Staff profile

I am a Convenor and Assistant Teaching Fellow of Korean, and currently teach Korean stage 1 and 2 modules. In addition, I am a professional freelance interpreter and translator of Korean<>English, and a member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. I have completed PG CAP, Module 1 (Post Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice).

 After completing a doctorate in English at Durham in 2008, I taught at several South Korean universities for four years. I was a visiting professor in English literature and language at the University of Ulsan, where I also held the position of Senior Researcher at the Interpretation and Translation Centre (2009–2011). I taught as a Lecturer at Chung-Nam National University, Hanyang University, and Inha University. In addition, I worked as an in-house translator/interpreter at the Daejeon Metropolitan Government in South Korea. In the UK I worked as a Teaching Fellow of Korean at the University of Leeds (2014–2017), Tutor of Korean Specialised Translation for the MA in Translation Studies (MLAC, Durham University, 2012–2015), and Teaching Assistant at the Department of English Studies (Durham University).

As a freelance translator, transcriptionist, proofreader and editor, I have long-term, extensive experience working on a wide range of projects including major legal cases and parole reports for both Scottish and English courts, fiscal reports for major companies, a range of medical documents and reports, and promotional material for art, film, and fashion. As an interpreter (face-to-face consecutive interpreting/simultaneous interpreting), I have interpreted global conferences and symposia, including speeches of former UK Prime Minister John Major, the leader of the Labour party Jeremy Corbyn, and the current co-leader of Green Party, Caroline Lucas.

My teaching and research interests lie in connecting the Korean and British cultures by focusing on the use of language in their literature. I am interested in comparative literature and cultural transactions between Korea and the Anglophone world. I am currently working on a book translation, Excuses for Freedom (first edition 1993) by Sin Cha Hong, Korea’s first avant-garde dancer and choreographer, and one of the most acclaimed dance artists in the world from 1980s.

Memberships

• Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists (MCIL)
• Member of the H. G. Wells Society

Other professional achievements

• External Examiner of Korean Beginners, Elementary, and Intermediate, University of Manchester. 2015 – present
• Deputy Manager of International Relationships Team for the Organising Committee of the 60th International Astronautical Congress (Daejeon, South Korea)
• International Conference Co-organiser. ‘We Speak a Different Tongue’: Maverick Voices and Modernity, 1890–1939: 5-6 July 2013, Durham University
• Reviewer for The Wellsian (H. G. Wells Society, UK)

• Korean language learning
• Teaching Korean as a second language
• Literary translation
• Comparative literature & culture
• Korean crime fiction
• Language and culture

Book review

• Choi, Y. (online). Review of Sergey Tyulenev, Translation and Society: An Introduction (Routledge, 2013)
• Choi, Y. (online). Review of Hala Halim, Alexandrian Cosmpolitanism: An Archive (Fordham University Press, 2013)

Chapter in book

• Choi, Y. (2015). Last Attempt at Romance: Wells Reworking Stoker’s Gothic Romance. In T. Eds. Patterson, & Y. Choi (Eds.), We Speak a Different Tongue: Maverick Voices and Modernity 1890–1939. Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Edited book

• Eds. Patterson, T., & Choi, Y. (Eds.). (2015). We Speak a Different Tongue: Maverick Voices and Modernity 1890–1939. Cambridge Scholars Publishing
• Eds. Boyiopoulos, K., Choi, Y., & Tildesley, M. B. (Eds.). (2014). The Decadent Short Story: An Annotated Anthology. Edinburgh University Press

Journal Article

• Choi, Y. (online). The Bi-Cycling Mr Hoopdriver: Counter-Sporting Victorian Reviving the Carnivalism. Critical Survey,
• Choi, Y. (online). Jimmy Goggle the God. The Explicator,
• Choi, Y. (online). The Wonderful Visit and the Wilde Trial
• Choi, Y. (online). Jokes and Drink”: Bakhtinian Carnivalism in Wells’s “Aepyornis Island. The Explicator,

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Choi, Y. (2015). Richard Strauss, Adriane auf Naxos
• Choi, Y. (2015). Giuseppe Verdi, Don Carlos