Retranslation Hypotheses and Three Korean Translations of The Martyred

Abstract

This paper is concerned with whether the second and third Korean translations of the novel The Martyred by the Korean American writer Richard Kim are retranslation or not based on Chesterman’s (2000) retranslation hypotheses. We look at the difference between retranslation and revision and discuss the validity of a descriptive hypothesis, in which retranslations tend to be closer to the source text. The second translated text is claimed to be a retranslation while the third is a revision of the second. There seems a mutual dependency between the second and the third translated text since the third revises only a small part of the second and contains a large portion of the same interpretations found in the second. We also show that Chesterman’s descriptive hypothesis is not valid for some retranslation phenomena. It is shown that revisions tend to be rather closer to the source text and to improve the quality of the earlier translations in terms of a semantic and stylistic equivalence.