English Translation of Korean Classics I

 

  English translation of Korean classics introduces the potential for Korean people’s world views, value systems, and beliefs to be portrayed to the international community and concurrently promotes the study of the vivacity and diversity of Korean culture. The necessity of exposing Korean culture to foreign countries has been especially felt among scholars of Korean literature and history.  In The Golden Bough (1920), Sir James G. Frazer does not mention any materials concerning Korean folklore though he introduces the myths and legends of the Chinese and Japanese people. The book explores all the mysteries of religion, magic, superstition, mythology, and primitive customs that have been diffused in all parts of the world, and it is regarded as an indispensable book for the study of modern literature. Korean classics hold the rich cultural capacity of Koreans and reflect their traditional intellectual energy, so they are worth being rendered into foreign languages and shared by the global community. English translation of Korean classics also leads to revitalizing the traditional framework of Korean culture with new challenges, new avenues of enquiry, and new perspectives on pursuing such enquiry because the underlying properties of the Korean mind, language, and culture have to be reproduced in the English language, which has different ways of thinking and distinct linguistic patterns. Translation is a process of intercultural communication. The translation of Korean classics aims to enable adequate communication to take place across cultural barriers. The work of translation involves revealing Koreans’ culturally-conditioned behavior and thinking, while considering the traits of English-speaking people.
  Korean classics are a treasure of the Korean literary corpus, which also includes many myths, legends, anecdotes, and encompasses religion as well as history, geography, archaeology, architecture, and the arts. For instance, Overlooked Historical Records of the Three Korean Kingdoms (삼국유사) deals with legends related to the foundation of various old Korean kingdoms, revealing the phases of Korean ancestors’ old social life, economy, culture, and thoughts. It furnishes ample data on their traditional manners and customs, whose traces are still found in modern Korean culture. The Korean myths, legends, and folklore are valuable documentary evidence for the study of Koreans’ archetypal mindsets. Korean classics usually uncover the culturally conditioned behavior and thinking of the Korean people and clarify their cultural personality and identity. English translation of Korean classics has recently been impelled by much contention over the history of the Koguryeo Kingdom. Chinese historians are currently trying to claim this history through a state-led research effort called the “North Asia Project.” The proliferation of misinformation regarding Koguryeo threatens to compound the problems facing western scholars who wish to include Koguryeo in their research or curricula on Korean culture. The English versions of Korean books related to Koguryeo and its culture can promote comprehensive, multidisciplinary Koguryeo-based studies in the English language because the versions not only discuss its origin and historical development and archaeological remains, but also clarify the foundation of the Korean tradition of a racially and culturally homogeneous nation that started with the Ancient Joseon (고조선) Kingdom.
  English translation of Korean classics serves to elucidate the cultural patterns, themes, and postulates presented in the Korean text, considering the norms prevalent in the English culture. Korean and English discourse have their own specific ways of expression that are associated with different social contexts. Such translation should tackle the issue of socio-cultural practices, their role in discourse production, and their wider implications. Translation leads the translator to realize that a translator takes on a wide range of responsibilities that go far beyond linguistic mediation. He or she is continuously engaged in a decision-making process because he or she has to acquire a set of norms for determining what appropriate behavior is for a translator in Korean society. A Korean-English translator does not simply transfer phrases and sentences across a linguistic boundary but plays a trans-cultural role in which he or she should consider that the Korean and English cultures possess different modes of text development, with particular preference for some modes over others. Such predilections reflect different world views and are influenced by socio-cultural factors such as personality, and aptitude, in addition to cognitive, personal, instructional and affective variables.
  Many constraints are placed on the translation process by the socio-cultural content of communication. The translator of English editions of Korean classics endeavors to recognize the ideological and cultural background presented in the Korean text by the author and to open the way to realize the overall meaning potential at the other end of the communicative channel. For example, Father Bang Yoo-Ryong (방유룡), the founder of the “Clerical Congregations of the Blessed Korean Martyrs,” explicated his new concepts and interpretation of Christianity from the perspective of Korean values and norms, identifying Holy Communion as “the form of wheat paste” (Myeonhyeong [면형] in Korean) and ideal Christians as “the selfless in the form of wheat paste” (Myeonhyeong Mua [면형무아]). Father Bang coined those Koreanized Christian terms, inspired by Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, to chart the distinctive territory of Korean spirituality. Thus, English rendering of Korean words and phrases should consider the cultural background, potential and energy they are capable of generating. Special attention is basically paid to the transforming of the Korean texts and their content in a more or less linear sequence into linguistically equivalent English texts. The translation is not guided by the Korean text alone, but has to consider, in addition, the English-speaking cultures’ conceptions of social institutions, religious spirituality, and linguistic norms. However, the textual profile of the English edition is not established merely for the realization of communicative functions. English editions of Korean classics do not undergo radical modification in the interest of the English reader, but rather translators endeavor to achieve an equivalence between the Korean and the English text that allows the English text to be considered as a translation of the Korean text in the first place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

저작권자 © Chonnam Tribune 무단전재 및 재배포 금지