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영어

Kim, Jin-AhㆍKim, Ji-Eun. (2018). Cultural-Semiotic Examination of Problematic Chinese Translation of Korean Food Names: Focus on Reader Acceptability. Interpreting and Translation Studies 22(2), 51-75 Public translation is an integral part of effective national branding strategy. As a type of public translation, translation of Korean food names specifically requires a culturally informed approach along with linguistic analysis given the inextricable relationship between a country's culture and food names. In this light, this study applies cultural semiotics to the analysis of Chinese translation of Korean food names with particular regard to their cultural significance. Semiotics, pioneered by F. Saussure and subsequently branched out into various areas of research, provides analytical framework to various research fields including language, arts, and media. Cultural semiotics, a subdiscipline of semiotics most notably presented in the theories of C. S. Peirce and Y. M. Lotman, treats culture as the most overarching unit of “text” created by signs and studies everything incorporated within this text. Food embodies the cultural, historical, and social characteristics of its country of origin; translators of food names must share a collective memory to identify the signifieds (signifié) behind them. Therefore, translation of Korean food names calls for analysis beyond linguistic aspects of translation – cultural analysis is instrumental to this endeavor. This study examines native Chinese speakers' reception of 480 Chinese translations of Korean food names proposed by the National Institute of the Korean Language. I selected the proposed translations that have low reader acceptability among native Chinese speakers in a survey conducted by Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and discussed their problems from a cultural-semiotic perspective.