Abstract
This paper explores limitations and problems occurring in the process of indirectly translating the korean novel Please Look after Mom into Thai using English as the vehicular language. This paper explored cases in which the equivalence of translation was damaged or mistranslation occurred, analysing these by focusing on the mistranslation of cultureme. Cultureme has been classified as including Norms, Ideas, and Material. According to this study’s results, in the Norms category, after the pronoun, cognate language, and terms of address were expressed in English, they became highly unnatural expressions in the Thai language or did not properly express family relationships, producing mistranslations. Regarding living customs, after the Korean customs and lifestyles with which Thai people are familiar were retranslated using poor vocabularies, they were translated into English, reducing equivalence. In the Ideas category, after traditional beliefs related to rites of passage—such as marriage or death—practiced by both Koreans and the Thai, and related world views, were translated directly into English, they were retranslated insufficiently or omitted. Lastly, in the Material category, after vocabularies related to Korean food culture—well known to the Thai—were translated into English, mistranslations and lack of equivalence resulted in ambiguous expressions.
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Notes
In 2007, the Man Group, a sponsor of the Man Booker Prize, the most authoritative literacy award in England, established the literary prize to be awarded to Asian authors.
Sales surpassed two million copies on April 23, 2012 (Korean Publishers Association 2012).
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WszLL2Owk8A.
Written interview with Ratchaneewan Phuanghimmawan, Rights Executive of Maeban Publishing, 22 February 2014.
Romanization of Korean is in accordance of Romanization of the Korean National Institute of the Korean language.
Chi-Young Kim, interview, Yonhap News, April 10, 2011.
As different scholars use the term differently, it is sometimes called ‘mediated translation’ or ‘double translation’. This study uses ‘indirect translation’, which Landers (2001) uses.
Romanization of Thai is in accordance with Royal Institute of Thailand’s Romanization rule.
Many studies have been conducted on differences in expressions of humility between the East and West. In particular, many interesting studies on differences in cultural communication between Korean and English speakers appeared presented after the 1990s (Okabe 1983; Ogawa and Gudykunst 1997; Lim and Choi 1996; Merkin 2009). The results of the studies confirm that cultural differences between the East and West, especially Korean and English speakers, manifest in the use of Korean and English languages.
ST refers to Source Text (Original text), MT refers to Mediating Text (English translation) and IT refers to Indirect Translation (Thai translation). All subsequent quotations are indicated in the text with the page number in parentheses.
The National Institute of the Korean Language. Retrieved from www.korean.go.kr.
This means mid-Autumn and is often called a holiday of the moon. As this is the season in which five grains become ripe, agriculture is abundant. While certain solemn seasonal customs, where people hold memorial services for ancestors occur, there are also many seasonal customs where people play delightfully (Retrieved from http://folkency.nfm.go.kr/sesi/index.jsp).
Dhammathai. Retrieved from www.dhammathai.org.
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Interview
Phuanghimmawan, R. (2014, February 22). [Email to Park, K. E].
Literary texts in analysis
ST: Shin, K. S. (2008). Eommareul butakae (
). Paju: Changbi Publishers.MT: Shin, K. S. (translated by Kim, C. Y.). (2011). Please Look After Mom. New York: Knopf.
IT: Shin, K. S. (translated by Uppayokhin, K.). (2012). Mae…Huajai Thi Haipai. Bangkok: Maeban Publishing.
). Paju: Changbi Publishers.Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Research Fund of 2015.
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Park, KE., Shin, KH. & Kim, KS. Research on limitations of indirect literary translation and aspects of cultural vocabulary translation. Neohelicon 42, 603–621 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-015-0298-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-015-0298-5