KJC Korea
Journal Central

This study aims to investigate the roles, status and identity of a Korean local government's interpreters and translators. Their roles were analized based on the job descriptions and the daily log by the researcher, one of the interpreters/tranlators of the Daegu city governemnt. In order to identify their professional status in the institution, their income was compared to that of general local government officials, and their visibility was investigated in terms of textual, paratextual and extratextual visibility. Their identity was defined based on their loyalty and their physical working locations. In-depth interviews with six of the interpreters were conducted and analyzed to triangulate the study. Local government interpreters and translators’ workscope turned out to be beyond interpretation and translation. Their income was relatively high compared to that of other coworkers. Visibility-wise, their textual and paratextual visibility was low whereas extratextual visibility was high. Lastly, their close daily interactions with other general officials and high loyalty toward the city government made them have a very strong identity as a member of local government officials. This study contributes to expanding the horizon of institutional studies on Korean local government interpreters and translators by providing baseline data and in-depth analyses. However, comparative studies with other national and local governments interpreters and translators will be further needed in the future.

The feverish retranslation of foreign classical literature is one of the phenomena found in the publishing world of Korea. Such retranslation is characterized by the following points. They are reproduced continuously and repeatedly within a short period by a number of publishers. On account of that, the total number of retranslations of an identical original is overwhelmingly higher than in other countries. But unfortunately, there are no canonical translations equipped with the primary position in the publishing market. About this translation, retranslations are done competitively in a short-term period, so they are not the kinds of retranslation necessarily done for aging of text. Since there are no canonical translations equipped with the primary position, they are not the kinds of retranslation done for dissatisfaction with a particular translation or reinterpretation, either. There are two goals of this study. First, this author will figure out among the two retranslation hypotheses of Pym’s, which the retranslation of foreign classical literature in Korea belongs to. Second, this researcher will conduct case study to see if these retranslations apply to Berman’s retranslation hypothesis. To attain the goal, this study takes the Korean retranslations of Dazaiosamu (太宰治)’s 『Ningensikaku (人間失格)』, one of the representative Japanese classical literary works, as an object of analysis and tests Pym and Berman’s translation hypotheses with them.

Joseon Wangjo Sillok (The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty) is a chronological record of kings' historical reigns of the Korean dynasty. Originally written in classical Chinese characters, the Sillok has been or is being translated into Korean and English under various initiatives. Although its translation projects have brought in almost all types of translation forms (e.g. intralingual, interlingual, institutional, collaborative, retranslation), little interest has been paid to them in the context of Translation Studies. Largely led by state agencies, the projects have produced a range of tangible accomplishments -- the translations of the extensive text as well as “byproducts” including the web services of the translated versions, terminological dictionaries dedicated to the Sillok and a 260-page translation style guide. As the accomplishments can serve as useful resources for future translation -- the English translation of the Sillok was initially planned for completion in 2033 and could be extended beyond that -- this paper provides an overview of them and explores ways to enhance their usability as translation aids for the ongoing projects.

Advancement in technology leads to rapid development of machine translation. On account of such development, a new way of translating like post-editing is emerging. Post-editing is fixing errors in machine translation output, hence enhancing the quality of machine translation. Effort required by post-editing may vary by genre/type of text and the patterns of errors specific to source text. This pilot study intends to classify machine translation errors in informative text. Firstly, the study provides classification of machine translation errors based on four broad classes: Accuracy, Fluency, Syntax, and Typo. Secondly, errors from English-Korean machine translation of informative texts are analysed with the proposed classification. Lastly, the paper explores occurrence frequency of each error classes and deduces tendencies from the analysis: Incorrect meaning error occurs rather frequently while omission error is found relatively few; Wrong word/phrase order error comes with the incomplete sentence error; Typo errors occur randomly without any patterns. The findings fall short of presenting error patterns due to relatively small size of sample. Future research could look into more predictable error patterns in machine translation that could not be investigated here and might contribute to reducing efforts required by post-editing.

Machine translation (MT) has recently received much attention both in academia and industry, but the current discourse on MT and its impact on professional translators has been predominantly driven by the local media, which is often criticized for sensationalism and commercialism. This paper aims to critically examine the media-led discourses on MT by reviewing the latest studies on neural MT and comparing the views on translation held by researchers of translation studies (TS) and MT. The paper sets out to explore the differences between TS and MT in how they model a communication process and view the notion of ‘meaning’ and ‘context.’ It then examines the validity of BLEU, a popular MT evaluation metric. Finally, the paper discusses the problems of implementing the technology from a commercialization perspective and provides implications for translator training.

It has been argued that characterization plays an important role in developing fictional themes. In line with this argument, the present study aims to show whether different translations of characterization could have different effects on thematic realization. The texts under study are Houston, Houston, Do You Read? (1976), an award-winning feminist novella written by James Tiptree Jr. (Alice B. Sheldon), and two Korean translations, one by a feminist publisher (1994) and the other by a science fiction publisher (2016). The main focus of analysis is three male astronauts in the story: Bernhard, Davis, and Lorimer. Bernhard is a male chauvinist who often uses the c-word and sees women as sexual objects. Davis is a deeply religious man who believes he was chosen by God to subjugate women to their intended roles. Lorimer is an intellectual man who takes a good look at Bernhard’s sexual violence. A comparative analysis of the two translations reveals that the second translation describes the male characters in a way that better reflects Tiptree’s feminist views, a finding supported by an email interview with the translator. This study also discusses potential impacts of socio-cultural factors on translators.

