박목월 문학의 재인식과 현재성 : 신경숙의 ≪엄마를 부탁해≫ 프랑스어 번역본에 관한 고찰

Abstract

Please Look After Mom, is composed of four chapters and epilogue. The author sets the eldest daughter, eldest son, and husband as the main character of the first three chapters each, who confess their feelings of guilt about disappearance of their mother and wife. Uniquely, the story is developed from the Mom’s perspective throughout the novel, with the first and third chapters written in the first person point-of-view, while the second chapter written in the third person point-of-view. Please Look After Mom was translated into both English and French. While the English version is generally considered to succeed in a faithful translation of the original, though criticized for incomplete transmission of the meanings of the source text due to a domesticating translation, the French version, Prends soin de maman, has more serious problems. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the problems of the French version by comparing it with the English version. First, the French version has lots of inaccurate translation that may result from a lack of understanding of the original. Such inaccuracies frequently failed to highlight the delicate style of writing unique to the author. Second, the English version utilized the soliloquies or thoughts of the characters in a free direct speech in the first person in the same way as the original, and marked them in italics. It would have helped make a clear distinction of this kind of soliloquies from others. In contrast, unlike the original, the soliloquies or thoughts of the characters were translated in a free indirect speech in the French version. It might have caused some confusion about whom these soliloquies belong to. Finally, while the source texts were translated faithfully in the English version, they weren’t in the French version. This translational unfaithfulness in the French version is considered to result from the various causes, including the omission, excessive abridgment, and redundant explanation of the contents of the original as well as the arbitrary insertion of the contents that do not appear in the original. While the literal translation, used in the English version, is thought to have successfully conveyed the contents of the original stories, the excessive liberal translation, used in the French version, seems to have failed to get an achievement as good as in the original. We have a prejudice that “natural translation” should be done with a liberal translation, not with a literal translation. Although the English version of Shin Kyung-Sook’s novel, Please Look After Mom, also contains faults which are mostly related to a domesticating translation, its success in gaining public favor by the faithful translation using a literal translation suggests that the literary translators keep this in mind to improve the quality of their translation.Kim, Kyunghee. 2015. A study on Prends soin de maman. Shin Kyung-Sook’s novel, Please Look After Mom, is composed of four chapters and epilogue. The author sets the eldest daughter, eldest son, and husband as the main character of the first three chapters each, who confess their feelings of guilt about disappearance of their mother and wife. Uniquely, the story is developed from the Mom’s perspective throughout the novel, with the first and third chapters written in the first person point-of-view, while the second chapter written in the third person point-of-view. Please Look After Mom was translated into both English and French. While the English version is generally considered to succeed in a faithful translation of the original, though criticized for incomplete transmission of the meanings of the source text due to a domesticating translation, the French version, Prends soin de maman, has more serious problems. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the problems of the French version by comparing it with the English version. First, the French version has lots of inaccurate translation that may result from a lack of understanding of the original. Such inaccuracies frequently failed to highlight the delicate style of writing unique to the author. Second, the English version utilized the soliloquies or thoughts of the characters in a free direct speech in the first person in the same way as the original, and marked them in italics. It would have helped make a clear distinction of this kind of soliloquies from others. In contrast, unlike the original, the soliloquies or thoughts of the characters were translated in a free indirect speech in the French version. It might have caused some confusion about whom these soliloquies belong to. Finally, while the source texts were translated faithfully in the English version, they weren’t in the French version. This translational unfaithfulness in the French version is considered to result from the various causes, including the omission, excessive abridgment, and redundant explanation of the contents of the original as well as the arbitrary insertion of the contents that do not appear in the original. While the literal translation, used in the English version, is thought to have successfully conveyed the contents of the original stories, the excessive liberal translation, used in the French version, seems to have failed to get an achievement as good as in the original. We have a prejudice that “natural translation” should be done with a liberal translation, not with a literal translation. Although the English version of Shin Kyung-Sook’s novel, Please Look After Mom, also contains faults which are mostly related to a domesticating translation, its success in gaining public favor by the faithful translation using a literal translation suggests that the literary translators keep this in mind to improve the quality of their translation.