Explicitation and honorifics in the Buddhist scripture translation

Abstract

In translation, explicitation refers to something that is overtly expressed and redundant in the target text. The purpose of this research is to investigate explicitation in the Buddhist scripture translation and propose the inclusion of honorific forms as a type of explicitation. The sample in the research targets the Chinese-Korean translation of the Diamond Sutra. A literature review and a descriptive approach are applied to analyze the sample. The findings indicate that explicitation primarily occurs in the domains of amplification, connectives and honorifics by transferring explicit meanings. The Korean language is more developed than the languages of any other countries across the world. Although honorific forms of any language are less developed or do not exist in source texts, they are added in the target text of the developed language. Explicitation by honorific forms is related to the disparateness of language systems and features but can be attributed to external variables, such as social status, hierarchical relations of interlocutors, and kinship. This research suggests the inclusion of explicitation by honorific forms and highlights the need to investigate explicitation based on the specificity of individual languages.