earticle

영어

Han Kang’s novel Human Acts adopts seven different points of view from seven persons who know Dong-ho, the protagonist, or ‘the boy’ in the novel. Each chapter is narrated by one of these seven persons, and the novel does not readily reveal their identities. This particular type of narration requires the Korean reader to actively engage in ‘motivation search’ to downgrade the ‘informativity’ of the characters. This novel deals with a historical event that is at the fore of the Korean people's consciousness, and that is the Gwangju Uprising. This event is far less well known to English readers. This unique narrative style and the knowledge gap about the Gwangju Uprising between Korean and English readers make the translator’s role even more important. This paper explores the strategies used by the English translator, Deborah Smith, to reduce the informativity for English readers. It reveals that the translator actively attempted to facilitate the reader’s forward downgrading of the informativity by changing chapter titles, inserting subtitles, and presenting information in advance. In order to relieve the reader’s outward search effort, the translator provided an introduction, added detailed information, and domesticated some information that is key to conveying the theme of the novel. She even eliminated the need for motivation search by deleting some information on minor characters, plots, and background information, and in the process, the translator lowered the overall informativity of the novel enough for the English reader to easily understand and enjoy the novel.