A Study On The Chinese-Korean Translation Of Cultural Items In Contemporary Children'sLiterature

The number of Korean translations of Chinese children's literature has been rising rapidly, due to increased cultural and economic exchanges between the two countries. However, only a few studies about the Korean translations of Chinese children's literature have been done, focusing merely on the translation strategies. Comprehensive studies on the translation of children's literature are still lacking.The present study thus tries to research the translation of cultural items in contemporary Chinese-Korean children's literature within a wider context. Firstly, this study tries to examine, from a socio-cultural perspective, what translation strategies are adopted in dealing with cultural items by analyzing 10 representative books, considering the socio-cultural constraints involved in the translation process such as ideology, or the publication system of the target language society. Secondly, it examines to what degree these socio-cultural factors affect the cultural context adaptation at the textual level. The present study will employ a case study as research methodology.Specifically, it aims to shed light on the implications of how the adopted strategies affect actual target readers' reception, by conducting 30 target child readers' response questionnaires. According to my knowledge, it might be the first paper to examine the readers' response to the Korean translation of children's literature through empirical research conducted by questionnaires.Research findings show that 1) both domesticating and foreignizing strategies have been employed in translating cultural items of all categories in contrast to the overall opinion of domesticationg for children's literature, which actually conforms with this paper's main statement that there is no absolute method of domesticating or foreignizing strategies; 2) foreignizing methods were not well accepted by child readers, most target readers prefer naturalization; 3) socio-cultural factors such as the publication market, ideology, translators' or society's attitude toward children in the target culture affect significantly the procedure of translation, cultural context adaptation and choice of translation strategy. These findings will be a useful reference to set out expectancy norms applicable to translations of Chinese children's literature.