This dissertation highlights the typical problems, issues, strategies and key means of transcoding symbols in poetic translation. Integrative approach and comprehensive practical methods enable interpreting symbol as a unit of culture that is perceived by its bearers on an unconscious level and is characterized by duality of semantics, polysemy, contextual determination, expressiveness that in case of relevant poetic transcoding provides an appropriate degree of adequacy/equivalence of the source text to the target text. Within a framework of the research the comparison of the British and American linguocultures, on the one hand, and East Slavic linguoculture, on the other, is being carried out through investigating the semantics of basic symbols of "space". This approach makes it possible to conclude that the objects and phenomena, which are realized in culturally determined texts through symbols, are characterized by the similarity of perception in the two linguocultures. Symbols of "space" groups may have their specific ethnocultural meanings which do not prevent from common comprehension. Individual style of each poet is marked by diversification in symbolic usage. It has been stated that a frequent appeal to the symbolism of the sky, door, birds and wind belongs to the typical features of poetry by E. Dickinson. The most common symbols in R. Frost's poetry are window, thrush, wood (edge of the woods/forest edge). H.W. Longfellow's poetry is specified by such symbols as heart, wind and rain, while bridge and rats distinguish T. S. Eliot's poetry. J. R. Kipling's poems are not marked by predominance of certain symbols that can be explained by infrequent usage of "space" symbolism. The research enables to draw a conclusion that E. Dickinson is prone to use the symbols that represent the "upper world" while T. S. Eliot tends to appeal to the symbolism of the chthonian "underworld". The comparative analysis of the British and American poetry of the XIX-XXth centuries and its Ukrainian and Russian translations demonstrates the following techniques in transcoding symbols of "space" groups: an adequate interpretation of symbols; non-identification of symbols with further neglecting their contextually relevant meanings; the level of a translator's interference which in most cases results in an inadequate decoding of symbols in the target text. Translation means for symbols' transcoding are used accordingly: equivalents (54%); contextual substitutions (17%); variant correspondences (11%); specification (8%); generalization (5%); holistic transformation (3%); antonymous translation (1%); modulation (1%). Although equivalents and correspondences are frequent, the usage of a correspondence does not always serve a sufficient criterion for achieving adequacy of the target text due to the perception-and-evaluation peculiarities of symbols in different linguocultures. All this leads to forthcoming of both different symbolic meanings and misinterpretation of the whole symbolic group. Key words: translation, symbol, adequacy, poetry, symbols of "space", transcoding symbols, equivalent, variant correspondence, contextual substitution.
