감탄사 ‘아’의 음향적 특징과 번역 양상:｢오징어 게임 시즌 1｣ 청각장애인용 영어자막 중심으로

Abstract

This study examines how the acoustic properties of the Korean interjection “Ah” are represented in English subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (SDH), using Squid Game Season 1 as a case study. A total of 125 tokens produced by the main character Gi-hun were analyzed using Praat and classified into four pitch categories: low, mid, high, and tracking loss. The results reveal systematic differences in SDH translation strategies across pitch types. Low-pitch realizations, which serve primarily discourse-related functions with minimal emotional involvement, were frequently omitted in both standard subtitles and SDH. Mid-pitch realizations were rendered using interjections such as “Ah” or “Oh” to convey intonational variation. High-pitch realizations, associated with strong emotions, prompted SDH to add reinforced visual cues such as exclamations, emotional phrases, or vocatives. Tokens with tracking loss were generally omitted, but selectively visualized when perceptually salient. Overall, the findings highlight SDH as a multimodal translation system that visually re-encodes auditory cues based on emotional intensity and perceptual salience.