AbstractsPhilosophy & Theology

Honorifics in Korean Drama: a Comparison of Translation Procedures between Amateur and Professional Subtitlers

by Joyce van Rossum




Institution: Leiden University
Department:
Year: 2015
Keywords: Korean Drama; Translation Procedures; Amateur Subtitles; Fansubs; Fansubbing
Posted: 02/05/2017
Record ID: 2064598
Full text PDF: http://hdl.handle.net/1887/34591


Abstract

This thesis summarises some of the research done on fansubbing. Most of this research is anime-centred. However, another genre where fansubbing has become common practice is the focus of this thesis, namely Korean drama. One of the characteristics of fansubbing discussed in this thesis is that many fansubbers have appropriated a foreignizing style of subtitling, instead of domesticizing. I suspected that this was true for the fansubbers of Korean drama as well. To investigate whether this was the case, I focussed on one specific aspect of the Korean language, which is the intricate system surrounding Korean honorifics. I chose to focus my analysis on four Korean age-related honorifics, hyung, oppa, noona, and unni and I compared the translation procedures applied to these terms by both amateur and professional subtitlers. I followed Henrik Gottlieb’s method on extra-linguistic entities to classify the translation procedures found in the subtitles as either foreignizing or domesticizing. The fansubs of the first drama, Coffee Prince, contained many foreignizations, while the fansubs of the second drama, Reply 1997, contained fewer foreignizations. This difference may be the result of the increasing amount of legal online streaming sites where fansubbers subtitle Korean dramas for free or it could be coincidence. More research is needed on fansubbing as it cannot yet be said with certainty that the conclusions drawn from anime-related research apply to other genres as well. Advisors/Committee Members: Dorst, A.G (advisor).