The aim of this paper is to consider the strategic selection of Korean hear-honorific level in the translation of western novels, especially focusing on ‘hao’ style in the three versions of translation of 『The Great Gatsby』. Even though ‘hao’ style doesn’t have a normal position in the hear-honorific system of contemporary Korean, it is still used in the translation text and some inadequacies are found. This paper suggests ‘hao’ style should be strategically selected if the age and the gender factors of discourse participants are satisfied, and if translator has obvious intention to express the archaistic style or the psychological distance between speaker and hearer.
