Translation Strategy for Proper Nouns in K-content: Focused on the webtoon

This paper aims to analyze the translation strategies of proper nouns used in webtoons. First, we seek to understand the meanings of proper nouns in Western and Eastern culture, and then identify appropriate translation strategies. Since the Romanization of Korean may not effectively convey the meaning inherent in proper nouns to readers of the target text, we examined previous studies on the translation of proper nouns in Western and Eastern academia to find methods for effectively communicating the author’s intentions. Given the relatively short history of webtoons and their translations compared to other fields, there is a lack of diverse prior research. However, since proper nouns in literature often exhibit deep interconnections, we drew from previous studies on translation strategies for proper nouns in literature. We categorized the proper nouns utilized in , which is a globally successful TV series based on a K-webtoon, into those indicating people, those indicating objects, and those indicating places and units. Then we classified the translation strategies used in each category.