Translation is to produce a receptive target language from a meaning of starting language between two languages-regarding many definitions of translation. On this progress, it needs some intervention to negotiate the differences from two different lan...
Translation is to produce a receptive target language from a meaning of starting language between two languages-regarding many definitions of translation. On this progress, it needs some intervention to negotiate the differences from two different language and cultural background.
Korean and Japanese are very close in language and culture, but those languages and cultures are so different that there is need to intervene in translation process.
Therefore, this study tried to find better strategy and solution for Japanese-Korean translation by considering translator's intervention during its process. For this, I defined translator's intervention as "translation shift" in influence of Catford(2000) and categorized those translation shifts. Then I studied the reason and aspects of those types of translation shifts in each textual level. First, I divided translation shifts into 'obligatory shift' and 'optional shift' according to its occurrence, and divided into 'substitution', 'insertion', 'ellipsis' and 'word order transition' according to its shape. And I rebuild and used the categorization that consists of 'word level', 'grammatical level', 'textual level' and 'pragmatic level' in influence of Baker(1992).
The text for analysis were Japanese-Korean translation works-10 of literary works and 10 of nonliterary works. I built a corpus for content and quantitative analysis- Starting Text(ST), Target Text(TT) and Direct-Target Text(DTT); which is well translated following its original shape for comparing to target text.
For content analysis, I did more specific research on where, how and why the translation shift occurs by comparing ST, DTT and TT. Furthermore, I researched the strategic effect of translation shift into three-'explicitation', 'generalization' and 'simplification' by using concept of 'universals of translation'. Then I did quantitative analysis on the relationship between translation shift and quantitative elements of text.
Here is the result of content analysis;
1) From analysing types of translation shift according to textual level, I found that 'substitution' type is found over all level.
2) 'insertion', 'ellipsis' and 'word order transition' types have the effect on higher textual level even they occurred on lower textual level. For example, when 'word order transition' occurs, that translation shift belongs to grammatical level. However, word order has strong relationship with topic structure and stream of information so that the actual effect of this translation shift tends to be found on textual level.
3) I found the negative effect of translation shift as the translation strategy besides its original intention. For example, too much 'explicitation' could disturb readers since too long translated text(TT) and too much 'generalization' could harm author's original intention in use of marked expression and structure.
Following are the results of quantitative analysis on the relationship between each element of translation shift types and quantitative elements of text.
1) The number of characters and length has relationship with three types of substitutions-'substitution', 'insertion', and 'ellipsis'- and in Japanese-Korean translation, TT has less number of characters and shorter sentence than ST.
2) In the number of phrase, it has small differences between Japanese ST and Korean TT very little around one on each sentence. The translation shifts related to the number of phrase, 'insertion', 'ellipsis' occurred in relatively similar ratio then conclusionally the number of phrase doesn't have big change.
3) In comparison between DTT and TT, I analyzed the types of word of two since TT has sino-Korean word and loanword, like ST has but TT has different types of words. As a result, TT has less sino-Korean word and loanword than DTT. It shows the change of type of word during 'substitution' among the translation shift and tends to be fond upon literary works. I found that there are more translator's intervention into literary translation than nonliterary translation.
4) For finding the diversity of vocabulary upon literary, nonliterary text and ST, DTT, TT, I analyzed a ratio of 'type versus token'. As a result, literary text has more vocabulary diversity than nonliterary text and ST has more than TT. It has samel result with the former studies about universals of translation. However, considering the analysis the ratio of 'type versus token' from ST, DTT and TT, the difference between ST and DTT shows the 'possibility of intervention' and the difference between DTT and TT shows a degree of intervention. Then I found that literary text has more possibility of intervention than nonliterary text,
From above content analysis and the relationship with quantitative elements, I have a conclusion like following.
1) From the analysis of types of translation shifts to each text type, when translation shift is needed, translator should consider the textual level of occurrence and actual effect.
2) There is a possibility to lose author's intention from ST, as side effect, when translator makes translation shift for 'explicitation', 'generalization and 'simplification'. Then translator needs to consider which is better way in conflict between effect and loss of translation shift for minimizing the loss of ST.
This study has limit of sample number on analysis, however it has value on quantitative assessment on effect of translation shift on texts by quantitative analysis with content analysis to categorize types of translation shift. Also, this study has value on systematic describing the reasons and aspects of intervention occurring on progress of translation by analyzing very closely those types of translation shift in viewpoint of contrastive linguistics and text linguistics, I hope that the finding of this study can be helpful resource on actual work and education of translation. and be useful primary data for future research and study about the aspects and quantitative analysis of Japanese-Korean translation.
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