Abstract
A Comparative Study on the Two Korean Versions of Jin Yong’s The Return of
the Condor Heroes
HUANG, ZHI-JUN
Department of Chinese Lang. &. Lit.
Graduate School of Soongsil University
This thesis is designed to study the whole translation activity under the guidance of the benefit theory through conducting a contrastive analysis of the two Korean versions of the Return of the Condor Heroes written by Jin Yong(Louis Cha), the famous swordsman novelist in China. The two versions respectively are the Star of Hero published by Koreaone press in 1986 and the Return of the Condor Heroes published by Gimmyoung press in 2005. The interval of the issue dates of two versions is up to 30 years, so there is a difference in the social background, audiences, the translation organizational form and the translation principle of two versions, which leads to the “cultural discount” and a great difference in the sale volume. In order to supplement and differ from the belletristic translation study, this thesis focuses on the translation of martial art among the popular literature. The popular literature possesses more audiences than that of pure literature, so the author takes lessons from the theory of audience analysis, combining the traditional and pure comparative study on the translated text with various sociological theories. Seeing from the perspective of translation criticism, this thesis can be categorized into the cultural study on the translation work and history.
This thesis consists of six chapters from introduction to conclusion.
The first chapter reveals the research motivation, describes how to select and confirm object of study and designs the proper research technique. This theme is a new attempt for translation study without no available research achievement, so several necessary basic concepts of audience theory are introduced during discussing research technique to set up the research direction of this thesis eventually.
The second chapter gives a brief account of Jin Yong’s life and swordsman literature and especially studies the basic information of the research object the Return of the Condor Heroes and the Korean versions. Jin Yong’s early experience offers him abundant source of creative writing. His works is gradually recognized by the educational circles and is translated and published in the entire world, including in Korean, numerous Korean versions of Jin Yong’s swordsman novels create gorgeous sales record.
The third chapter makes a comparison of the production mechanisms of translation from the origin of translation activity, involving publishing agency, translator, copyright and the organizational form of translation activity. Generally, the topic design of publishing agency is performed around the profit and the current social need, and otherwise it can not reach the anticipated sale goal. The translator is the key role who directly participates in the translated version, and the readability of text will have a direct influence on the benefit effect. However, the translation activity of translator is restricted by publishing agency, Copyright Law and the organizational form. The organizational form of translation activity contains the cooperative translation and the independent translation. The cooperative translation means that many translators complete the translation together, the process is scattered but the ultimate goal is to reach the perfect unity, which requires a qualified gatekeeper. The independent translation is the standard translation flow, which can guarantee the unity of translation but sets a relatively high standard for the translators.
The fourth chapter conducts a comparison of two Korean versions from four aspects, style of translation, text structure, literary quotation disposal and tone change of figures. It is not a technical linguistic comparison but takes investigating the cultural difference as the fundamental objective. It lays emphasis on whether the style conforms to the reading habit of Korean readers or not, the division of text structure is reasonable or not, the additions and deletions and substitution of literary quotation is proper or not, the tone of figures in dialogue conforms with the context or not, the class title is appropriate or not.
The fifth chapter is the core of this thesis, carrying out a comparison of enjoyment modality of Korean versions. The audiences 30 years ago greatly differ from the present audiences in educational background, psychological need and preference and orientation. The proximity of Chinese and Korean culture leads to numerous audiences of swordsman novels in both countries while the cultural difference of two countries gives rise to the cultural discount of translation. Besides, the advance in science and technology makes the society develop into the stage of consumer culture from the stage of aesthetic culture and meanwhile the reading culture of audience changes accordingly.
The last chapter is the conclusion, reviewing the research thought of the whole thesis and revealing the limitation of this thesis. In view of the innovation of this thesis, the author still gives some suggestions for the new direction of translation study.
The Korean versions of Chinese swordsman novels retain great potentials for further exploration, however the current translation achievement shares the common character that literature tendency is overweight. Besides, extreme dependence on the secondary affects the reliability of translation achievement. The author takes advantage of plenty of first hand information and attempts new angle to study translation and compose this thesis as a researcher, holding that it will provide certain assistance for the cultural translation research.
Key words: Jin Yong, swordsman novels, translation studies, Korean versions, the Return of the Condor Heroes, copyright, cooperative transl
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