Translating acronyms of “Designated Survivor” into Romanian

Abstract

The present article is based on research focusing on acronyms, including their forms, spelling and punctuation in English, also discussing various, often contradictory, or ambiguous definitions for so-called “minor” word-formation options. We try to argue for a more lenient definition of abbreviations, acronyms, initialisms and alphabetisms, directing our attention towards certain technical features of acronyms (uppercase letters, with or without periods). The research database is taken from a popular TV series, “Designated Survivor”, resulting in 276 unique acronyms, totaling 1,198 occurrences, which includes acronyms of 2 to 9 letters combined with numbers and specific symbols (hyphens and ampersand), and excludes common ones (DJ, TV) and Roman numbers (II, III, XIII). The most frequent English acronyms with at least 5 occurrences are considered (856), out of which the most popular 15 ones (a total of 664) are examined together with all their Romanian renditions. The conclusion section summarizes the findings, considering the aspect of “slippery” quality, yet interpreting the results from the perspective of overall consistency.