An evolution of Korean literary translation into English through its paratexts (1951¿2000)

Identifier:  PC:3494

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/PC3494

Authors:  

Abstract:
Literary translation from Korean into English has developed in many ways since the first tentative translations of folk stories carried by missionaries in the early twentieth century. The difficulties of translation might be similar now to those early times, but the selection, subvention, publishing and marketing processes have changed, and with them, the way those topics are tackled by translators and other agents in the translational paratexts. This study locates and classifies the references to translation and the translation process found in the paratexts of literary translations from Korean into English distributed in the American market from 1951 to 2000. The most commonly approached topics are defined bottom-up, and the importance placed in the resulting categories (technical decisions, untranslatability, free vs. literal translation, quality of the output, process of translation, social role of translations and representation of translation) is organized chronologically. By looking into the change of approaches to translation and the translation profession, an overview of the Korean into English literary translation field is provided. This overview is considered in relation to the change of the profile of the translators, the internationalization of the Republic of Korea and the growing commercial aim of translated work.