Translation of nature scenes in fiction from Korean into Lithuanian

Abstract

Translation strategies well known to many theories of translation often do not provide recipes for the transformation of the “world vision“ represented by a foreign language and reflective of a foreign culture and nature. Comparison of translations into different languages may be revelatory of the problems the translators may encounter when translating nature from one language into another, yet balancing on intangibility of the original “world vision“. The strategies the translators are applying are also worth while reviewing, however, though legitimate in translation theory they may not be universally applicable. The translations into Lithuanian of ”Vegetarė” by Han Kang published by „Vaga“, 2017; „Prašau, pasirūpink mama“ by Shin Kyung-sookpublished by „Baltos lankos“, 2019, „Ri Džinė“ by Shin Kyung-sook published by „Balto“, 2019 all three works translated by Martynas Šiaučiūnas-Kačinskas are all appearing recently but undergoing editing and publishing process by different publishing houses in Lithuania. The weight of the literary texts and their chronology of translations and publications in Lithuania may be symptomatic of an emerging tradition of creating Korean “world vision“ in Lithuanian literary translation texts. The study will review the “mental equivalence of the texts“ to the translations of the above works appearing in other languages with the special focus on nature scenes and will try to compare the strategies of translating nature imagery by measuring the salience of the nature imagery as introduced in Langacker’s cognitive grammar terminology and identified through immediate, maximal or intermediate expression of the concept.