「Jabberwocky」의 포트맨토 어휘의 번역에 대한 연구

Abstract

Building upon previous research on nonsense literature and translation studies, this paper aims to explore the role and the importance of portmanteau words that are deployed in Jabberwocky and to illustrate how such devices are transferred in English-Korean translation. Nonsense is a kind of “paradox” or textual double bind. It is both free and constrained. It tells the reader to abide, and not to abide, by the rules of language (Lecercle 25). It should be noted that Carroll’s “paradox” and subsequent “rejection” and “subversion” of the “sense world” are mainly driven by the use of newly created portmanteau words, making St. Jerome’s widely accepted maxim “non verbum e verbo, sed sensum exprimere de sensu (not word for word, but sense for sense)” unfit in the translation of Jabberwocky. Hence the translator must seek to have a clearer understanding of the value that source text portmanteau words possess and attempt to retain and recreate the value of the target text portmanteau words. As for the research data and procedure, this study uses the translations of four target texts and classifies the portmanteau words into three categories―verb, noun, and qualifier. Then, for each category, this paper illustrates and evaluates whether the target text succeeds in reproducing “parallel value,” thereby retaining Alice’s feeling of awkwardness and enchantment and eventually reviving Carroll’s “imaginary” and “pleasant” nonsense world, thereby enabling Alice and readers cross the frontier of the sense world. The author hopes the research will contribute to triggering further discussion on the translation of nonsense literature and to offering guidelines for those in the translation profession.