한국 문학 텍스트 영역(英譯)에 나타난 문화소 번역의 경향 연구

Abstract

This paper aims at analyzing how culture-specific items are translated in Korean-English literary translation, observing the problems shown in the translation and ultimately suggesting the more desirable strategies to let Korean cultural elements known to the world. For the study, examples of typical Korean cultural items such as 갓, 두루마기, 막걸리, 떡, 대청마루, and 아랫목 are taken from 30 translated novels and short stories. This study shows that the most frequently used strategies of translating Korean cultural elements are generalization, established equivalent and omission. They are often considered as strategies of reader-friendly ones at the expense of the faithfulness to the source text. This phenomenon proves that Lawrence Venuti's post-colonial suggestion is accurate. Venuti asserted that the asymmetrical relations or inequalities are present in translation. Nowadays with the rise of Korea's cultural authority, the translation attitude of our own cultural elements must be changed. Instead of easy-going translation attitude to use strategies such as omission, generalization or established equivalent, translators have to endeavor to make our cultural elements known to the target readers. In addition, established equivalents of some cultural items such as overcoat for "두루마기“ and rice-cake for ”떡” have limits to remind them to the mind of target readers. Therefore, it would be urgent to recognize the limitations of the existing equivalents and to try to find more suitable expressions.