A Study of Discourse-Pragmatic Errors in Translations by English-speaking Korean Learners.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify discourse-pragmatic errors in the English-to-Korean translations produced by intermediate to advanced Korean learners from Englishspeaking backgrounds and analyze their causes. Previous studies have largely focused on sentence-level errors, paying little attention to errors at the discourse-pragmatic level. However, in translating a complete text, issues such as context-sensitive lexical choices, the use of topic markers, and subject omission play a crucial role. Therefore, this study aims to identify and analyze discourse-pragmatic errors found in learners’ translations.In this study, English-speaking learners were tasked with translating a folktale, and the resulting translations were examined for errors beyond the sentence level, particularly those related to contextual coherence. This study involved seven native English-speaking participants enrolled in or recently graduated from advanced-level Korean language courses. Participants were asked to translate the folktale “Little Red Riding Hood,” selected for its narrative familiarity and accessibility. Two researchers independently analyzed the translations for discourse-pragmatic errors and verified results through cross-checking. The analysis revealed not only previously discussed errors―such as the misselection of topic and subject markers (은/는 and 이/가), inappropriate use of demonstratives, omission of sentence components, and lexical choices that do not align with the context― but also additional discourse-pragmatic errors that had not been covered in prior research. These include issues related to word order affecting cohesion, incorrect use of honorifics, and difficulties in interpreting conjunctive adverbs. Through this, it was shown that learners, despite being at an advanced level, still face difficulties in using appropriate language expressions that reflect contextual information and in the proper use of text cohesion devices. This, in turn, suggests directions for future Korean translation education.