Implications in the mediation of translated books for children

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case of Max und Moritz by Wilhelm Busch translated from German into Hebrew¹¹¹. The two poles that define the initial norm for a text to be translated are either the need to produce a text that fulfils the demands of the target system, or a text that adheres to the characteristics of a pre-existing text in some other language that occupies a specific position in another system. These two possibilities are identified with translational acceptability in the first case, and translational adequacy in the second. Toury suggested that when children’s literature occupies a secondary position in the target polysystem¹¹² the choice of translators falls on acceptability rather than adequacy as they subject their

“decisions and solutions to the norms which draw on what has already become institutionalized in the target pole, with an almost automatically lessened extent of heed to the source’s textual relationships.” (Toury, 1980: 142)

So far, the theoretical standpoints in the field of translation studies and in translated children’s literature have shown that translations can influence the development of a literary system according to the position they occupy (primary or secondary), but also that the target audience of a translation becomes a fundamental component in the choice of strategies adopted by translators producing literature for children¹¹³.

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out by Reinbert Tabbert in 2002. In the time span between 1960 and 2000 he identified four main aspects common to all studies related to translated children’s literature that link up to the theoretical standpoints presented in 2.2. Firstly, books for children are meant to ‘build bridges’ between cultures¹¹⁴; secondly the translation of books for children poses specific textual problems to the translator; thirdly, the position of children’s literature is defined as “a subsystem of minor prestige”, or peripheral to the core of the literary polysystem; and fourthly, the importance of addressees as real or implied readers and their age range. The issues identified by Tabbert in relation to the second point is particularly important for the identification of the strategies generally recognised as standard in translations for children, especially in view of the fact that the most recent theoretical studies in children’s literature have shifted from a prescriptive to a descriptive approach focussing on the inherent characteristics of the target text, rather than its dependency on an ‘ideal original’ to produce the ‘ideal translation’ (Tabbert, 2002: 305).

The difficulties the source text posed the translator as identified by Tabbert¹¹⁵ were grouped according to the nature of the translational problem. For example in comics, picture books and illustrated books, the main difficulty of translators is the

“indeterminacy” of the textual material¹¹⁶, which is integrated and specified by the accompanying picture. The tendency is “a carefree attitude towards the source text” on the part of the translator, who “put[s] bits of information into the target text which in the original book is only conveyed by the pictures.” (Tabbert, 2002: 318) This tendency is

114 This is one of the main reasons why the Munich Library was instituted by Jella Lepman, as was the International Board of Books for Young People: namely, in order to cross cultural borders through the dissemination of translated texts and the promotion of foreign authors around the world (for a more detailed discussion, see section 1.1)

115 These sources were collected from several sources including doctoral dissertations on books for children in translation.

116 Susan Hirschman for the publishing house Greenwillow identified the same problem in intralingual translations from British English to American English: “what is left unsaid […] can be a problem “in translation”” (quoted in Donovan, 1976: 81)

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justified by the attitude of publishers in dealing with a young public: for them explicitation is necessary to fill in the assumed knowledge gaps of target readers.

On the other hand, “culture-specific phenomena” are interpreted within the framework of children’s literature as a means to build bridges between cultures. Tabbert discussed these phenomena on the basis of ‘local context adaptation’, the term coined by Göte Klingberg (1986) in the field of translation for children¹¹⁷. Local context adaptation is similar to domestication, where the foreign elements of a source text are changed to adapt to the expectations and cultural background of the target public. The translator, by preserving, adapting or eliminating these elements, intentionally “create[s]

or avoid[s] the impression of cultural distance” (Tabbert, 2002: 323)

Finally, Tabbert recognised the impact of Toury’s target-oriented approach to translation as being particularly relevant in the field of children’s literature. The production context of translations becomes fundamental to understand the shifts that occurred in the target text, especially under the influence of political or economic factors¹¹⁸.

The article by Tabbert shows the variety of approaches that flourished in regard to translation for children¹¹⁹, providing a general overview of the crucial difficulties that stand at the basis of translating for children. Coherently with these difficulties, Göte Klingberg developed a structured analysis of both the contextual and textual problems related to children’s literature in translation (1979, 1986). He addressed the matter of translating fiction for children seen as a form of abridgement and adaptation. His Children’s Fiction in the Hands of the Translator is the first systematic linguistic approach to this genre, with special attention to “books of literary merit which in translation will mean a valuable addition to the literature available to children and young people.” (Klingberg, 1986: 7) He categorised research in the field of translation for

117 Klingberg’s position will be discussed below.

118 All elements that formed the systemic structure of Lefevere’s theory of “patronage” introduced in Chapter 1 of the present research.

119 With an extensive bibliography that covers 40 years of criticism in the field.

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children in five groups: (1) statistical studies to track the dissemination of specific source texts around the world in different target languages; (2) studies related to the economy and technique of translation production (e.g. costs, translator selection, market distribution, etc.); (3) studies on the selection process of books to be translated (including awards and prizes for the category); (4) the linguistic problems related to translation practice; (5) reception and influence studies on the target language and culture that involve mainly critics and readers of books for children.

