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This case study analyzes some claims against translation services commissioned to and conducted by the Center for Interpreting and Translation of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Korea. The findings show that the lack of communication with clients (39.7%) is one of three major causes of translation claims, along with translators’ mistakes (41.3%) and low readability (19%). This non-textual and non-linguistic cause of translation claims is attributable to diverse needs of the clients that the translation agency is supposed to gratify. A form of “translation briefs” with requirements of itemized information filled out by clients could be used to facilitate the communication between clients and translation agencies and thus reduce translation claims.

신경숙의 『엄마를 부탁해』가 미국에서 거둔 성공은 원작에의 충실성을 강조하는 기존의 한국문학번역에 방향전환을 가져왔다. 도착어의 유창성, 독자의 가독성, 텍스 트 수용성을 강조한 새로운 번역전략을 구사한 까닭이다. 본 연구는 이러한 새로운 번역 전략이 구체적으로 어떻게 구현되었는지 살펴보기 위하여 먼저『엄마를 부탁해』의 미국 시장 성공의 결과로 한국문학번역에서 일어나고 있는 변화에 대해 짚어 보고, 번역과정에 어떠한 이론적 모델이 적용되었는지 고찰한 다음, 원작과 영어번역 본, 그리고 영어번역본에서 중역된 스페인어번역본을 차례로 비교 분석하면서 각 언 어의 번역자들이 가독성을 높이기 위해 사용한 전략들이 어떤 효과를 가져왔는지 또, 이러한 전략들이 용인될 수 있는 범위는 어디까지인지 고찰하였다. 그 결과, 도착어의 자연스러운 표현을 위해 문장형태를 변형, 조정하거나, 문화적으 로 독특한 이미지를 동일의미를 지닌 다른 형태의 이미지로 대체하고, 원작의 의미를 훼손하지 않는 범위에서 가독성을 높이기 위해 문단의 위치를 변경하거나 단어, 구 등을 생략, 첨가하는 등의 불가피한 변화에서부터 간접화법을 직접화법으로 대체한 다거나, 문화적 요소에 대한 완전한 자국화, 나아가 거의 번역자의 창작에 가까운 문 장, 문구의 첨가 등도 발견할 수 있었다. 이러한 전략들이 모두 정당화될 수 있는지는 의문의 여지가 있다. 하지만 『엄마를 부탁해』가 한국문학번역에 불러일으킨 돌풍은 아무도 부인할 수 없으며 그 번역방 향이 뚜렷하게 독자의 가독성과 수용성을 향하고 있다는 점, 그리고 한국문학 번역에 몸담고 있는 모두에게 왜, 무엇을 위해서, 어떻게 번역하고 있는가?에 대한 진지한 물음을 던졌다는 것은 자명하다 할 수 있을 것이다.

This study aims to present and analyze the performance and limits of interpreting and translation studies conducted in the Chinese linguistics field in Korea for the past twenty years since the establishment of Korea-China amity, and to seek future perspectives of study and its tasks. In this period, researchers focused on human translation of various units including lexicons or entire texts in literary, scholarly and complex genre or unknown genre. Researchers carried out qualitative research by contrasting one text of another author in a foreign language as ST with other multiple texts of other authors or his or her own texts in a native language as TT. Diverse interests were touched upon in their studies from not only linguistic but also interpreting and translation perspectives. In addition, descriptive translation studies including linguistic, theoretical, pattern studies and prescribing studies based on descriptive studies were also conducted. Henceforth, extending the boundary of studies on characteristics of various genres and more than sentence units is crucial, and studies recognizing the differences between contrastive studies and interpreting and translation studies as well as supplementing the above mentioned factors should be continued.

Translation of Korean literature into French usually involves a Korean translator working together with a native French translator. A preliminary translation completed by a Korean translator, who focuses on faithfully conveying the original text, is revised by a native French translator to improve readability, and the process is marked by continuous consultation between the two to fine tune the meaning. The process is joined by another actor, i.e., the editor of the publisher, who intervenes actively and with whom the two translators negotiate again to reach the final result. Despite the Korean government’s active support for translation of Korean literature and the rising popularity of Korean pop culture, Korean literature only occupies a marginal position in the French literary market. Thus, the last stage editing performed by the publisher involves a general revision of the text, with the focus being placed on enhanced readability and receptivity in the target language rather than the faithful reproduction of the original text. This paper analyzes the changes that occur in the process and how the consistency of the translation strategies adopted by the translators are destroyed, and thus the literary characteristics of the original work, through a comparison of a translator’s original version with the publisher’s edited version.

