(no subject)

[drevo-obezyani.livejournal.com]

I recently received a letter from a Russian friend of mine, and several times in the letter she uses the phrase "защитить диссертацию" (example: Хочу в этом году защитить диссертацию.)
The way I translate this is "to defend a dissertation," but that doesn't make sense to me… am I translating this wrong? Or is it a correct translation but with a connotation I'm not familiar with?

Comments

[alamar.livejournal.com]

This effectively means receiving a Ph.D. degree.

[drevo-obezyani.livejournal.com]

Ah… that actually explains a lot of things I didn't quite get in the letter. Спасибо!

[natumbra.livejournal.com]

It means "to become a PhD" (if her dissertation - the work she wrote to get this degree (thesis, maybe) - is on humanities), I don't know an equivalent for natural science and other unfortunately. "Защитить" means to present it to her colleges, to answer their questions, they will discuss her work and decide is it ok or not.

[spiderhood.livejournal.com]

"Диссертация" means PhD thesis. If you defend it, you get a PhD degree.

[belacane.livejournal.com]

in english i suppose we'd say "defend a thesis"... a dissertation being the final project of (generally) original discovery or work that ones does when finishing their doctorate degree.

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

We say "defend a dissertation" in English, too. Usually a panel of professors reads your work and prepares questions which they then present to you, and you must defend your work to them orally. Successful completion of this earns the Ph.D. since dissertations are written primarily in Ph.D programs. In undergrad I defended my thesis and for my MA I had orals, which were subject matter examinations since we had no thesis requirements.

[geish-a.livejournal.com]

Dissertation defence (the final step to getting a graduate degree) is a standard American expression