HUFS School of English for Interpretation and Translation (Chair Yoon Seon-Kyung) and HUFS Career Development Center invited English-language film translator Darcy Paquet to give a special lecture on May 6, 2021 (Thur.). His one-and-a-half-hour lecture began at 11:30 a.m. online via Zoom. The lecture was joined by some 200 HUFS undergraduate, graduate and doctorate students and faculty and staff members with deep interest in screen translation.
The lecture entitled ‘Korean Films and Subtitle Translation’ was moderated by Yoon Seon-Kyung, Chair of HUFS School of English for Interpretation and Translation, who also organized the lecture. Chair Yoon was motivated to offer the lecture out of her awareness from literary translation studies that translation is not a simple matter of converting one language to another, but rather a complex and creative process and not easily replaced by AI. Before the lecture, she expressed her hope that the lecture would highlight the significant role of translation in promoting Korean culture overseas.
Having translated the subtitles for Bong Joon-ho's four-Oscar-winning Parasite, Park Chan-Wook's The Handmaiden and nearly 100 other Korean films, Darcy Paquet is an American film critic and lecturer specializing in Korean cinema.
In the lecture, he outlined how subtitle translation works. Sharing his real experiences of translating the subtitles for Parasite, The Handmaiden and Himalaya, he detailed various issues, including what to consider due to the space and time limits imposed by the medium and culture-specific texts and what impact close cooperation with a producer or director has on subtitle translation. He further elaborated on how creative a process subtitle translation is, what to consider when translating humor and how literary translation and audiovisual translation differ. Throughout the lecture, he shared with the audience his actual translation experiences, lessons learned and his lifelong quest as a translator.
In the following Q&A session, the participating students asked him about how to reflect different level of politeness in translation, how to become a subtitle translator and other practical matters, and he answered each of the questions in a sincere and passionate manner. Despite being online, the lecture received a great deal of attention and praise, earning the rating of “100% satisfying” in a student satisfaction survey conducted by HUFS Career Development Center. In fact, most of the student audience remained enthusiastic throughout the Zoom session and did not want it to end.
