Researcher

Associate Professor Mira Kim

My Expertise

Translation Studies; Functional Linguistics; Personalised Language Learning

Fields of Research (FoR)

Translation and Interpretation Studies, Discourse and Pragmatics, Linguistic Structures (incl. Grammar, Phonology, Lexicon, Semantics), Applied Linguistics and Educational Linguistics

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Biography

Mira Kim is an Associate Professor in Translation and Interpreting Studies at the School of Humanities and Languages, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UNSW.

Mira’s research interests are divided into three categories: translation studies, Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and personalised language learning. Her initial research started with questions about translation quality assessment and translator education. She developed her...view more

Mira Kim is an Associate Professor in Translation and Interpreting Studies at the School of Humanities and Languages, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UNSW.

Mira’s research interests are divided into three categories: translation studies, Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and personalised language learning. Her initial research started with questions about translation quality assessment and translator education. She developed her interest in SFL as she found it useful to explain translation choices as well as explore her research questions about translation. She came to be interested in personalised language learning as well because it is a critical issue that has been long debated but under-researched in the field of translator education. Her three main research fields are synergetically integrated, which empowers her to expland her reserach areas and share her knowledge beyond her boundary. For example, she undertook a research project entitled English Language Acquisition Support for International Students (ELASIS) funded by UNSW (SEF#2). Through the project, she developed a new course called Personalised English Language Enhancement (PELE) to help students to enhance their English languge skills. This credit-bearning course is offered every semester from 2017 benefiting a number of students, international and domestic, across faculties at UNSW. 

Mira has been invited as a plenary speaker, guest lecturer, workshop facilitator and paper presenter to a number of international and national conferences, seminars and workshops. She has also published numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings as well as edited books. Click the link below for details of my publications. Currently, she is working on two book projects, Systemic Functional Linguistics and Translation Studies (2021) and Korean Grammar: A Systemic-Functional Approach (in preparation).


My Qualifications

PhD Macquarie, MA in Translation and Interpreting HUFS, Pg Dip Applied Linguistics (TESOL) Macquarie; NAATI-accredited Conference Interpreter and Advanced Translator


My Awards

2014 UNSW Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence
2009 Australian Learning and Teaching Council Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning with the citation “For motivating and inspiring students to learn through passionate teaching and research efforts”
2008 Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor’s Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning
2008 Macquarie University Division of Linguistics and Psychology Award for Teaching Excellence 
2007 Macquarie University Division of Linguistics and Psychology Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning
2007 Macquarie University Division of Linguistics and Psychology Award for Excellence in Higher Degree Research


My Engagement


My Teaching

Mira taught theoretical as well as practical translation and interpreting courses at Macquarie University for 10 years. Her excellence in teaching was recognised several times during her tenure at Macquarie University with Australian Learning and Teaching Council Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning in 2009 and Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor’s Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning in 2008, to name a few. This recognition reflects her passionate teaching and unique approach to motivating students, in which she applies theoretical principles to explain practical issues and problems.

Since she joined UNSW, she has made significant contributions to the improvement of the Master programs and courses. Particularly, she developed new courses (MODL5106 and MODL5109) based on her research findings as well as professional and teaching experience. She currently teaches the following courses:

MODL5103 Media Translation
MODL5104 Specialised Translation
MODL5106 Text Analysis for Translation (Coordinator)
MODL5108 Professional Accreditation in Translation (Coordinator)
MODL5109 Advanced Bilingual Enhancement (Coordinator)

Her teaching excellence was also recognised at UNSW with the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2014.

Mira has supervised a number of postgraduate research projects.

PhDs

Xueying Li (PhD candidate since 2015)
Title: A study on translation strategies of specialized texts in Chinese/English (Principal Supervisor)

Donald Nababan (PhD candidate since 2014)
Title: A study on translation of interpersonal meaning in Indonesian/English academic texts (Principal Supervisor)

Gyung Hee Choi (award granted in 2014)
Title: A descriptive study on logical resources in Korean and its application to translation (Principal Supervisor)

 Kyoung Hee Park (award granted in 2013)
Title: The Experiential Grammar of Korean: A systemic functional perspective (Adjunct Supervisor)

MAs

So Young Jun (Master by Research since 2015)
Title: Translating grammatical metaphor (Principal Supervisor)

Abdullah Quabani (completed in 2013)
Title: A study on differences in translation approaches between translation students and language education students

Kathleen Macdonald (completed in 2012)
Title: Korean Speak: A comparative study of experiential meaning in translation from Korean to English (Principal Supervisor)

Gyung Hee Choi (completed in 2009)
Title: A study on logical meaning in Korean Bible translation based on Systemic Functional Linguistics (Principal Supervisor)

Jin Young Kim (completed in 2009)
Title: Investigating Theme in Korean by Text Types from a Systemic Functional Grammar Perspective (Principal Supervisor)

Song-Lee Han (completed in 2009)
Title: Discourse Analysis of an English TV Program and Its Translation into Korean (Principal Supervisor)

Hye Jin Yun (completed in 2009)
Title: A comparative study on thematic choice and grammatical metaphor in children’s literature (Principal Supervisor)

Yumi Hong (completed in 2009)
Title: A study on interpersonal meaning shifts and usage of honorific terms in Korean translations of an English novel (Principal Supervisor)

Mijin Kim (completed in 2008)
Title: Translation of passivisation from English to Korean (Principal Supervisor)

Jin Sun Lee (completed in 2007)
Title: A study on punctuation marks in Korean into English translation (Principal Supervisor)

Sookkyoung Kim (completed in 2007)
Title: Translation Shifts in Voice: A pilot study based on a Korean short story (Principal Supervisor)

Haewon Kim (completed in 2006)
Title: A study on translation of non-defining relative clauses from English into Korean (Joint Supervisor)

Sung Jin Kim (completed in 2005)
Title: A study of adverbial translation: focused on comparison between English and Korean adverbials (Principal Supervisor)

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Location

274 Morven Brown

Contact

+61 2 9385 2389