Transformation of Civilization Considered from the Vocabulary of Early-Modern Bilingual Dictionaries in Korea and Japan: Focusing on ‘Transportation’ and ‘Circulation’
Paying critical attention to the concept of ‘transportation’ and ‘circulation’, this essay examines the collection status of vocabulary in bilingual dictionaries of various languages in early-modern East Asia. By doing so, it follows the trajectory of translingual practice, and clarifies a part of the transition of modern East Asian civilization. The research method in this study is as follows. First, it confirms the concepts of ‘交通 (kotsu, kyothong)’ and ‘流通 (ryutsu, yuthong)’ by defining a monolingual dictionary in Japanese and Korean. Next, it selects words representing each concept after investigating the translation (English) of a modern Japanese-English dictionary and Korean-English dictionary. The translated words corresponding to those representing the concepts are extracted from some major early-modern bilingual dictionaries of Japanese and Korean. It, then, analyzes the aspect of changes from the late 19th century to the early 20th century by looking into the translations of those extracted (Japanese and Korean). Based on the above-mentioned research and analysis, it reveals significant developmental characteristics in translating the concept of ‘transportation’ and ‘circulation’ in East Asia.