Correlation between cultural distance and acceptance of transliteration : Comparison of Korean menu translation in English and Japanese

Abstract

This study identified correlation between cultural distance and acceptance of transliteration by surveying reader response to Korean menu translation in English and Japanese. First, the study reviewed the standard translation guideline for translating the names of Korean foods to English and Japanese released by the National Institute of Korean Language (NIKL). The portion of transliteration strategy in English (1.7%) was much lower than that in Japanese (11.5%). Second, the study conducted a quantitative survey of 300 respondents to examine the understanding and acceptance levels of native speakers. Native English speakers displayed a very low acceptance for transliteration (meaning-19.0%, expression-21.6%) compared to Native Japanese speakers (meaning-39.3%, expression-38.6%), and respondents who were more familiar to Korean culture showed higher acceptance to transliteration, empirically proving that there is an inverse correlation between cultural distance and acceptance of transliteration. The study showed that reader response research to transliteration can be used as a tool for gauging the cultural distance between source culture and target culture.