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ABSTRACT
In the most recent feminist movement in South Korea, women challenged misogynist discourses in various ways. They made vicious comments about those who created and disseminated misogynistic discourses. They also strongly demanded a revision of misogynistic texts and boycotted cultural products in which women were described inappropriately. Against this backdrop, the present study examines misogynistic paratexts of translations published in South Korea to show how gender ideology could affect the reception and revision of paratexts and how closely translations and paratexts could be interrelated in a feminist context. The paratexts examined in this article are (1) a translator’s postface, (2) a subtitled trailer, (3) transcreated movie posters, and (4) promotional web-texts for a localised mobile game. These paratexts were strongly criticised and revised in a way that reflected particular gender perspectives. The article concludes with brief discussion about paratext-readers, paratext-creators, and relations between paratexts and translations.
Acknowledgments
The author is very grateful to the editors and reviewers for their insightful suggestions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1. Topics addressed in these studies are not mutually exclusive.
2. The postface did not receive much attention until late May 2016, right after the Gangnam murder case. The translated book was first published in 2012.
3. Radical feminists in South Korea often use jargon related to men’s genitals.
4. Kim (Citation2012, 18–19) examines 52 translated books and argues that the translator tends to perceive the author as ‘an object of respect … and friendship.’ Lee (Citation2020, 7) argues that ‘[the translator’s] sense of transnational solidarity with the author’ is one of the most pronounced themes in prefaces in translated feminist books.
5. Some mentioned in their blog/SNS posts that they had checked the main subtitles at cinemas.
6. RBG was the second woman to serve on the US Supreme Court. In South Korea, two books and two movies about her life and career were released between October 2016 and May 2019.
7. The poster images cannot be reprinted in this article. For a better understanding of how the Korean posters may be received, check https://www.huffingtonpost.kr/entry/notorious-rbg_kr_5cef2a01e4b00cfa1965d217.
8. The third and fourth posters were shown next to each other, so the character appeared to have changed into different clothes for a formal event.
9. There were other similar examples: ‘セクシーなJK’ (high school girls who are sexy) → ‘매력적인 여고생’ (high school girls who are attractive) and ‘リップクリームぬったげる. これって間接キスかな~?’ (I’ll apply my lip balm to you[r lips]. Is this an ‘indirect kiss’?) → Omission.
10. In this context, Megal-Theatre means Milli-Theatre tainted with Megalian feminism. Megalia is an online community for radical feminists.
11. The original comments are not currently accessible to the public.
12. The company also created a bulletin board in which users can make suggestions about translations. https://cafe.naver.com/imasmltheaterkr
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Sang-Bin Lee
Sang-Bin Lee is a professor in the Department of English for International Conferences and Communication at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, where he teaches translation and consecutive interpreting. He is a member of the presidential committee of the Korean Association for Translation Studies (KATS). He has published in internationally recognised journals such as The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, Perspectives, Interpreting, and Babel.