「葉桜の季節」に翻訳を想うということ－叙述トリックの韓国語訳の特徴－

Abstract

This paper focuses on the narrative trick in a Japanese detective story, and discusses what factors could cause the readers’ misconception about the age of the characters and how these factors are translated into Korean. The results are as follows: One of the factors that causes the difficulty of translation is that the narrative trick is based on the characteristics of Japanese usage of address-terms. In Japanese, sometimes we call a member of the family by the address-term from the point of view of the youngest member of the family. For example, “ojii-san” literally means “my grandfather”, but when the woman who has a grandchild use it, the term could also mean “her husband”. Korean has a similar characteristic, but it is not quite the same as Japanese. Besides, the respect for seniors is regarded as more important in the Korean language than the Japanese language, so it is difficult to keep the equivalence between source text and target text. Secondly, this book gives some hints including unique Japanese culture or custom for readers to reach the truth, as well as the tricks set to deceive them. However, for Korean readers who are not familiar with them, those hints would be meaningless. Cases of this type can be seen in the following items: the usage of teenage slang by the elderly, the elderly's leisure activities, a concrete noun (the name of a real place) and the model number of mobile phones for the elderly. Lastly, this paper points out the difficulty of translating things from Japanese which includes Japanese people’s feeling for them. Japanese people have special feeling for cherry trees. They appreciate not only the blossoms but also the leaves, and differentiate “cherry blossom falls” from “cherry trees in leaf” even if these indicate the same season. In this book, “cherry trees in leaf” implies the elderly’s vital energy. The Korean language does not have the equivalent word for “cherry trees in leaf”; therefore, it fails to tell the theme of this book the author set.