History and challenges of translation and interpreting in Modern Korea

Abstract

Abstract In 1979, a graduate school with a hitherto unusual name opened its doors at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, the ‘Graduate School of Simultaneous Interpretation’, as the school GSIT, HUFS was called at that time. Up to then, translation and interpreting had not been considered as proper occupations in Korea. It was actually not known which people with what kind of qualifications performed translation or interpreting. It was therefore a completely novel idea that translators and interpreters should be trained at a higher education institution. Yet, GSIT proved to be a huge success. GSIT attracted a great deal of public attention and many talented young people. The hitherto accumulated T&I needs in society and the trend of globalization played their part in GSIT’s popularity. As the only educational institution for T&I for the first 18 years and beyond, GSIT has written key chapters in the history of T&I in modern Korea. This paper summarizes GSIT’s footsteps in order to discuss the developments of the past four decades in Korea in T&I education and studies, in the T&I profession and the economic and socio-cultural aspects of those developments. Based on the results of the discussion, the current situation of T&I in Korea is observed with a focus on ‘professionality’ so as to identify tasks for the future.