The Discursive Memory: Difficulties in the translation and in the analysis of presidential commemorative discourse in South Korea

Authors

  • Iolanda PRODAN Universitatea „Al. I. Cuza” din Iaşi

Keywords:

commemorations, commemorative discourse, politics of memory, Asian Rhetoric

Abstract

This article is focused on the main challenges in translating and analyzing South Korean commemorative presidential discourses. Drawing on the latest theories on the translation of political discourse and the politics of memory and commemorations, the article presents some critical points in approaching the translation and interpretation of some controversial concepts such as “the history problem”, “settling the terms with the past”, “the correct understanding of history” as well as the metaphorical names given to the official South Korean commemorative holidays. The analysis shows that translating a genre of political discourse is not just an issue of linguistic skills, but also a matter that requires a deep understanding of the socio-political and cultural context in which a discourse on history and national identity is being articulated and disseminated.

References

ACHUGAR, Mariana. 2008. What We Remember. The construction of memory in military discourse. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

AHN, Byung-ook. 2002. „The Significance of Settling the Past in Modern Korean History”. Korea Journal 42(3): 7-17.

BÁNHEGYI, Mátyás. 2014. „Translation and Political Discourse”. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica 6 (2):139-158.

BIETTI, Lucas M. 2011. „The commemoration of March 24th, 1976. Understanding the exceptionality of the present political discourse about the «Dirty War» in Argentina”. Journal of Language and Politics 10 (3): 347-371.

CASEY, Edward. 2009. Remembering. A Phenomenological Study. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

HAHM, Chaihark. 2009. „Ritual and Constitutionalism: Disputing the Ruler's Legitimacy in a Confucian Polity”. The American Journal of Comparative Law 57(1): 135-203.

JENSEN, J. Vernon. 1987. „Teaching East Asian Rhetoric”. Rhetoric Society Quarterly 17(2): 135-149.

JENSEN, J. Vernon. 1992. „Values and Practices in Asian Argumentation”. Argumentation and Advocacy 28 (4):153-166.

JON, Sun-gi. 2010. „Towards a Rhetoric of Communication, with Special Reference to the History of Korean Rhetoric”. Rhetorica XXVIII (3): 313-239.

KIM, Choong-nam. 2007. The Korean Presidents: Leadership for Nation Building. Norwalk & Connecticut: East Bridge.

KIM, Mi-kyoung, SCHWARTZ, Barry. 2010. Northeast’s Asia Difficult Past: Essays in Collective Memory. Basingstoke, GB: Palgrave Macmillan.

KWON, Heonik. 2013. „Legacies of the Korean War: Transforming ancestral rituals in South Korea”. Memory Studies 6(2): 161–173.

LEVY, Daniel, SZNAIDER, Natan. 2006. The Holocaust and Memory in the Global Age. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

LEVY, Daniel, SZNAIDER, Natan. 2010. Human Rights and Memory. University Park, PA: Penn State Press.

LEW, Seok-Choon, CHOI, Woo-Young și WANG, Hye Suk. 2011. „Confucian Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism in Korea: The Significance of Filial Piety”. Journal of East Asian Studies 11: 171-196.

MININNI, Giuseppe, MANUTI, Amelia și CURIGLIANO, Graziana. 2012. „Commemorative acts as discursive resources of historical identity”. Culture & Psychology 19(1) 33–59.

MOON, Seung-gyu. 1974. „Ancestor Worship in Korea: Tradition and Transition”. Journal of Comparative Family Studies 5(2): 71-87.

OLIVER, Robert. T. 1954. Syngman Rhee: The man behind the myth. New York: Dodd Mead

OLIVER, Robert.T. 1962. „Syngman Rhee: A Case Study in Transnational Oratory”. The Quarterly Journal of Speech XLVIII (2):115-127.

PARK, Chong-Min, SHIN, Doh Chull. 2004. „Do Asian Values Deter Popular Support for Democracy? The Case of South Korea”. Asian Barometer 26. Taipei: National Taiwan University /Academia Sinica.

PYE, Lucian W. 1985. Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimension of Authority. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press.

REISIGL, Martin. 2017. „The semiotics of political commemoration”. În The Routledge Handbook of Language and Politics, editată de R. Wodak și B. Forchtner, 368-383. Oxon &New York: Routledge.

SAITO, Hiro, WANG, Yoko WANG. 2014. „Competing Logics of Commemoration: Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism in East Asia’s History Problem”. Sociological Perspectives 57(2):167– 185.

SAITO, Hiro. 2017. The History Problem. The Politics of War Commemoration in East Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

SÁROSI-MÁRDIROSZ, Krisztina. 2014. „Problems Related to the Translation of Political Texts”. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica 6 (2): 159-180.

SCHÄFFNER, Christina. 1997. „Strategies of Translating Political Texts”. În Text Typology and Translation, editată de Anna Trosborg, 119-143. Amsterdam Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

SCHÄFFNER, Christina. 2004. „Political Discourse Analysis, from the point of view of Translation Studies”. Journal of Language and Politics 3(1):117-150.

SCHUMACHER, Daniel. 2015. „Asia’s ‘Boom’ of Difficult Memories: Remembering World War Two across East and Southeast Asia”. History Compass 13 (11): 560–577.

SHARIFIAN, Farzad. 2012. „Linguistic Theory and Cultural Conceptualisations”. Journal of Language, Culture, and Translation 1(3): 93-110.

SHARIFIAN, Farzad. 2017. Advances in Cultural Linguistics. Singapore: Springer Nature.

SHUTER, Robert. 1999. „The Cultures of Rhetoric”. În Rhetoric in intercultural contexts: International and Intercultural Communication XXII, editată de A. Gonzalez și D. Tanno, 11-18. California: Sage Publications.

SHUTER, Robert. 2011. „Robert T. Oliver: Trailblazer in Intercultural Communication”. China Media Research, 7(2): 21-126.

SOH, Sarah. 2008. The Comfort Women. Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

TODOROV, Tzvetan. 2003. Hope and Memory. Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

TROSBORG, Anna Trosborg. 1997. „Translating Hybrid Political Texts”. În Text Typology and Translation, editată de Anna Trosborg, 145-159. Amsterdam Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

ZERUBAVEL, Yael. 2014. „«Numerical Commemoration» and the Challenges of Collective Remembrance in Israel”. History and Memory 26 (1): 5-38.

Downloads