Our project looks at the English and Korean versions of a collection of short stories by O. Henry. We are specifically focusing on the translation (or perhaps lack thereof) of honorific form from Korean. The honorific form in Korean grammar is used to differentiate between formal/informal speech. (It also can be used sarcastically.) There are honorific nouns, verbs, and address terms. For the sake of this project, we are focusing on verbs and address terms within dialog.
English grammar, rather, does not have an equal standard mechanism for distinguishing such. The problem is more complex. One could explore the various aspects of grammar and socioloinguistics to discover how English speakers deal with/don't deal with formality.
So, using the seperate contexts created by O. Henry, we will attempt to find any and every pattern in translation, paying particular attention to the individual characters and their interactions.