영한 번역에서 ‘-은/는’과 ‘-이/가’의 선택 문제: 한국어 모국어 화자의 번역 양상 고찰

Abstract

This study examines the translation problem of choosing the topic marker “eun/neun” or the subject marker “i/ka” in English to Korean Translation. For native speakers of Korean, the markers “eun/neun” and “i/ka” are intuitively distinctive, and the decision which of the two to use is made naturally, without difficulty. However, when translating English into Korean, choosing “eun/neun” or “i/ka” can be challenging. The language difference between English and Korean interferes with the native speaker’s intuition. When translating English―a language without markers such as “eun/neun” and “i/ka”―into Korean, determining which particle to use after the subject-functioning noun phrase can be demanding. This study looks into English-major undergraduate students’ translation samples and analyzes their use of “eun/neun” and “i/ka” when translating the “A is B” type English sentence into Korean. While translating the same sentence, the students made different choices: some used “eun/neun,” others used “i/ka,” and still others used both. The problem lies in that “eun/neun” or “i/ka” is not a direct translation of the English verb “is.” The key to the problem is to know the difference in syntactic structures of the two languages: English is a “subject-prominent” language, whereas Korean is a “topic-prominent” language. Some scholars say Korean is a language that is both “topic- and subject-prominent.” After explaining different meanings and usages of the markers “eun/neun” and “i/ka” in the Korean language, the study suggests possible approaches to translating the “A is B” structure (in English) into Korean.