Hello Yeonwoo!

Thank you for such an interesting question!

Indeed I believe it is becoming more and more common with gender-neutral pronouns being used in many official documents, at least in English that is. The tricky part of it is when translating one language cannot necessarily incorporate things as well as the other and how translators should approach with such languages. In my opinion, I do think it is very important to get rid of obvious gender-stereotypical pronoun usages, for instance, “she/her” for all nurses or “he/him” for all plumbers in a broad sense. However, I believe it needs to be approached carefully especially when the linguists believe it may cause confusion or mistranslation. So I guess the bottom line is prioritizing the accuracy of the translation while being aware and actively using gender neutral pronouns. On that note, I do think it has gotten definitely more common nowadays to use “they/them” instead of specifying “he/him” or “she/her” in English but it still feels quite vague in Korean.

Long story short, I do think this is important and all linguists should factor it in but I also would like to reassure you that you will not need to worry about this in this course!

I hope this is clear.

Best regards,

Mason U, CMI-Korean
Business Interpretation and Translation in Korean (BIT-K) Instructor

Yeonwoo Min님의 댓글

Yeonwoo Min 쪽지보내기 메일보내기 자기소개 아이디로 검색 전체게시물 Date 23-05-19 07:07

Thank you for your kind reply. Since I enjoy readings, I could recognize the usage of sex-neutral pronouns in some Korean literatures - which is fortunate, since it helped me to know different world- and I agree with your opinion that it is still vague in Korean writings. Your reply makes me to think deeply about how translation can specify a person withoug using sex specifying pronouns, erasing the stereotypes rampant in our society. Again, I thank you for your kind reply.

Sincerely,
MIN Yeonwoo