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영어

Two conflicting opinions exist on the footnotes among the translators. While those who are in favor of their use argue that the footnotes are essential for the complete understanding of translation, the opponents argue that they are nothing but the unnecessary comments appended to the text.
Among 216 Korean literatures translated into French, a total of 1,437 footnotes appeared in 136 literatures and no footnotes in the remaining 80 literatures. This probably means that the footnotes are important to the translators who translate Korean literature into French.
To know if there are certain vocabularies or contexts for which the translators use the footnotes, the footnotes were categorized according to their usage. Among 1,437 footnotes, those explaining the cultural terms were most common, seen in 877. Others included those explaining the proper nouns related to the traditional Korean holidays, the names of places, and the names of historical figures, seen in 392; those explaining the contents of the text, seen in 96; those explaining the terms derived from foreign languages, seen in 55; those either explaining the idiomatic expressions that were literally translated or showing literal translations that were liberally translated, seen in 42; those explaining the meaning of Chinese characters, seen in 15; and those explaining play on words, seen in 11.
In conclusion, the translators who translate the Korean literature into French use the footnotes to help the readers better understand the literature they translate, most commonly to explain the cultural differences. Although the footnotes are not essential for the understanding of the literature translated, a substantial number of the footnotes are used to inform of Korean culture. Although the footnotes are valuable to overcome the cultural differences, however, there may be situations that should be cautious about the use of the footnotes, such as those containing the information that is completely wrong, those containing the contents that should be changed because of the periodical change, and those providing the information of the text that should be left in the hands of the readers.