Earticle

For Plato, ‘signifiant’ and ‘signifie’ are separable and only ‘signifie’ is universal, identical, immutable and independent. Classic French translation philosopher Berman criticizes Plato’s view on language of this kind which ranks the relationship between signifiant and signifie in ontological order. Plato’s ‘meaning-centered theory of translation’ inherently puts an original text in ontologically superior position to translated works by granting the original text such as a literary work an absolute status and authority similar to ‘eidos.’ ‘Meaning-centered translation’ borders Plato’s representative relationship, which means that ontological status of ‘B’ is decided by the degree of closeness to upper-level ‘A.’ Substituting this in translation, upper-level ‘A’ becomes ‘original text’ while lower level ‘B’ becomes ‘translated work’, and translated work ‘B’s status is decided on how close ‘B’ is to original ‘A’ or how closely ‘B’ represents or reproduces the original ‘A’. Therefore, ‘B=translated work’ becomes subordinate, secondary, derivative, inferior and marginal to ‘A=original text.’ The purpose of this study is to reflect on translation ethics from non-representative perspective of Deleuze who criticized Plato’s representative theory of translation and apply this to ‘Kitchen’ literature translation.

As translation is increasingly taught in undergraduate classrooms, questions have arisen as to whether theory should be taught to undergraduate students. Starting within the past ten years, there are now undergraduate programs that teach theory in some universities in Korea. Yet, answers about what kind of theories to teach and how to teach them still lack consensus. In this context, this paper argues the importance of teaching theory at the undergraduate level and discusses the authors’ experience of conducting courses on translation theory and practice. Particular theories addressed in class and the results of student surveys are discussed.

Although there have been a number of studies on various aspects of translator training, few have attempted to investigate how translator trainers prepare for and conduct classes and what challenges they face. This paper reports on the results of a survey on teaching practices of the translator trainers of the Korean-English Department of the Graduate School of Interpretation and Translation (GSIT) at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. The survey was divided into three parts － teaching methods, content and assessment － to obtain a comprehensive picture of translator training at a graduate level. It found that the three main challenges faced by the trainers are which texts/topics to select for assignments, how to plan and manage classes, and how to provide feedback. The paper discusses the implications of the findings for the trainers and concludes by suggesting the need for coordination of and guidance on pedagogical approaches and practices.

This paper is a case study on the Turkish-Korean translation course in the department of Korean language and literature at Erciyes University in Turkey. It examines in detail the development process and contents of the Turkish-Korean Translation Practice course, which was first offered in the spring semester of 2016. Through a careful review of the class’s syllabus and methods, the goal is to correct any issues identified and establish a foundation for improving the quality and effectiveness of Turkish-Korean translation education in Turkey. In developing the course, local needs, the contents of the other courses in the Korean language department, survey results, and the students’ Korean ability and study habits were taken into account. The specific course objective is for students to improve their Korean ability and acquire basic translation skills. It was determined there would be three types of course content used in conjunction with translations into Korean: Turkish expressions, Korean grammar, and specific texts. Students progressed from translating sentences to paragraphs to everyday conversations; they were expected to translate the texts accurately and naturally into the target language of Korean. In light of the fact that there are no Turkish-Korean translation programs at Turkish universities, this case study can provide a concrete model for how to develop and teach a Turkish-Korean translation course at an university in Turkey.

This study explores the issues of using present indicative in place of shall in the English translation of Korean statutes. Due to the Plain Language legislative attempt over the past few decades, shall is now rapidly being replaced by the simple present and other performative forms in many common law countries. Against this backdrop, this study compiled three sub-comparable corpora consisting of translated Korean Statute Corpus (TKSC) and non-translated British Statute Corpus (BSC) and American Statute Corpus (ASC), and examined the frequencies, types, and patterns of present indicative in each corpus. In particular, the present study separately calculated the frequencies of present indicative forms that convey prescriptive force using CLAWS 7 tagged text files. Analysis of the three comparable corpora shows many discrepancies in the use of present indicative between translated corpus and non-translated corpora. While the simple present is restrictively used in definition provisions in TKSC, many present simple verb forms are found in ASC and BSC as a performative marker to indicate constitutive rules, application provisions, deeming provisions, and other declaratives.

This paper discusses three major issues concerning transcreation. First and foremost, the term transcreation and the conceptual elements thereof are identified from three sources of data, namely transcreation service providers (business), transcreators (translators), and translation scholars (academia). Second, potential implications of advances in translation technology, especially in automatic machine translation, are explored in terms of transcreation vs translation. Third, the rationale for and implications of introducing transcreator education are discussed in detail, considering the direction in which the translation ecosystem is changing.

This study explores the way simultaneous interpretation is portrayed in Korean news media. Simultaneous interpretation is a complex task requiring an interpreter to master the skills of listening, production, and memory skills which need to be operated simultaneously facilitated by the right coordination skills(Gile, 2009). Thus it requires expertise, and interpreters who are well trained and, consequently, competent in both consecutive and simultaneous interpreting are called ‘conference interpreters.’ Conference interpreters are covered frequently in newspaper articles and are often called ‘simultaneous interpreters’ in Korean media. Conference interpreters are recognized as experts in the field. However recently, the words ‘simultaneous interpretation’ and ‘simultaneous interpreters’ are often used inappropriately: ‘simultaneous interpretation’ is used to describe a celebrity’s language competency; ‘simultaneous interpreter’ is often used to add glamour to a celebrity’s career profile or lifestyle; ‘simultaneous interpretation’ is also often used in names for language services provided for the general public, which requires consecutive interpretation at best. This study explores how the media uses and tweaks the concept of simultaneous interpretation and discusses implications of such misuse.