earticle

영어

Picturebooks are often used to teach children about death and grieving. Interestingly, the majority of children’s picturebooks that deal with death in Korea are not original creations but translations from foreign languages. Against this backdrop, this study explores how the concept of death is translated in children’s picturebooks in Korea. A total of 14 picturebooks translated from English into Korean were selected and analyzed for shifts in expressions dealing with aspects of death or grief. Major shifts were found in passages that referred directly to death or dying, the protagonists’ reaction to death, death-related rituals (i.e. funerals and burials), and the afterlife. Some TTs purposefully avoided direct translations of death-related terms, which they compensated for by exaggerating the reaction of the bereaved, sometimes leading to different expressions of emotion or actions in comparison to the ST. The analysis suggests that the topic of death and grief is still somewhat taboo in Korean culture.