Browsing by Author "Rahikkala, Sari"

This thesis examines the translation choices made in the Korean subtitle translation of the American teen comedy film Mean Girls (2004). English translations of Korean films and television shows have been drawing the interest of researchers due to the substantial differences between both the languages and cultures of South Korea and Anglo-American countries. However, much less research, especially in English, has been conducted on the Korean translations of films originally in the English language. This study analyses the Korean subtitle translation of Mean Girls specifically from the perspective of cultural terms using Jan Pedersen’s Extralinguistic Cultural References theory (2011), as well as the overall approach of the translation through the concepts of Foreignization and Domestication, two translation approaches introduced by Lawrence Venuti (1995). In addition, the specific challenges that subtitling as a translation form presents are also discussed. The analysis of the collected data showed that the overall Korean subtitle translation of Mean Girls leaned towards the Domestication approach while simultaneously utilising translation methods the characteristics of which lean towards Foreignization. Furthermore, the results suggested that the translation form of subtitling likely resulted in more translation choices that lean towards Domestication, thus affecting the decisions of the translator. This thesis thus reenforces the notion that a translator must carefully consider not only the source text and the target audience and their cultural background and knowledge, but the form of the translated material as well as its intended goals when making translation choices.