoring in EN-UKR-EN translation pairs were trained in EU Law and Translation; 2) as a follow-up, the components of EU translation were incorporated into the course on Stylistics for translation students, with an EU Stylistics manual being drafted; 3) a chapter on Grammatical and Stylistic Issues in EU Legal Translation (Paliichuk et al., 2024) was published in close cooperation with European experts in the Manual on EU Legal Translation into Ukrainian. The Research–Teaching–Application conceptual framework in advancing translation competencies is valuable for meeting the institutional needs of Ukraine on its pathway to the EU.