It is said that the Japanese word “geijutsu” is a neologism created in the modern era to translate the Western term “liberal arts.” As Western civilization has continued its advance in modern times, it could be said that translating new concepts is a creative act akin to a liberal art in itself. These days, whether to translate various academic books and literary works in a literal or liberal manner is a source of unending controversy in modern translation theory as well, sparking many schools of thought on the best approaches to translation. It could be said that the need to explain new ideas in the course of translation has prompted the advancement of thought in translation and spurred the growth of learning. However, in recent Japanese texts and translations, foreign-language words are frequently seen left as is, not even translated, with the transliterations conspicuous. The phenomenon is particularly prominent in fields such as fashion and IT, with the daring idea that leaving terms untranslated is more apropos to the global era becoming more entrenched. Translation is required for the diffusion of culture, and it is thought that the digestion and absorption of material into one's own nation enriches vocabularies and leads to cultural growth. This paper examines the creation of terms used to translate new concepts and translation approaches in modern Japan to debate the future state of translation.

This study investigates the effective translation method of ‘cultural-specific concepts(CSCs)’ and culture-bound terms(CBTs) in source text of Chinese novel, and also examines two groups of translators, the professional and amateur, based on their translation characteristics of using ‘conjunctive marker’ in target text. Two main findings emerged from the analyses. First, the effective translation method has been discussed based on three expressions of CSCs : characters’ names, Chinese food names and idiomatic expressions. It has been shown that the ‘borrowings’ was mostly common in translating characters’ name, and ‘using hypernym’ was the most effective but less cultural characteristic translation method in translating food names, and the ‘explanatory translation’ method was mostly used in translating idiomatic expressions in order to help target readers understanding the contexts. Second, the term ‘conjunctive marker’ has been generally understood as ‘conjunctive adverb’, however, this paper defines the ‘conjunctive marker’ as a conjunctive word of sentence-starting-part, rather than a limited term of conjunctive adverb. A significant difference between professional translators and amateur translators is shown in the frequency of using conjunctive marker in target text : professional translators used conjunctive marker more often than amateur translator. This study appears to be the first to analysis the translation characteristics of Chinese-to-Korean novel text from both aspects of source text and target text. In addition, the difference between two translation groups has been analyzed.

Professional interpreters can be characterized by a steady flow of speech, the completeness of the content as well as the correctness of the word choice. This paper attempts to find the causes of these three characteristics of professional interpreters in the sequentiality of their memory. Due to their professional ability to direct attention strategically, experienced interpreters are able to identify strategically important terms (phonological memory) that serve the formation of semantic memory, and to use them as a stimulus to activate the next semantic memory sequence. Once this sequence is activated, important terms within this semantic structure are also stimulated and activated, so that an alternating process of stimulation and activation takes place between phonological and semantic memory. As a result, the memory of the interpreters is (created and) retrieved sequentially. In order to test this hypothesis, four groups with different interpreting experience are tested for the sequentiality of their memory. Four short texts were read to them (100 wpm), and after each text, they rendered the content of the text as literally as possible (on a computer). Professional interpreters were indeed the group with the highest sequentiality. They reproduced the greatest amount of words and presented them in their original order. The group difference, however, was not statistically significant. When analyzing the MSR video, professional interpreters proved to be least influenced by the so-called “recency effect”, which is often reported in psychological studies.

This study aims to explore hedges in Korean-English consecutive interpreting to find out how the intended functions of hedges used in ST(Korean) are realized in TT(English). A small corpus of consecutive interpreting conducted at an earnings conference call was analyzed. Hedges in ST were identified and classified into four functions: mitigation and limitation, possibility and assumption, vagueness, and numeric approximation. The analysis showed that over sixty percent of hedges used to indicate mitigation and limitation, possibility and assumption, and numeric approximation were preserved in TT, while a mere thirteen percent of hedges used to indicate vagueness were kept in TT. It was revealed that most of vagueness hedges were removed and the items accompanying vagueness hedges in ST were made more explicit. This suggests that hedges are treated differently according to their function in the process of interpreting.

In this age of machine translation, the legal right over translation has emerged as a crucial issue concerning a relationship between translators and their surrounding social conditions. This study exams some of the key articles in Korean Copyright Law focusing on the legal status of translation. Traditionally and even today, translation and translators have been viewed as subordinative to the author and the source text being translated. However, this study finds out the legal description on translation in the Copyright Law does not denote the superiority of the author over the translator. Rather it protects and promotes the independent right of a translator under the legal concept of creativity, which puts emphasis on the creator's mental endeavor.

English is used in many parts of the world in different varieties. For South Koreans, who are usually exposed to Inner Circle varieties such as American English through school education and mainstream media, English varieties other than Inner Circle varieties may sound unfamiliar to them and, thus, may trigger language attitudes different from those for Inner Circle varieties. In this study, language attitudes of South Korean college students and office workers towards different varieties of world Englishes are explored through a web-based questionnaire using VGT. Attitudes towards world Englishes are further discussed on interpreter-mediated world Englishes speech as well, as English communications in South Korea are often mediated through interpreters in business meetings, seminars, and conferences. Language attitudes are discussed around three traits: superiority, attractiveness, and dynamism. American English was awarded the highest scores for all three traits, while Outer Circle and Expanding Circle varieties received mixed results. The clear preference of the participants for American English was mainly due to intelligibility and familiarity reasons.