Websites of Russian Federal Universities in English: Translation or Internationalization?

This research is examines the English versions of the websites of Russian Federal universities and the process of their transformation from the original Russian versions. This topic is relevant, because in today's world there is an increasing need to overcome cultural and language barriers. Websites now serve many purposes in connection with the development of information and communication technologies. The ability to promote and sell services and products via the Internet, developing international relations, the development of information and communication technologies – all this leads to the fact that the audience is becoming international, so the topic of this work is particularly relevant. The purpose of this work is to determine the type of adaptation of the original Russian-language versions of the websites of Russian Federal universities, to identify emerging problems and ways to solve them. Subject of research – translation problems that arise when creating an English version of the website, ways to solve them. The study showed that the following components of University websites are particularly complex: website headings, names of positions and titles of the teaching staff, names of academic departments. The research uses the following methods: the method of comparative analysis, the method of comparative analysis, the method of dictionary definitions, the method of semantic analysis and the cultural method. The results show that in process of adapting the original Russian versions of University websites should be used the internalization and this process is not properly performed. The criterion for the effectiveness of the website is how useful and relevant the information is for foreign students, and not how accurately the information of the original site is transferred into English.