한-EU FTA 협정내용 번역불일치의 사회기호학적 조망 - 민변 반박사례를 중심으로

Abstract

The paper examines 207 Korean mistranslations found in Korea-EU Free Trade Agreement to identify their features and analyze the causes, such as cultural differences, translators’ incompetence and intentions and translation practices. Considering the fact that the mistranslations were found in an inter-state agreement, they should be seen not as mere translation errors, but as translation gaps(번역 불일치), which are attributable to the Korean government’s attitude toward the European Union and the United States as a subordinate trade partner. In other words, the free trade agreement was translated into Korean without any mutual discussions with the writers of the original English version of the agreement. The unilateral translation encouraged Korean translators to believe that they just need to translate EU’s requests without considering whether they comply with Korean laws. To put it socio-semiotically, the translators set EU's requests, instead of the negotiated contents, as their object to work on and regarded the translated Korean-version of the FTA just as a representation. This turned the original English version into an interprestation that needs to be interpreted in the future by Korean companies for its full meaning. As an organization to exercise the nation’s sovereignty, the Korean government should review based on semiotic principles whether the Korea-EU FTA complies with the existing Korean laws, so that both Korean and English version of the agreement could be translated into any direction – from English to Korea or vice versa - without any changes in meaning, since they should duly enjoy equal legality.