Ecologies of Translation in East and South East Asia, 1600-1900 edited by Li Guo, Patricia Sieber, and Peter Kornicki, 2022
Inspired by studies of The Water Margin, the development of Chinese vernacular fijiction, and its ... more Inspired by studies of The Water Margin, the development of Chinese vernacular fijiction, and its influence in Edo Japan, this chapter moves beyond generic and societal margins-the marginalized position of xiaoshuo narrative in traditional China and the liminal social status of the protagonists of The Water Margin-to the literal margins of the page, and focuses on late-Chosŏn Korea (1392-1897) and its encounter with Literary Vernacular Sinitic through the specifijic case of one literary work and its reception in Korea: Xixiangji or The Story of the Western Wing. Through an examination of glossing, annotation, and commentary in the late-Chosŏn 'Xixiangji Glossarial Complex', this chapter tries to complicate our understanding of the history of vernacularization and translation in Korea.
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issued in the Russian Far East (RFE) between 1922 and 1937, the year all
Koreans in the RFE were deported to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and tries
to answer the questions “Can we speak of a separate ‘Soviet’ Korean written
language, and if so, what were its defining characteristics?” Moreover, “If
there was a ‘Soviet’ Korean written language, or at least the appearances of
such, was this by design or by accident?” In order to answer these questions,
the paper examines published materials in Korean from the RFE alongside
metalinguistic statements about the Korean language and Korean language
policy penned by relevant Korean intellectuals and Soviet commentators.
The main argument is that we can indeed detect an incipient case of
‘language making’ and the beginnings of a distinct ‘Soviet Korean’ written
language congealing in the years leading up to the deportation of 1937. But
this was more by accident than by design, and owed on the one hand to the
peculiar constellation of language policies, Soviet Korean language and
orthographic ideologies, and Korean dialect facts in the RFE, and on the
other hand to the relative shallowness of Korean language standardization
on the peninsula itself.
Any further developments in the way of Soviet Korean ‘language making’
were nipped in the bud by the deportation of 1937 and the discontinuation
of Korean language education in schools from 1938. As a result, written
Soviet Korean ceased to exist, and spoken Soviet Korean – Koryŏmal –
became completed “unroofed”; the Soviet Koreans became a “rag doll
nation” within the USSR, and spoken Soviet Korean/Koryŏmal became a
“rag doll language.”
The premodern inscriptional spectrum in Chosŏn Korea was not a simple binary of cosmopolitan orthodox Literary Sinitic versus vernacular Korean in the form of ŏnhae exegeses but was a range of inscriptional styles that included idu and kugyŏl. The ways in which texts were inscribed, reinscribed, and transliterated between these different inscriptional
styles, as well as the ways in which Chosŏn literati themselves understood
the notion of yŏk (譯, “translation”) challenge modern-day notions of translation, on the one hand, but also invite an understanding of them as rather more intralingual than interlingual. They also force us to ask whether LS was conceived as a “foreign” language for literate Koreans in Chosŏn. The premodern Korean cases forces us to add script and inscriptional repertoire (including notions of orthography, notational
system, munch’e 文體, etc.) to the list of the main factors that influence intralingual translation.
issued in the Russian Far East (RFE) between 1922 and 1937, the year all
Koreans in the RFE were deported to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and tries
to answer the questions “Can we speak of a separate ‘Soviet’ Korean written
language, and if so, what were its defining characteristics?” Moreover, “If
there was a ‘Soviet’ Korean written language, or at least the appearances of
such, was this by design or by accident?” In order to answer these questions,
the paper examines published materials in Korean from the RFE alongside
metalinguistic statements about the Korean language and Korean language
policy penned by relevant Korean intellectuals and Soviet commentators.
The main argument is that we can indeed detect an incipient case of
‘language making’ and the beginnings of a distinct ‘Soviet Korean’ written
language congealing in the years leading up to the deportation of 1937. But
this was more by accident than by design, and owed on the one hand to the
peculiar constellation of language policies, Soviet Korean language and
orthographic ideologies, and Korean dialect facts in the RFE, and on the
other hand to the relative shallowness of Korean language standardization
on the peninsula itself.
Any further developments in the way of Soviet Korean ‘language making’
were nipped in the bud by the deportation of 1937 and the discontinuation
of Korean language education in schools from 1938. As a result, written
Soviet Korean ceased to exist, and spoken Soviet Korean – Koryŏmal –
became completed “unroofed”; the Soviet Koreans became a “rag doll
nation” within the USSR, and spoken Soviet Korean/Koryŏmal became a
“rag doll language.”
The premodern inscriptional spectrum in Chosŏn Korea was not a simple binary of cosmopolitan orthodox Literary Sinitic versus vernacular Korean in the form of ŏnhae exegeses but was a range of inscriptional styles that included idu and kugyŏl. The ways in which texts were inscribed, reinscribed, and transliterated between these different inscriptional
styles, as well as the ways in which Chosŏn literati themselves understood
the notion of yŏk (譯, “translation”) challenge modern-day notions of translation, on the one hand, but also invite an understanding of them as rather more intralingual than interlingual. They also force us to ask whether LS was conceived as a “foreign” language for literate Koreans in Chosŏn. The premodern Korean cases forces us to add script and inscriptional repertoire (including notions of orthography, notational
system, munch’e 文體, etc.) to the list of the main factors that influence intralingual translation.
The first volume in an ongoing series of translations of classic Korean literature by the Canadian missionary James Scarth Gale (1863–1937), Score One for the Dancing Girl includes the original Literary Sinitic (hanmun) text and Gale’s English translation. Both the hanmun and English are extensively annotated. Introductory essays by Ross King and Si Nae Park discuss the yadam genre, Gale’s life and career, and the ways in which his background as a Christian missionary affected the translations.