The aim of this study is to develop a new translation quality assessment matrix and to make a comprehensive evaluation on La Porte etroite by Andre Gide, one of the most-read and most-translated French novels in Korea. In order to achieve this aim, the study subdivides the assessment process into three stages. First, the study implements a preliminary task which consists of an analysis of the text and research on the bibliography of previous translations for the work. Nine out of 219 translations by 109 different translators are selected through the analysis and research. Secondly, the study analyzes the nine translations by applying assessment criteria established by the research team for the "Evaluation of Korean Translations of French Great Novels." For this, the study employes “the evaluation at the fundamental level” technique to verify and analyze obvious errors, that is, non acceptable disaccord between the source material and the target texts. Finally, the study implements this assessment work at a deeper level to grasp the distinct features of the translations and the strategies of the translators. As a result, this study assures that the quality for the translations of La Porte etroite, when considered as a whole, is at a high level. Certainly, this result came from the successful translation of Yi Young-dong (Cheongsusa, 1957), which brought about the two other great translations by Lee Seong-bok (Keimyung Univ. Press, 2000) and Yi Hye-won (Penguin Classic Korea, 2008).

According to Berman, translation is not something through which a translator absorbs or subordinates a culture into his/her own culture, but he/she constitutes an intermediary space between two equal cultures. He claims that a true translator is to play an ethical role in between. Thus, translators’ text-deforming tendencies should be avoided. This paper, based upon Berman’s theory of text deforming, studied cases of text deforming easily found in translating Chinese novels into Korean. As a result, text deforming was characterized mainly by three aspects: first, cases in which translators produced inconsistent texts after expanding the texts and destroying the systematicity of the source texts; second, cases of excessive domestication; and. third, cases of trying to translate without considering textual rhythm. As a conclusion, translators should bear in mind that translation tends to deform source texts, and thus, translators of novels should opt for an appropriate strategy for translation.

Cultural elements can be entirely unfamiliar to target readers; therefore, translators should consider the difference of cultures and try to utilize a dynamic equivalence when translating such cultural elements. This is the first thing to be considered translating cultural elements. Researchers talk about utilizing an interpretive theory of translation when translating cultural elements, employing a complicated process of “deverbalization”, “sense” and “reformulation” This is a difficult process to accomplish, requiring a great deal of intellectual labor. Nevertheless, there is high possibility that the resultant translation could be criticized because of its loose translation. Literal translations can be very convenient in these cases, but it is not easy for target readers to understand the meaning of the cultural elements. However, literal translation is very useful when target readers indirectly through the context can guess the meaning of the cultural elements. So sometimes the translation strategy of cultural elements depends on the context, making context the second element to be considered when translating cultural elements. Finally, the medium or genre of what is being translated should be considered when translating cultural elements. Newspapers don’t always need to deliver an exact meaning to readers so omission can be a useful strategy when translating cultural elements. Ultimately, then, the third element to be considered when translating cultural elements is the genre or medium where the translation occurs. In conclusion, recognizing cultural differences between the source and target languages, paying attention to the context and considering the genre or medium for the translation are important factors when translating cultural elements.

Researchers have reported positive effects of using pivot languages in improving the quality of statistical machine translation for western languages. The goal of this paper is to confirm whether the quality of English-to-Korean machine translation improves by using a pivot language, and to find out the best pivot language for English-to-Korean machine translation. For this, we carried out translation experiments using Google Translate; i.e., we tested the English-to-Korean machine translation of 83 sentences across 35 pivot languages. The test sentences were carefully controlled with reference to Levin's (1993) lexical semantic classification of English verbs. The log-linear regression analysis reveals that the quality of English-to-Korean machine translation improves when Japanese is used as a pivot language. This result is particularly interesting, since both English-Japanese and Korean-Japanese pairs have lower BLEU scores than the Korean-English pair. This suggests that the BLEU scoring system should be reevaluated and revised for future application to machine translation of natural languages.

Newspaper genre cannot publish facts and realities as they are in a transparent manner. That is, the news portrayed through reports are not facts impartial but a product of ideology reconstructed with the value and belief of specific social groups. Especially, reporting matters in which the ideology of progress and conservation collide may show differences in discourse reports by the ideologies the newspaper company pursues. In Korea, where conservative discourses had governed, we see progressive discourse coexisting with conservative discourse by the late 1980s when <The Hankyoreh> was first published. Especially, since 1988, as the press became democratized and opened, discourses of North Korea reports consistent with anti-communism and anti-North Korean ideology reports face variation. This study aims at comparing the headlines of <Chosun Daily>, <Joongang Daily>, and <Donga Daily>, three representative conservative newspapers in Korea and <The Hankyoreh>, a progressive newspaper regarding North Korea related reports so that it can check if differences exist among “discourse reporting.” Furthermore, the study also aims at comparing and analyzing, in a qualitative manner, the extent to which ideology between progressive and conservative press is reflected in Korean-Japanese translation and Korean-English translation of headline reports related to North Korea.

This study examined students’ literary translation competence. The aim of most literary translation classes is the improvement of students’ literary translation competence, which was developed as a model by Chung (2009) based on PACTE’ sub-competencies of translation competence. The translation of taboo words used in Spanish play La Chunga by Vargas Llosa is a case in point. When students translate these words, especially sexual descriptions, they tend to adopt tone-down translation strategies, such as deletion and neutralization. If they are required to choose literal translation or to demonstrate their translation competence, they try to ascribe their decision to other elements like translation purpose, teacher’s or future client’s translation brief. This reflects that further explanation beyond conventional translation competence is required in students’ translation of taboo words. Thus, this study focuses on the effect of psycho-physiological components on students’ taboo word translation.

