Forward or foreword?

By Kim Ji-myung

I was lucky to have my first contact with a native English speaker several decades ago, in my first year of middle school. A once-weekly English conversation class was organized by some insightful parents, outside the regular school schedule; the teacher was the wife of an American embassy employee.

My classmates well remember the moment of our great surprise when we found she could not guess what “omu-ra-is” meant. We could not believe that it did not sound like an English word to a native ear, and the correct name “omelet over fried rice” was too alien to all of us.

If you can order food in this country in Korean or in Korean-style English, and then get the food you want, there is no problem. This is because language is for communication and if your message gets across, the purpose is accomplished.

However, when it comes to a book published in English, it’s a different story.

Producing printed material in English means introducing it into the enormous world of English publications. It may be attractive in appearance, but if it is not understandable you are wasting your time and money.

Recently, I had a chance to evaluate the quality of content and style of production of the English publications of a national academic organization. This approach, having somebody from outside scrutinize and comment on the publications, is itself highly commendable. It means they are aware that the situation is by no means satisfactory, and they are ready to improve it.

I am also working on an “English Style Manual” for a public museum in Seoul. For this job, I used as reference the 2010 Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition) and many other manuals of academic and artistic organizations, including UNESCO; most of them use the “Chicago” as their foundation.

Why do we need a manual for using English? Because there are established rules, orders and customs in using the language, and we should follow them in order to create publications of decent quality. Looking back, I don’t remember learning anything about such rules for using English in practical application. The lack of education about international “rules and standards” in Korean schools dawned on me long ago when I first looked up “Robert’s Rules of Order.” The first edition was compiled in 1876 by U.S. Army Colonel Henry Martyn Robert while the current 11th edition of 2011 is entitled Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised.

I suspect that not many Korean politicians have heard of this book on the basic procedures of discussion meetings. Properly respecting other’s opinions and sharing time and opportunity during meetings requires training. I think English is a most rational and democratic language, and English teaching needs to incorporate these desirable social factors.

Some months ago, I deplored in my column that Korean leaders just don’t place due importance on texts written in or translated into English. When you don’t understand the language, you don’t see the difference between expressions. When you don’t take the matter seriously, you don’t care about the accuracy or quality of the statements about it.

Is it a foreword or a preface or an introduction, for example, that the museum director writes for a catalogue of an exhibition of the museum? All three terms can be translated as the same word in Korean. Therefore, a translator can randomly use any of the three English words as the title of the text if he/she does not clearly understand their different usages.

A foreword is written by an outsider, usually an invited expert or a dignitary, to publicize the value and significance of the book to the audience. For a highly popular book, a foreword may strongly affect commercial success. By the same token, genuinely academic publications don’t carry a foreword.

A preface covers the overall background information of the book, how it was first conceptualized, how the work went, and so on. An introduction is a kind of summary of the contents of the book; readers are told what can be expected in the chapters of the book. Usually, the author or main editor writes those.

What impression will you get from a book, if not only the use of foreword, preface and introduction but even the words “foreword” and “forward” are confused? Well, those two look quite similar, and they are very easy to confuse; however, that doesn’t justify misuse of one in place of the other. It would be like foreign students of Korean language mixing up the Korean word for a teacher (seon-saeng) with that for a fish (saeng-seon). A Korean would never confuse them, and the mistake cannot be allowed.

I was deeply disappointed to see that the staff in charge of English publications did not show any feeling of guilt or urgency about their many mistakes in their use of English. Efforts to be precise and accurate in the very basic details are the cornerstones for next steps of intellectual pursuit. I had to suspect that their lack of strictness is not limited to productions in foreign languages.

I am afraid the general standards of intellectual workmanship have continuously been slackened in recent years in our nation. I still hope that this impression proves to be mistaken. Can this be said to attest to the “decline of collective intelligence” on the part of Korea, of which Japanese business strategist Kenich Ohmae recently warned about in Japanese society?

The writer is the chairwoman of the Korea Heritage Education Institute (K*Heritage). Her email address is Heritagekorea21@gmail.com.