[KS] Foreign copy-editors and polishers in Pyongyang - and Seoul?

Afostercarter at aol.com Afostercarter at aol.com
Mon May 21 06:54:17 EDT 2012


 
Dear friends and colleagues,
 
Jim makes an important point. Foreign linguistic  advisers
may get overridden - and by no means only  in Pyongyang.
 
Our List surely includes some who have  similarly proof-read
and polished in the other Korea, or are doing so right  now.
I'd be interested to hear their views and  experience.
 
This issue is almost as hardy a perennial as  romanization.
But time and again one still runs across South  Korean
websites, including those of large companies and official 
bodies, where the English just ain't  right; sometimes badly so.
 
Thus the ROK transport ministry _http://english.mltm.go.kr_ 
(http://english.mltm.go.kr) 
proclaims on its homepage: "Make Happiness, Happy  Creator".
Amen to that - but what on earth are they on  about?
 
Then again, in one classic corporate case where Koreans 
dreamed up an 'English' product name, the  LG Viewty 
has sold very well. (Viewty is  in the eye of the veholder?)
 
- Another thing. English apart, why are so many  corporate
and official South Korean websites festooned with cutesy birds  and 
butterflies, winsome kids, cartoon characters and  the like? 
Almost as nauseating, at the opposite end  of the scale, as 
North Korea's bloody rats. (Perhaps I am  hard to please.)
 
Kind regards
Aidan FC
 
 
Aidan  Foster-Carter 
Honorary Senior Research  Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds 
University, UK 
E: _afostercarter at aol.com_ (mailto:afostercarter at aol.com)      
_afostercarter at yahoo.com_ (mailto:afostercarter at yahoo.com)    W: _www.aidanfc.net_ 
(http://www.aidanfc.net/)      
W in Korea:  
_http://web.archive.org/web/20090202080126/http://aidanfc.net/index.html_ 
(http://web.archive.org/web/20090202080126/http:/aidanfc.net/index.html)  
_______________
 
 
 
 
In a message dated 5/21/2012 08:02:22 GMT Daylight Time,  
jimhoare64 at aol.co.uk writes:

I agree that KCNA did not seem to use polishers, The FLPH laid off  the 
remaining foreign staff while we were there  in 2001-02 and thereafter seemed 
to relay on Koreans - no doubt this explains  the odd language.  
But even when they did  employ foreign staff, the Korean staff would often 
override what the native  speakers had suggested.
On a slightly different  note, what use would one make of photographs of 
such people if one had  them? 
Jim  Hoare


-----Original  Message-----
From: Afostercarter <Afostercarter at aol.com>
To:  koreanstudies <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
CC: jsburgeson  <jsburgeson at yahoo.com>
Sent: Sun, 20 May 2012 18:34
Subject: Re:  [KS] Foreign copy-editors and polishers in Pyongyang


 
Dear friends and colleagues,
 
Scott raises the question of native speakers of English  (etc)
as copy-editors - also known as 'polishers' - in North  Korea.
 
Having in the past recruited at least two people for such  roles
- Michael Harrold, and the late Andrew Holloway 
_http://www.aidanfc.net/a_year_in_pyongyang.html_ (http://www.aidanfc.net/a_year_in_pyongyang.html) 
- this is a topic about which I'm curious, but not  up-to-date.
 
Michael, Andrew and others were hired by the  DPRK
Foreign Languages Publishing House  (FLPH). The texts
they worked on were mostly books, as best I  recall.
 
By contrast, I've never heard of KCNA using  foreigners.
My guess would be that they don't, given some  stilted
expressions and the odd mistake.
 
For example, surely if a native English speaker  were
involved they would have recommended a different  word
- be it technical or colloquial - for "bottom hole" in  the 
third sentence of the caption to the  cartoon below.
 
There are other linguistic infelicities here as  well,
not least the title. Either tear apart or tear to  pieces,
but not tear apart to pieces.
 
(On the substance: In my article I  likened doing the research
for this to wading through sewage. You can see  why.)
 
- But back to polishers. FLPH still uses at least one, but  he 
lives in Beijing. See an interesting interview  with Paul White
at Tad Farrell's ever more indispensable  NKNews:
_http://www.nknews.org/2012/04/the-british-voice-of-kim-il-sung/_ 
(http://www.nknews.org/2012/04/the-british-voice-of-kim-il-sung/) 
 
Kind regards
Aidan FC
 
 
Aidan  Foster-Carter
Honorary Senior Research  Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds 
University, UK
 
E: _afostercarter at aol.com_ (mailto:afostercarter at aol.com)      
_afostercarter at yahoo.com_ (mailto:afostercarter at yahoo.com)    W: _www.aidanfc.net_ 
(http://www.aidanfc.net/)     
 
**************
 

>From _http://www.kcna.kp/2mb/eindex.html_ 
(http://www.kcna.kp/2mb/eindex.html)  (cartoon  5)
 

Tear Apart Lee Myung Bak to  Pieces
The dirty hairy body of  rat-like Myung Bak is being stabbed with bayonets. 
One is right in his neck  and the heart has already burst open. Blood is 
flowing out of its filthy  bottom hole. This is not too much to Lee as he 
committed only sordid acts of  flunkeyism and treachery. And this is not all. It 
is the strong will and  pledge of the army and people of the DPRK to tear 
apart Lee Myung Bak to  pieces.
 
_______________
 
In a message dated 5/20/2012 11:27:17 GMT Daylight Time, 
_jsburgeson at yahoo.com_ (mailto:jsburgeson at yahoo.com)  writes:

Thanks for the great article, Aiden! Did you have to  put bandaids on your 
eye-balls after reading so much slashing, violent  fulmination?  


Any chance you can dig up photos of some of the foreign devils  who 
copy-edited this stuff in English? One wonders if they have PTSD  by now; hopefully 
they were sharp enough to ask in advance to be paid  in soju!




--- On Fri, 5/18/12, Aidan Foster-Carter <_afostercarter at aol.com_ 
(mailto:afostercarter at aol.com) >  wrote:


From:  Aidan Foster-Carter <_afostercarter at aol.com_ 
(mailto:afostercarter at aol.com) >
Subject:  [KS] (no subject)
To: _Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws_ (mailto:Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws) 
Date:  Friday, May 18, 2012, 9:56 AM


Dear friends and colleagues,
 
Just to let you know that the new issue  of Comparative Connections
- the thrice-yearly online journal published by Pacific  Forum-CSIS -
includes what I think is the first full account and detailed  analysis
in English of North  Korea's ongoing bloodthirsty fulminations
against South Korea and especially  its President, Lee Myung-bak.
 
 
In over 40 years of following North Korea, I've  read tons of rich
DPRK invective - but never anything as bizarre and  nasty as this.

(They don't much care for Park Geun-hye, either; for all  that she
dined with Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang less than a decade  ago.)
 
In case of interest, this article is freely available to all  at
_http://csis.org/files/publication/1201qnk_sk.pdf_ 
(http://csis.org/files/publication/1201qnk_sk.pdf) 
The full issue, which as ever also has three further articles  on Korea
covering the two Koreas' relations with the US,  China and Japan,
can be accessed at _http://csis.org/program/comparative-connections_ 
(http://csis.org/program/comparative-connections) 
 
All good wishes
Aidan FC
 
 
Aidan Foster-Carter
Honorary  Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds  
University, UK
 
E: afostercarter at aol.com     afostercarter at yahoo.com   W: _www.aidanfc.net_ 
(http://www.aidanfc.net/)    

 
 






 






 
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