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The purpose of this study is to identify the current status of Korea’s public sector translation and to discuss the issues and the solutions pertaining to the topic. To this end, a wide array of previous studies related to the topic were analyzed longitudinally and cross-sectionally vis à vis one another. In addition, the latest English websites of 17 government ministries were reviewed. The analyses showed that the overall quality of public sector translation has improved significantly over the past fifteen years. Meaning and grammar related errors which characterized the public sector translation two decades ago were reduced sharply. However, other issues including inconsistencies and low acceptability in the target languages were identified as emerging issues in today’s public sector translation. A critical review of English websites of government ministries showed that the websites exhibited fairly high translation quality but also that they were not free from various types of errors. Analyses of the translation handling process of a number of public institutions showed lack of 1) common standards across institutions for selecting the translators, 2) evaluation and review process for the finished translation work, and 3) database for the translated work and terminologies. Implications of these issues and suggestions for the academia are discussed.

This paper highlights the importance of multilingual terminological standardization, especially in the context of quality control for public translation as an attempt to ensure efficient multinational communication in the public sector. Historical efforts for terminological standardization in Korea have been structured around (a) multilingual standardization primarily in science and technology, and (b) monolingual standardization in the public sector as part of language planning, while much remains to be done in terms of multilingual terminological standardization for the purpose of efficient communication in the public sector. This paper explains why multilingual terminological standardization is needed and explores best practices abroad, centering on the international guidelines and norms from Infoterm and ISO/TC37, the use of IATE and other terminology databases in the context of public translation, and the roles of public agencies in terminological standardization. With these as the basis, this paper describes the current status of and problems with terminological standardization in Korea before providing suggestions for its successful standardization of public-sector terminology.

Assuming that "public sector translation" is an indispensable means with which to promote Korea's national image and enhance its national competitiveness on the global stage, this paper intends to achieve two closely related objectives. First, an attempt will be made to recap the current state of "public sector translation" of Korea and establish a need for the Korean government to tackle its problems by having all efforts of related government organs coordinated under a new overarching governmental organization responsible for public sector translation. Second, a policy proposal will be discussed to approach the need to launch such a new entity by employing a short-term, task force team-focused approach and longer term endeavors at the same time. By way of conclusion, several points will be introduced to be duly considered in the process of planning and constructing such an organization.

This study aims at suggesting concrete action plans to establish a feasible and effective public-sector translation system in South Korea based on an extensive review of overseas advanced models such as those of Australia, Canada, China, the Netherlands, Sweden and European Union. Specifically, some possible ways to set up a government body responsible for the public-sector translation as well as to introduce a national system to manage translator pool are discussed. The overseas models offer three implications for South Korea to pay attention to.As a first step to prepare for establishing a government public-sector translation body, focused and clear policy objectives need to be defined based on a thorough and precise survey on the demand in various fields for public-sector translation. In South Korea, public-sector translation is in need to help foreign workers and married immigrants settle in the society as well as to promote international economic cooperation, inbound tourism, and national image. After defining the policy objectives, systematic and specific ways to organize and manage the body in accordance with its essential functions should be investigated. Among many functions, a South Korean public-sector translation body should be equipped with an objective and accurate evaluation and revision system as well as various translation infrastructure, which include national translation standards, terminology database, and translation memory. As an effective national system to manage translator pool, certification or registration systems led by the government or professional association are being most commonly adopted. Overseas models also suggest that such a system should grant different levels of certification or registration to translators based on their qualification, and review the qualification of certified or registered translators on a regular basis to ensure the service quality and active practice of those who are working or will work in the public sector.

As the interpretation and translation service area was established as one of the key requisites in international exchange, the service has become a foundational industry which sustains the development of Korean economy with a high level of dependence on trade. In particular, this is verified on the basis that the interpretation and translation industry, classified as ‘Professional, Scientific and Technological Service Industry in [Korea Standard Industrial Classification Rev. 9.], has been utilized as the basic statistical data of national policy making. In this study, the market structure and characteristics of the interpretation and translation industry will be addressed with various materials related to the industry, which are provided on portal sites for national statistics. As a result of this study, the interpretation and translation industry is considered to be at a stage of growth. Also, materials suggested in [Korea Standard Industrial Classification Rev.9] are described as ‘Theories of Industrial Organization’ in this study. With the increasing number of sales and employees, and the active entrance of new enterprises, the market structure was found to be in perfect competition. It was identified that customer demand is higher in the private sector than in the public sector. However, problems were discovered, namely that services provided by market participants are not yet specialized while the size of the individual enterprises is too large. This paper is an initial study suggesting specific and accurate market materials on the interpretation and translation industry, and will form the basis of future research on the industry.

The purpose of this study is to understand the current situation of Korean traditional music translation and propose possible ways to enhance the quantitative and qualitative level of translation. The status quo of translated texts in this field shows that there are several problems in translating Korean traditional music, i.e, the lack of specialized knowledge in traditional culture, professional translators, and standardization of expressions. To overcome these problems, three ways are proposed in this study. First, academic programs should be set up to produce professional translators with expert knowledge in Korean traditional music. Second, a special effort needs to be put into terminology standardization. Third, government funding needs to be increased to produce high-quality translated texts.

