독자 반응을 통한 한·영 간 색채의식 차이 연구 — 한강의 『채식주의자』와 그 영역본 중심으로 —

Abstract

This paper aims to discern how translated versions of color terms elicit different responses among readers and to decide what factors cause such differences. As concluded from the interviews with Korean readers of the novel chaesikjueuja written by Han Gang and English readers of The Vegetarian, its translated version in English, the readers of the two languages exhibited different emotional responses to specific colors, in particular black, white, and blue. The responses were also different when the translator failed to convey the culturally-dictated subtle nuances of the derivative color terms in the source text; and when the translator decides to divert from the source text and give special nuances to the sentences by using different color terms. The conclusion of this research is that color perceptions surely have universality among different languages as stipulated by Kay and Berlin(1999). Cultural relativity, however, also plays a significant role in color perceptions, as evidenced by the results of the interviews conducted for this paper. These findings present a practical challenge for the translator as much as a research challenge for translator researchers.

This paper aims to discern how translated versions of color terms elicit different responses among readers and to decide what factors cause such differences. As concluded from the interviews with Korean readers of the novel chaesikjueuja written by Han Gang and English readers of The Vegetarian, its translated version in English, the readers of the two languages exhibited different emotional responses to specific colors, in particular black, white, and blue. The responses were also different when the translator failed to convey the culturally-dictated subtle nuances of the derivative color terms in the source text; and when the translator decides to divert from the source text and give special nuances to the sentences by using different color terms. The conclusion of this research is that color perceptions surely have universality among different languages as stipulated by Kay and Berlin(1999). Cultural relativity, however, also plays a significant role in color perceptions, as evidenced by the results of the interviews conducted for this paper. These findings present a practical challenge for the translator as much as a research challenge for translator researchers.