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영어

This article examines proper nouns in the Korean translation of the French picture book Ma Vallée by Claude Ponti. Ponti is known for formulating new words for use as proper nouns in his works. In Ma Vallée, they include names of characters, places, and objects, and are inextricably interwoven with the narrative development. The proper nouns are composed in diverse ways: existing words with the first letter of each word capitalized; homophonic wordplay; the combination of existing words with new ones; union of existing words with an expression of which the meaning is unclear; expressions based on intertextuality; anagrams; and meaningless expressions focused on amusing or exotic sounds. These introduced proper nouns all begin with a capital letter. Unlike French, Korean does not use capital letters as a marker for proper nouns. In the Korean translation, the category of proper nouns is preserved in two ways: the use of single quotation marks and the verbal context which surrounds the expressions in question. However, some proper nouns are converted into common nouns without single quotation marks or any contextual clues. The proper nouns are translated in following ways: translating meaning; transcription; phonetic reduction; combination of translating meaning and transcription; recreation; and deletion. The translation of proper nouns when the category is preserved than when they are converted into common nouns.