의역(意譯)의 계보

Abstract

This paper aims to retrace the genealogy of the concept of the free translation (意譯) in the Northeast Asian languages including Korean by comparison with western major languages like English, French and German. For this purpose, we decided to examine first the different terms related to this concept and their semantic configuration over Asian and European languages. After making a repeated search in a variety of language dictionaries as well as in the glossaries and the encyclopedia of the translation studies, we were led to think that freedom from the original, semantic transfer, and target-orientedness constitute the principal characteristics of the concept of free translation. Next, we tried to restitute the origin and the formation of the free translation concept by examining past key texts on translation and historical researches on the subject matter. Finally, we proposed a kind of guide to the free translation as a result of our investigation.