《老乞大谚解》类诸版本翻译问题研究 —— 以“却”字为中心

Abstract

“Nohgeoldae (老乞大)” is one of the earliest Chinese language conversation books for Korean speakers that were found in Korea. The book contains many sets of Chinese dialogues that had been used in the late Koryo and Chosun periods, and the corresponding Korean ones. Among the various versions of Nohgeoldae that have been found until now, the most famous ones are: “Nohgeoldae Translation(翻译老乞大)”, “Nohgeoldae Annotation(老乞大谚解)”, “Old Version of Nohgeoldae Annotation (旧刊老乞大谚解 )”, “Later Version of Nohgeoldae Annotation(老乞大新释谚解 )” and “Revised Nohgeoldae Annotation(重刊老乞大谚解)”. All of these versions are made up of medieval Chinese language dialogues and the translated ones in the medieval Korean language. With a close comparison between the original Chinese dialogues and the translated ones, it can be known that a lot of mistakes have been made in the process of translation into the Korean language. In particular, in terms of the sentence elements divided into the function and non-function words, many problems have been identified in non-function word translation. An in-depth look at what mistakes have been made sheds light on the reality of Chinese language education in medieval Korea. In the medieval age, China was a very important country to Korea, and as a result, Chinese language education had weight with the then Koreans. Nevertheless, that education was not provided in a systematic way. “Nohgeoldae (老乞大)” and other materials designed for Chinese language education show that Chinese language education during the Chosun period was so focused on “Saseookyeong (四書五經)” that few studies on language education―especially on the usage of non-function words―was carried out. This study is to examine in what process the word “却” was grammaticalized during China's Won period by analyzing the pattern of translation mistakes shown in the five versions of “Nohgeoldae (老乞大),” and to look into the reality of Chinese language education in medieval Korea.