As a great master of figurative language, Charles Dickens frequently used similes and metaphors in his works. Among his repertoire of rhetorical expressions, Mahlberg (2007b) identified as if constructions as high-frequency expressions in Great Expectations, using corpus software WordSmith Tools. In Great Expectations, 266 instances of as if are found. Mahlberg asserts that this frequently occurring expression serves local textual functions in the text. The three main functions identified are a) description of atmosphere, b) characterization, and c) clues to the plot. Focusing on as if constructions, this study compares Korean translations of Great Expectations (ST) by different translators. Using WordSmith's cluster analysis, this study examines how as if similes are translated in each TT and whether each translator shows his/her own distinctive pattern in their translations. And finally, if and how as if constructions' local textual functions in the ST are translated in the TTs will be discussed.

Despite the rapid growth of Translation Studies over the past few decades, there is an enduring chasm between theorists and practicing translators over the utility of translation theories in translation practice. This paper is about classroom-based action research which aims to narrow the gap by connecting theories with the teaching practice of translation. For the study, fifteen basic translation theories and fifteen text genres which students need to practice translating were chosen. The class consisted of the professor teaching relevant theory, students translating, student presentations, class discussions and feedback from the professor. Over the semester, it was repeatedly observed that with a well-organized plan and instruction, students could learn how to utilize theories in approaching translation and in solving the various problems they faced during the translation. Another positive result was that students gained a clearer and more concrete command of concepts and terms widely used in translation studies, enabling better communications not only between the professor and the students, but also among the students themselves

Thoughts over how to deliver overall meanings properly in translation have been made a lot as it is witnessed in such issues as cultureme translation, idiom translation, and equivalence matter, etc. Translators in reality, however, face problems that are frequently related to detailed grammar. The translators struggle to make the best decision at the micro level, such as selecting specific kinds of postpositional words and how to translate passive forms, which requires the translators to be equipped with grammatical knowledge of each language. Modality translation is a case in point. Japanese and Korean languages are similar in terms of syntactic structures and the modality that expresses the psychological status of speakers/writers is realized at the end of sentences. Yet, the modal expressions are not literally translated in real translation. Similar kinds of modal expressions exist in each language and they have been analyzed and categorized in a diverse manner. The outcomes of the analysis and categorization need to be applied to real translation. To this end, this paper analyzes literary works (novels) that have various kinds of modal expressions. The categories of modal expressions, epistemic modality in particular, are made to compare and contrast Korean and Japanese translations. The epistemic modal expressions are extracted from TT, and the meanings of each expression are analyzed under the category of literal translation, translation that uses different forms of modality, and translation that doesn't use modal expressions. The values of modality in Korean and Japanese languages are also examined with reference to the categorizing and value setting done by Halliday (2004) who applied systemic functional grammar, which ultimately makes it possible in this paper to look into the modality value difference between ST and TT.

The paper uses an English-Korean literary translation corpus and a comparable authentic Korean literary corpus to test two translation universal hypotheses, simplification and leveling-out. Standardized type-token ratio (STTR) and mean sentence length are calculated by using the Wordsmith Tools program, to see if there are statistically significant differences in their mean values between the two corpora. The analysis shows that the translation corpus is lower in both measures than the non-translation corpus, supporting the simplification hypothesis. The translation corpus is also lower in variance, showing greater homogeneity than the non-translation corpus, which supports the leveling-out hypothesis.

Corpus-based studies have become a general method of investigation in modern translation studies. One of the reasons to use a parallel corpus is to permit the direct examination of existing translation resources produced by translators. To extract precise data from a corpus and for the efficient study of these data, researchers have proposed techniques based on quantitative algorithms. Poly-cooccurrece is one of these quantitative methods as it allows the exploration of the distribution of concurrent occurrences of a particular word in a corpus. The aims of this study are as follows. First, to extract the concurrent occurrences of words that represent mutual translations in a French-Korean parallel corpus using poly-cooccurrence. Second, to compare lexical cooccurrences of these words. And third, to validate the advantage of this method in a corpus-based translation studies. Traditional methods such as KWIC (Keyword in Context) and simple-cooccurrence merely produced a list of concurrent words and failed to explain the correlation between the words. However, poly-cooccurrence creates a tree diagram which describes the distributions of the words and therefore we can explicitly comprehend the lexical context of translation units and its translation context by exploring hierarchically concurrent words in bi-textual resources.

This study examines the impact of features of Chinese English on simultaneous interpretation into Korean based on information structure analysis. A simultaneous interpreting experiment was conducted on 10 professional interpreters over two phases. First, participants conducted a Simultaneous Interpreting task. After the SI task was completed, participants received a transcript of the source text and underlined segments of source text that were difficult to perceive or understand due to phonological and/or grammatical features of Chinese English. The result of the experiment revealed that both phonological and grammatical features of Chinese English imposed interpreting difficulties for participants, and specifically, the difficulties that they experienced were concentrated on new information rather than old information. The result is supported by both quantitative and qualitative analysis of the source text, underlined transcripts and target texts.