This study set out to research Chinese translation skills for popular Korean movies, which promoted Korea's language and culture throughout Asia beyond the Chinese-speaking countries, and to establish a systematic and objective translation process.
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This study set out to research Chinese translation skills for popular Korean movies, which promoted Korea's language and culture throughout Asia beyond the Chinese-speaking countries, and to establish a systematic and objective translation process.
Although there are many studies in which the scholars researched translation and reported on its diverse concepts and theories, they all fail to provide a clear answer to "What is translation?" We can't, however, afford to neglect research efforts on translation because translation is one of the essential elements in our obtaining knowledge and communicating with others. That's why it's important to collect, categorize, conceptualize, and arrange difficulties with translation. Such efforts will definitely perform a critical role in systemizing translation theories.
Translation is categorized into document, book, machine, and film translation, which is further divided into dubbing, caption, and voiceover.
This study investigated the Chinese translation skills for popular Korean movies based on the captions of My Sassy Girl, which took China by storm as part of the Korean Wave. Before studying caption translation skills, the investigator examined the title translation skills. When translating the titles of Korean movies into Chinese, they most used literal translation, which was followed by translation by borrowing Chinese words, broad translation, and granting new meanings.
In applying caption translation skills, the followings should be taken into account:
First, there are limitations with the length of captions. One line should not have more than 13 characters, and one scene should not present three lines or more at a time.
Second, the translator should use the colloquial style as much as possible.
Third, it's allowed to omit or add words as long as they don't distort the original intent.
Fourth, when the source screen language is difficult in terms of concept, broad, or ambiguous, the translator should make it specific according to the situation of the target screen language by using a concrete word.
Fifth, since Korean(SOV) and Chinese(SVO) have different word orders and thus have core contents in different positions, the translator should change the word order properly according to the core contents.
And sixth, the translator should make efforts to choose accurate terms and proper corresponding expressions when translating technical terms, which allow for the only 1:1 correspondence.
And the followings should be considered in translating cultural differences:
First, many countries using the Chinese characters experience clear differences in idioms, which calls for a need to be well aware of phrases, proverbs, maxims, and idiomatic words and translate idioms to fit the custom of the target screen language.
Second, both Chinese and Korean have relatively well developed slang and vulgar expressions. The translator should be careful to regulate the intensity of those expressions not to make the audience feel disgusted or resistant.
Third, one of the characteristics of Chinese is to turn all loan and foreign words into Chinese. Therefore, the translator should pay attention to the Chinese expressions of loan and foreign words.
Fourth, the terms of address in the source screen language should be replaced with those in the target screen language used in the same kind of situation by considering the emotions and culture of the latter.
And fifth, weights and measures should be converted into those used in the target screen language. The translator should try his or her best to reduce the possibility of understanding to the minimum by searching for more accurate terms if the audience is likely to be confused with the conversion.
In the study, the investigator examined the Chinese translation skills for Korean movies by contrasting and analyzing the Korean and Chinese scripts of My Sassy Girl in addition to the title translation skills. I analyzed several translation skills with examples, identified problems, and offered my personal opinions. If the results are combined with those of future studies on mistranslation and concrete alternatives to problems, they will contribute to a solid theoretical system of translation and the better practice of translation.