2016, Vol.17, No.3

The Journal of Translation Studies 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.49

pISSN : 1229-795X
https://journal.kci.go.kr/kats

The Digital age has turned ordinary users into producers of contents for the public, leading to the rapid emergence of non-professionals translating texts without monetary rewards. Drawing on the researches of “user-generated”, “community”, or “participatory” translations, this paper aims to investigate the nature and trend of non-professional translation and its impact on the translation community which has focused on professionalization of the profession in the past forty years. With linguistic proficiency, genre knowledge and a keen interest in the topic, the newly-emerging non-professionals are different from their counterparts in the past few decades. They produce creative and in some way high-quality translations reflecting the sentiment and bondage shared in online communities. Individuals with the same goal of translating dramas, movies, pop-songs, webtoons, games, free open source softwares, news articles, intellectual and educational contents, and websites collaborate to share terminology and background knowledge, give peer-review and edit/revise translations online. With non-professional translations become increasingly commercialized and specialized and professional translations adopting strategies used by non-professionals, non-professionals and professionals are affecting and learning from each other.

This study analyzed translation and interpreting certificates in and out of Korea and identified differences as follows. Korea's T&I certifying tests do not require applicants to satisfy any qualifications to sit for an exam and issue certificates of varying levels. They are unique forms of foreign language exams for non-translators and interpreters, hence do not help develop T&I career. In contrast, exams for T&I certificates in the United States, Canada and Australia subject only those with T&I work experiences or at least those who wish to work as translators or interpreters. The certificate holders enjoy competitive advantages on the market. In Korea, government-sponsored organizations operate T&I certificates for the purpose of advancing certain industries, such as medical tourism. However, government agencies in the United States and Australia issue T&I certificates to promote public interest. To have reliable and valid T&I certificates, improvements needs to be made in Korea as follows: Tests should be developed based on job analysis of professional translators and interpreters; Grading policies and test results should be disclosed to applicants; Graduate schools of T&I should introduce and operate certificates in areas where T&I demands are satisfied mainly by those who are not trained as translators or interpreters.

Translation Studies is now matured to the point where it systematically looks back on what it has achieved and explores the direction in which it needs to go further. Out of efforts to understand the landscape of Translation Studies, this paper aims to examine research models employed in audiovisual translation(AVT) research papers and identify any potential areas for future research. While AVT is a fast growing field both for research and practice, its research methodologies, in particular models for analysis, have not been often discussed. This paper adopts two frameworks, Grotjahn(1987) and Pérez-González(2014), to analyze research models in Masters and Doctorial theses on AVT produced in Korea. It finds that research models substantially focus on linguistic shifts between source texts and target texts, and that many of the theses qualitatively interpret data of small quantity to support claims made in them. This paper suggests shifting a focus when selecting research models, exploring into new topics, and utilizing parallel and comparable corpus to strengthen reliability of analysis.