Considering Gender when Translating Dialog in Literary Text from Korean into English and Russian: the Case of “Twofold Song” by Yi Mun-Yol

CEESOK Journal of Korean Studies. 2014. No. 15.

Soldatova M.

The gender of interlocutors is one of the important factors that influence conversations. Meaning that gender in distinction from sex refers to the cultural traits and behaviors deemed appropriate for men or women by a particular society, of special interest is the question how the gender affects the usage of language in such different societies as Eastern, Western and Russian (as something in the middle). Some peculiarities of men’s and women’s ways of speaking are almost the same in Korean, English and Russian being primarily determined by biological sex, but others should be transformed and carefully reproduced in the target language in the process of translation to be interpreted correctly by readers. “Twofold song” by Yi Mun-yol provides us with good material for examining gender factor, because dialog, understanding and misunderstanding between man and woman is the essence of this text, and gender dichotomy (men’s as social, outer, etc. versus women’s as private, inner) is superseded by dichotomy of outer and inner as it is at the very end.

Keywords: Korean literature, Yi Mun-yol, translating dialog