With specific reference to (4), Klingberg defined the nature of adaptations:

whenever a text is produced with a focus on “the (supposed) interests, needs, reactions, knowledge, reading ability and so on of the intended readers” (1986: 11) then it is a matter of adaptation. But this purpose can go as far as to ensure that readers understand culture-specific elements of the source text through the rewriting or clarification of obscure passages in the target text. The result of this process falls under the category of cultural context adaptation, where “[T]he most radical way to pay regard to the understanding and interest of the intended readers is to move the whole scene of the source text to a place closer to the readers of the target text.”(Klingberg, 1986: 14) This approach is reminiscent of Nord’s (1991) concept of loyalty, where translators rewrite a source text in view of the expectations of target readers, in favour of a more familiar context for the receiving culture.

Klingberg adopted a prescriptive approach that criticised cultural context adaptation and localisation because they take away from children the possibility of catching a glimpse of a different culture through translated texts. His aim was to support the cause of translated children’s literature that offers a wider range of books for young readers beyond the limits of the local production, with the aim of “giving the readers a text that they can understand” and at the same time “to contribute to the development of the readers’ set of values” to open up new horizons for children to foreign cultures (Klingberg, 1986: 10). Therefore, in Klingberg’s view, translation appears to be ancillary to the pedagogical aim inherent in children’s literature. On the contrary, Riitta Oittinen (2000) discussed a different approach to adaptations in the translation of books

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for children that focussed above all on young readers, and their need to socialise and forge their own personality through reading. She sided with domestication in Translating for Children, to “demonstrate how the whole process of translation takes precedence over any efforts to discover and reproduce the original author’s intentions as a given.” (2000: 3) The process of translation involves readers as active receivers, and in her view domestication or adaptation is inherent to all translations. According to her, translation theories (such as Nord’s (1991) interpretation of the skopos theory) did not take into consideration target-language readers as human beings reading with a purpose, nor did they consider the role of translators as readers¹²⁰. Her reception-focused/translator-centred approach, unlike Klingberg’s text-oriented approach, took into consideration the aesthetic aspects of reading, the read-aloud qualities of children’s literature and the pleasure deriving from the interpretation of illustrations and text by readers.

Target readers’ needs justify all adaptations and rewritings, as Oittinen points out:

that “[A]ll translators, if they want to be successful, need to adapt their texts according to the presumptive readers” (2000: 95). Each translator, when translating for children, inevitably creates an image of the reading child that is reflected in the linguistic characteristics of the target text, as well as in its paratextual elements that are often meant to invite young readers to buy books. Oittinen’s analysis offers a wide array of contributions to translation in the field of children’s literature, and is based on her personal experience as illustrator and translator. Translators, in Oittinen’s terms, are called to loyalty towards the receiving public and their experience as readers within the target culture becomes of pivotal importance in translation in bringing the source text closer to its new readers.

The opposing views of Klingberg and Oittinen place emphasis on the production context in terms of relationship between the main actors involved in children’s literature

120 In Oittinen’s words, translators “bring to the translation their cultural heritage, their reading experience, and, in the case of children’s books, their image of childhood and their own child image.” (2000: 3)

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in translation, namely readers, the publisher, the translator, and the illustrator. Both scholars analysed translation practices: Klingberg from a quantitative point of view, Oittinen from a qualitative point of view. The aim of Klingberg was to lay bare the characteristics of rewriting strategies in translated children’s literature through a systematic approach divided in categories, where cultural context adaptation of source texts for a target audience becomes a negative intervention of translators that limits the possibility of young readers to open up to foreign cultures. Oittinen argued against translation theories which focused only on texts and strategies rather than on the needs of real readers. Especially in children’s literature, the needs of young readers dictate the approach that the translator is to adopt, and according to Oittinen s/he should make use of her/his own childhood reading background in the target culture when translating to make the source text more accessible for the receiving public.

Translators and publishers as mediators in the creation and distribution of translated children’s literature often shaped the way children’s books were received by target cultures¹²¹. The image of translators of children’s literature as a presence in target texts has been analysed in terms of voice in prefaces to share their translating experience with target readers (Lathey, [2006] 2014), together with the ability to produce “reading aloud” translations intended for collective reading between children, parents and educators (Dollerup, 2003; Hansen, 2005). Few studies have concentrated on the elements that characterise the voice of translators: Hermans (1996), O’Sullivan (2005), and Lathey (2010) discussed this aspect from different points of view, presented in section 2.4 below.

121 The impact of publishers, rewriters and translators in the reception of Nild Holgersson stories from Swedish into German was discussed at length by Isabelle Desmidt (2003) taking into consideration the norms that influenced rewriting from a diachronic point of view. O’Sullivan (2005a) has shown how the different translations of the picture book Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocenti reveals cultural shifts in narration inscribed in the rewritings of the same text in the interest of readers.

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