This study reviews the nature and impact of bilingualism on interpreters with special interest on creativity of interpreters. Interpreters are highly trained bilinguals specialized in helping and smoothing inter-lingual and inter-cultural communication between two different communication groups. As revealed in several studies, the working memory capacity of interpreters develops in a positive direction in order to satisfy the cognitive processing burden during on-time interpretation endeavors. Some studies noted an increase in size of specific brian areas responsible for working memory during intensive interpretation training. It was also found that working memory renders constructive contribution to the enhancement of creativity capacity. Various studies on the cognitive development and creativity with emphasis on bilingualism have been examined and analyzed in an effort to explore possible directions for further studies on the relationship between interpreter’s working memory and creativity development.

Now, ‘learner-centered’ is a buzzword in translation education and a social constructivist approach, in which knowledge is not viewed as discovered but constructed by a learner, is highly accepted. In keeping with this, this paper focuses on learner autonomy (hereafter LA) and critical thinking in the interests of helping learners break away from a teacher beyond classrooms. LA is defined here as a concept pertaining to understanding of translation, translation competence, and affective factors of learners, and ‘self-reflection’ is an essential element for realizing it. A ‘thinking’ teaching method has been adopted in an undergraduate translation class to foster LA. In this method, before any explanation and lecture by a teacher, students perform translation-related activities, think back, and write a reflective writing(hereafter RW) freely about their feelings, thoughts, opinions, learning, etc. RW here is a useful way of looking into the learning process and of measuring the level of the learner’s LA as it reveals the strengths and weaknesses of a learner and the learner’s' self-reflection. A questionnaire has been conducted to assess whether or not the ‘thinking’ method was helpful in promoting the learners' LA and if so, in what way. Discussions are made based on the RW and the results of the questionnaire.

This study aims to revisit the question of translator invisibility by discussing fictional representation of translation. For this purpose, Letter to Young Lady in Paris by Julio Cortázar is discussed with regard to the translator’s stance vis-à-vis the source text on one hand and translator creativity on the other. The discussion shows that the protagonist in the fiction constantly tries to stay faithful and respectful toward the source text, restraining his creativity. His preoccupation with the sameness, however, proves futile and even fatal. In conclusion, this study suggests the insights of Derrida (1991) and Steiner (2012) that meaning varies in accordance with circumstances and background and that the translator restores the balance and reciprocity between the source text and the target text, thus giving the source text an afterlife.

This study investigated articles from Korean and Japanese newspapers by means of appraisal analysis within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics. Despite the factual nature of the genre, lexical choices made by individual journalists may influence readers to limit or extend their interpretation of the content. The language of appraisal can be a useful tool for cross-language analysis of lexical choices and other features of language use for translation/interpreting research purposes, as well as identifying textual characteristics of different genres within a single language. This paper aims to compare Korean newspaper articles(ST) with their Japanese translations (TT), by looking at items deemed as Appraisal resources extracted from predicates, and examines whether any divergence between ST and TT corresponds to the use of Appraisal in authentic Japanese newspaper articles.

The purpose of this paper is to bring ethical considerations to the foreground for students of interpretation so that they can keep them in mind as they move on to their professional careers. The AIIC and FIT code of ethics were used as guidelines. It was found that while numerous organizations do have a code of ethics, no schools of interpretation offered classes in ethics as a separate course, leaving inexperienced interpreters to have to fend for themselves. Furthermore, in order to gauge the attitude of future interpreters regarding various situations that could be ethically challenging, a survey was conducted among students of interpretation to examine their perception of ethics and how it applies to the profession of interpretation.

This paper introduces a corpus-based methodology to standardise the translations of Art:Mu, a web-magazine, of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, press briefings of spokesperson in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and presidential speeches of Lee Myung-bak, South Korea. Drawing on a Korean-English parallel corpus of the three genres, the Korean Institutional Corpus(KIC)(Choi, 2014), and Wordlist of WordSmith Tools 6.0, this article addresses a systemic way to standardise translations of terminologies and proper nouns, with the focus on frequently articulated terms in each or all genres. The analysis reveals incoherent translations and Romanisation styles of political slogans and names for people and countries in the genres, the issues of which can be, with ease, solved by the development and utilisation of databases such as the KIC, as suggested in this study, and it identifies the necessity for the South Korean government institutions to unify norms, interfaces and networks of translation.

Using group interview and survey as research methods, this pilot study explores student interpreters' needs toward an online self-learning system to assist with their studies for enhancing interpreting skills. More specifically, students were asked how necessary they deemed creation of such an online system is, their willingness to utilize it, and the desirable components and functions of such a system. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were employed to interpret the data. Results show that students strongly agree to the need of an online self-study system and that their main needs were focused on 8 main learning domains of interpreting, sight translation, written translation, reading, listening, speaking, writing and expressions.