『채식주의자』한영번역과 한일번역 비교 연구 - 고맥락 vs 저맥락 문화 차이에 따른 번역 전략

• Published in: 통번역학연구 Vol. 29; no. 3; pp. 1 - 27
• Main Author: 박미정
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Korean
• Published: 통번역연구소 31.08.2025
• Subjects: 통역번역학; visibility; literary translation; explicitation; 문학 번역; 명시화; 고맥락/저맥락 문화; high-/low-context culture; 충실성; fidelity; 가시성
• ISSN: 1975-6321; 2713-8372

This study compares the English and Japanese translations of The Vegetarian (Part I) by Han Kang, focusing on how translation strategies differ according to high-context and low-context cultural frameworks. The analysis centers on three scenes—Yeong-hye’s physical description, her husband’s self-characterization, and the “Dreams of murder” passage—to identify how each translation negotiates cultural and interpretive shifts. In the English version, the translator employs a range of explicitation strategies to accommodate low-context readers, manifested in four main types: explicitation with deletion, judgmental insertion, mistranslation, and addition. These strategies often restructure the original’s implicit tone, emotional ambiguity, and narrative restraint into clarified and interpretively guided expressions, leading to semantic and stylistic shifts. In contrast, the Japanese translation demonstrates high fidelity, preserving the original’s indirectness, lexical nuance, and affective texture in line with high-context communication norms. This comparative analysis shows that literary translation is not merely linguistic transfer but a culturally embedded act of interpretive reconstruction. The study concludes by emphasizing the pedagogical implications of training translators to recognize contextual asymmetries, navigate the ethical boundaries of interpretation, and maintain the tonal integrity of high-context narratives.