Pragmatics in Korean and Japanese Translation

This book explores how the greater amount of pragmatic information encoded in Korean and Japanese can result in pragmatic (in)visibility when translating between those languages and English. Pragmatic information must be added when translating from English to Korean or Japanese and is easily lost when translating in the other direction.

This book offers an analysis of translations in Japanese and Korean of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and The Hobbit, or There and Back Again to show how the translated versions crystallise the translators’ interpretations of relationships in the way characters address one another. This book discusses fan translations of Korean and Japanese to English of various popular media, observing that the emotional meanings easily lost when translating in this direction are often deemed important enough to warrant the insertion of additional explanatory material. The book additionally discusses the role of fan translation in the construction of international online communities and a heightened communal commentary on translation. Western translation commentary has historically lacked sufficient emphasis on translation to and from East Asian languages, and these case studies help to address a problem of central importance to translation to and from languages that encode interpersonal dynamics in dramatically different ways to English.

This book will be of interest to students and researchers in translation studies, particularly in Korean and Japanese translation. The book will also appeal to students and researchers of the Korean and Japanese languages.

Jieun Kiaer is a Professor of Korean Linguistics at the University of Oxford. She publishes widely on East Asian translation, with particular emphasis on Korean translation. Her publications include The Routledge Course in Korean Translation (2018), Translation and Literature in East Asia: Between Visibility and Invisibility, with Jennifer Guest and Xiaofan Amy Li (2019), Korean Literature through the Korean Wave with Anna Yates-Lu (2019) and On Translating Modern Korean Poetry with Anna Yates-Lu and Mattho Mandersloot (2020).

Ben Cagan read Japanese and Korean at Oxford University from 2008 to 2013 and discovered a passion for Translation Studies while working on his graduation thesis: a data-driven stylometric investigation into the distinctive language features of Murakami Haruki as a translator. After studying law at the University of Law, London, and qualification as a financial regulation lawyer, he returned to the study of translation with a Masters in Translation at SOAS from 2017 to 2018. He has been a professional translator for several years.