The Translation of Children's Literature: A Reader

by Gillian Lathey (Editor)

Overview

Since the late 1970s, scholarly interest in the translation of children’s books has increased at a rapid pace. Research across a number of disciplines has contributed to a developing knowledge and understanding of the cross-cultural transformation and reception of children’s literature. The purpose of this Reader is to reflect the diversity and originality of approaches to the subject by gathering together, for the first time, a range of journal articles and chapters on translation for children published during the last thirty years. From an investigation of linguistic features specific to translation for children, to accounts of the travels of international classics such as the Grimm Brothers’ Household Tales or Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, to a model of narrative communication with the child reader in translated texts and, not least, the long-neglected comments of professional translators, these essays offer new insights into the challenges and difference of translating for the young.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781853599057
Publisher:	Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Publication date:	09/21/2006
Series:	Topics in Translation , #31
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.85(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Gillian Lathey is Reader in Children’s Literature at Roehampton Universityand Acting Director of the National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature. She currently teaches children’s literature at undergraduate and Masters levels; supervises PhD students undertaking children’s literature projects; researches the practices and history of translating for children, and administers the biennial Marsh Award for Children’s Literature in Translation. Publications include a comparative study of the representation of war in German and British children’s literature, and articles on translation for children and the reading histories of German-Jewish child refugees in the UK in the 1930s and 40s.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements/ Introduction
I. Translations for Children: Theoretical Approaches and their Application
1. Translating for Children - Eithne O’Connell
2. Translation of Children’s Literature - Zohar Shavit
3. Translation Studies in Contemporary Children’s Literature: A Comparison of Intercultural Ideological Factors - Marisa Fernández López
4. Translating Children’s Literature: Theoretical Approaches and Emprical Studies - Tiina Puurtinen
II. Narrative Communication and the Child Reader
5. How Emil Becomes Michel: On the Translation of Children’s Books - Birgit Stolt
6. The Verbal and the Visual: On the Carnivalism and Dialogics of Translating for Children - Riitta Oittinen
7. Narratology Meets Translation Studies, or The Voice of the Translator - Emer O’Sullivan
III. Translating the Visual
8. Translating Pictures - Emer O’Sullivan
9. Intertextuality/ Intervisuality in Translation: The Jolly Postman’s Intercultural Journey from Britain to the Netherlands - Mieke Desmet
10. Time, Narrative Intimacy and the Child: Implications of Tense Switching in the Translation of Picture Books into English - Gillian Lathey
IV. The Travels of Children’s Books and Cross-cultural Influences
11. Does Pinocchio have an Italian Passport? What is Specifically National and what is International about Classics of Children’s Literature - Emer O’Sullivan
12. The Early Reception of the Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen in England - David Blamires
13. Nursery Politics: Sleeping Beauty, or the Acculturation of a Tale - Karen Seago
14. Harry Potter and the Tower of Babel: Translating the Magic - Nancy K. Jentsch
V. The Translator’s Voice
15. Mark Twain’s ‘Slovenly Peter’ in the Context of Twain and German Culture - J.D.Stahl
16. Eight Ways To Say You: The Challenges of Translation - Cathy Hirano
17. Translator’s Notebook: Delicate Matters - Anthea Bell
Notes on Contributors
References

Editorial Reviews

In the last few decades a number of European scholars have paid an increasing amount of attention to children’s literature in translation. This book not only provides a synthetic account of what has been achieved in the field, but also makes us fully aware of all the textual, visual and cultural complexities that translating for children entails. Apart from few important Scandinavian studies of children’s literature in translation, students of this subject have had problems in finding a book that attempted an up-to-date and comprehensive review of the field. Gillian Lathey’s Reader does just this; it investigates a whole range of textual, visual and cultural issues that translating literature for children entails.

Dr Piotr Kuhiwczak

Covering almost three decades of research in the wide field of writing and translating for children, calling into play the contributions of scholars involved in the study of children's literature, of the translation of books but also audiovisual texts and, last but not least, the reflections of several distinguished translators, the volume provides a thorough overview of the most significant steps taken in the exploration of this often neglected world.
On the whole, resulting from an accurate selection of contributions to the hardly-ever-explored field of translating for children, the volume manages to bring to the fore all the relevant issues and theoretical standpoints, providing thorough background while also highlighting the latest research paths. Furthermore, it proves to have an additional —and uncommon— twofold value: it makes an essential reading for those who approach the translation of children's literature for the first time, but it also stands out as a compendium of the most relevant contributions by scholars inside and outside Europe.

Elena Di Giovanni

This reader will offer valuable information and inspiration to scholars familiar with the field and newcomers alike.

Jochen Weber