ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the US government and South Koreans interacted in promoting pro-American and pro-democracy narratives through translations in the late 1940s. When the need of the United States to contain communism in East Asia and South Koreans’ aspirations to develop their fledgling country heightened, Wolgan Amerika, a propaganda magazine that mainly consisted of translations, was published by USIS Korea, an overseas office of the US Department of State. USIS Korea’s translation strategies for the magazine inevitably reflected the policies of the State Department—that is, to promote the supremacy of America and democracy. It was also highly likely that, as institutional translators, the Korean translators—who must have been loyal to America and dreamed of an America-like Korea—conformed to the translation policies of USIS Korea. Employing the socio-narrative analysis model (Baker 2006), this study shows that the US government, in conjunction with the Korean translators, successfully framed ideological narratives: “US, the benevolent, ethical and modernized world leader” and “democracy, a superior system over communism.” This institutionally driven narrative-framing project aimed to entice Koreans to desire a nation modeled on the United States and then to consolidate South Korea’s democratic system.
