earticle

영어

The purpose of this study is to identify the current status of Korea’s public sector translation and to discuss the issues and the solutions pertaining to the topic. To this end, a wide array of previous studies related to the topic were analyzed longitudinally and cross-sectionally vis à vis one another. In addition, the latest English websites of 17 government ministries were reviewed. The analyses showed that the overall quality of public sector translation has improved significantly over the past fifteen years. Meaning and grammar related errors which characterized the public sector translation two decades ago were reduced sharply. However, other issues including inconsistencies and low acceptability in the target languages were identified as emerging issues in today’s public sector translation. A critical review of English websites of government ministries showed that the websites exhibited fairly high translation quality but also that they were not free from various types of errors. Analyses of the translation handling process of a number of public institutions showed lack of 1) common standards across institutions for selecting the translators, 2) evaluation and review process for the finished translation work, and 3) database for the translated work and terminologies. Implications of these issues and suggestions for the academia are discussed.