Veiksmažodžio skatinti vartosena verstiniuose Europos Sąjungos dokumentuose
The usage of the verb skatinti in translations of European Union documents

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the usage of verb skatinti (‘to encourage, to promote’) in administrative language as it could be viewed in the results of scientific research “Europos Sąjungos dokumentų kalba” (“The language of European Union documents”) carried out in 2010-2012 and financed by the State commission of the Lithuanian language. During this research documents from the database of European Union legislation EUR-Lex were analysed.At the beginning it was assumed that the verb skatinti is quite frequent because of automatic substitution of international words, for instance stimuliuoti, aktyvinti with a Lithuanian word. Therefore during the research both Lithuanian and English texts were analysed. The results of this research did not confirm the initial idea.All word combinations with the verb skatinti can be divided in two groups: 1) combinations with infinitives; 2) combinations with nouns.Combinations with infinitives, for instance skatinti priimti tinkamą sprendimą (‘to promote an appropriate decision’), naudotis piliečio teisėmis (‘to encourage usage of citizen’s rights’) and the like are correct, but this cannot be said about combinations with nouns. Such combinations are plentiful in EU documents, but there are doubts if they meet the requirements of codified norms. It is not easy to distinguish which case of usage is clearly incorrect and which can be tolerated. The usage frequently balances on the edge of the norm. Word combinations skatintigalimybes (‘to promote opportunities’), skatinti potencialą (‘to promote the potential’), skatinti ekonomiką (‘to boost the economy’) can be treated as correct, but the priority (at least in administrative style) should be given to combinations didinti galimybes (‘to increase opportunities’), stiprinti potencialą (‘to strengthen the potential’), plėtoti ekonomiką (‘to develop the economy’) and combinations with distorted meaning such as skatinti būdus (‘to promote ways’), skatinti strategiją (‘to promote strategies’), skatinti prieigą (‘to encourage the access’), skatinti aukštąjį mokslą (‘to promote higher education’) should not be tolerated at all.

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