2022, Vol.23, No.5

The Journal of Translation Studies 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.49

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

Lawrence Venuti, a translation scholar acclaimed for proposing ‘domestication’ versus ‘foreignization’ strategies and arguing the need for pursuing ‘ethical translation’, published in 2019 a book titled Contra Instrumentalism: A Translation Polemic. This study is a critical reading of the latest publication of Venuti, a mixture of dramatic and provocative discussions. The first half of the essay delves into the definition of ‘instrumentalism’ established in translation studies, and then reviews the conventional discussions and controversies over the concept within philosophical and the wider humanities studies. The latter half considers Venuti’s Contra Instrumentalism as a result of dramatic transformation of his previous theory, a move observed in the introduction to his 2013 book, Translation Changes Everything. This study analyzes the developments and intrinsic and extrinsic contradictions of the theoretical change and sheds light on critical issues and negative implications raised by Venuti’s Contra Instrumentalism.

This study presents results from two speech perception experiments to provide empirical evidence for improving perceptual clarity in audio descriptions (AD) for character emotions. In both experiments, 27 participants with normal vision heard AD-style utterances that varied in objectivity of appraisals (i.e., words denoting emotion vs. words describing behavior) and in prosodic saliency of the appraisals, and then self-rated the degree of perceived emotions on a 9-point scale. As an effect of objectivity, subjective descriptions induced significantly higher emotion ratings than objective ones in Experiment 1, in which prior context was given minimally. In Experiment 2 which provided more faithful contextual information, however, perceived character emotion tended to be greater for objective appraisals, possibly suggesting that objective descriptions along with abundant context help the listeners actively reconstruct mental representations for the intended psychological states. The effects of prosody were more robust across the experiments. The ratings significantly increased when provided with more salient acoustic cues for the phrase boundary and prominence, highlighting the role of prosodically-driven articulatory strengthening in speech perception, which may be provided as a guideline for trained dubbing artists.

This study aims to examine two translations of Confucius the Man and the Myth (Creel 1949) to disclose that the translating strategies of two governmental translating institutions served to promote the institutional ideologies and/or objectives. By analysing paratexts, macro- and micro-level translations drawing on socio-narrative theory, this study uncovered that the translation in Shinchunji tried to promote democracy for stabilizing the fledgling South Korean government. By directly linking Confucius and democracy through the text selection and paratextual translation, and describing Confucius more positively through micro-level translation, Confucius’ support for democracy was illustrated more positively in Shinchunji. The translation also stressed the unethical character of totalitarianism by emphasizing a totalitarian government’s appropriation of Confucian philosophy. Meanwhile, the translation published in Wolgan Amerika served to educate Koreans about the nature of democracy and threat of totalitarianism. Through text selection to micro-level translation, the translator not only portrayed democracy more positively and totalitarianism more negatively but also chose to stress the vulnerability of democracy to totalitarianism. Additionally, by emphasizing the authority of the author, the translation validated the contents and intended to be used as an educational material. Thus, the translations served the objectives of the institution—selling democracy and preparing Koreans for the threat of communism.