초록
영어
This paper examines the use of the topic marker nun and the topic- comment construction in English-Korean simultaneous interpretation. The nun-marked topic in a topic-comment construction has been analyzed during the recent years by discourse and conversation analysts as having two discursive functions: a "forward-looking" function, which ties the topic to the prior discourse and a "backward-looking" function, which relates the topic to the subsequent discourse(Bak, 1991; Kim, 1999, 2001; Lee, 1986; Hwang, 1987). In this paper, it is argued that the function of the topic marker nun is strategically exploited by English-Korean simultaneous interpreters to relieve time and information processing constraints. Based on an analysis of two sets of interpretation data, nun is examined as a reformulation organizing device for simultaneous interpreters using Korean as a target language. It is proposed that nun functions to achieve discursive coherence and economy of expression in interpretation, to coordinate word order differences between Korean and English and to create syntactic flexibility in the interpreter's structuring of utterances. The findings suggest that language-specific devices such as the topic marker nun present real options as a reformulation strategy in actual interpreting settings and underscore the importance of exploring language-specific issues to overcome linguistic and information processing constraints in simultaneous interpretation.