This volume is aimed at the student with one year of Korean language study under their belt, and particularly the student who has mastered the patterns and vocabulary introduced in King and Yeon's Elementary Korean, the first book in this series.
Each of the fifteen chapters in Continuing Korean introduces new language in context, through dialogues and reading passages featuring the Murphy family and the Kim family, followed by vocabulary, grammar points, and exercises—all designed to learn Korean as thoroughly as possible. Every five chapters there is a short review section to consolidate language learned so far. All dialogues, reading texts, vocabulary words, and example sentences are given in Korean Hangul and English. An accompanying free audio-CD provides native-speaker recordings of dialogues, reading passages, and key words and phrases. Concise grammar notes in English, extensive glossaries, and an answer key make this book suitable for those studying alone, as well as for classroom use.
Korean is now the 15th most popular language taught at American universities. This new edition of Elementary Korean, the most comprehensive and detailed introductory Korean textbook available, offers beginning learners of Korean everything they need to learn the language effectively. Perfect for a first-year university-level course use or for the independent language learner. No prior knowledge of the language is necessary.
The new format, now with dozens of illustrations, presents Korean vocabulary and Korean grammar in an accessible and understandable manner while extensive conversations and exercises help to reinforce the Korean language and build reading and listening comprehension.
This edition includes:
An MP3 audio CD and dedicated website.
Rich and highly nuanced examples with brand new illustrations.
Detailed but on–technical grammar notes, ample writing exercises with an accompanying answer key.
Detailed examples of authentic dialogue.
Highly technical grammar notes.
Plenty of writing practice.
Dialogues, reading texts, and written exercises are in Hangul, the Korean alphabet, so students are quickly able to read and write authentic Korean. Layered lessons are designed to build on each other, making Korean easy to learn from the most popular introductory Korean language textbook available. Included is a revised audio CD that helps learners to speak like a native, and a web-based practice component through the University of British Columbia that can help students to learn Korean even beyond the pages of this book. According to the Modern Language Association, enrollment in Korean in American universities is growing rapidly.
Available separately is the companion Elementary Korean Workbook. This helpful workbook will assist you in practicing and polishing your Korean language skills. Each lesson supplements the corresponding lesson in the textbook. There are ten activities per lesson, offering a range of exercises and practice opportunities to enable you to achieve proficiency in everyday, conversational Korean.
It is ideal for university students and adult learners with plentiful reading texts and written exercises, all in Korean Hangul. Concise Korean grammar notes in English, extensive glossaries, and an answer key make this book suitable for those studying alone, as well as for classroom use. There are 20 comprehensive lessons, each with a reading text in which new language is introduced in context, followed by vocabulary, grammar points, and exercises. Lessons 5, 10, 15 and 20 are short reviews of the key structural patterns introduced. The focus is on written Korean, but the reading texts are not academic, they are breezy, chatty, and amusing, with illustrations.
The textbook comes with a free CD-ROM entitled Sino-Korean Companion, a supplement for those learners wishing to commence the study of Chinese characters as they are used in the Korean language. The 20 lessons on the CD-ROM build on the content of the lessons in the main textbook to introduce 500 Chinese characters in their Sino-Korean readings. The emphasis is on giving students the tools they need to decipher unfamiliar Chinese characters on their own, and also on Sino-Korean vocabulary acquisition. Each lesson introduces approximately 25-30 new Chinese characters along with related vocabulary items, and builds on previous characters and vocabulary introduced, demonstrating the cumulative effect on one's vocabulary of paying systematic attention to Sino-Korean.
The value of Koh’s essays lies in the fact that so little has been written in a critical and politically progressive vein—whether scholarly or otherwise—about the processes whereby traditional Korean inscriptional and linguistic practices became “modern”. Indeed, the one group of academics from whom one would expect assistance in this regard, the “national language studies” scholars in Korea, have been so blinkered by their nationalist proclivities as to produce little of interest in this regard. Koh, by contrast, is one of precious few concerned and engaged public intellectuals and creative writers writing on this topic in an easily understandable way. Little or nothing is available in English about modern Korean language ideologies and linguistic politics.
This book analyzes the linguistic legacies of the traditional Sinographic Cosmopolis and modern Japanese colonialism and shows how these have been further complicated by the continued and ever-more hegemonic presence of English in post-Liberation Korean linguistic life. It exposes and critiques the ways in which the Korean situation is rendered even more complex by the fact that all these issues have been debated in Korea in an intellectual environment dominated by deeply conservative and racialized notions of “purity”, minjok (ethno-nation) and kugo or “national language” (itself an ideological formation owing in large part to Korea’s experience with Japan). Koh sheds light on topics like: linguistic modernity and the problem of dictionaries and terminology; Korean language purism and the quest for “pure Korean” on the part of Korean linguistic nationalists; the beginnings of literary Korean in translation and the question of “translationese” in Korean literature; the question of the boundaries of “Korean literature” (if an eighteenth-century Korean intellectual writes a work of fiction in Classical Chinese, is it “Korean literature”?); the vexed issue of the “genetic affiliation” of Korean and the problems with searches for linguistic “bloodlines”; the frequent conflation of language and writing (i.e., of Korean and han’gul) in Korea; the English-as-Official-Language debate in South Korea; the relationship between han’gul and Chinese characters; etc.
This book will be of value to those with an interest in language and history in East Asian in general, as well twentieth-century Korean language, literature, politics and history, in particular. The book will be an unprecedented and invaluable resource for students of modern Korean language and literature.