온라인상 독자들의 번역 비평

Abstract

An increasing number of general readers of translated texts assume the role of translation critics in the internet age. The ascendancy of reader-critics was brought by the enhancement of cultural and linguistic capabilities of readers, an environment allowing an easy access to foreign culture, and the development of telecommunications and internet enabling people to easily distribute their opinions on the web. In this kind of social atmosphere, mega best sellers such as Harry Potter, Da Vinci Code, and Steve Jobs in Korea as well as in other Asian countries were criticized for their low quality of translation and the lack of proper editing by many reader-critics in the past decade. Comparing the source text and the target text, they catalogue mistakes and errors made by translators—judgements made only by scholars or professional critics in the past. This paper conducted a research on the critical comments posted on the web by translation readers. This kind of comparative criticism by readers has shortcomings as it considers the source text sacred while puts the target text in the lower and submissive position and berates translators as incompetent or ignorant. But, the expansion of readers' role has brought a new era where not just scholars, publishing companies, and policy makers but readers can affect how the translation is done.