Translating Children's Literature into Persian: The Challenge of Tone

مطالعات زبان و ترجمه

Article 4, Volume 47, Issue 1, April 2014, Pages 105-122   

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: 10.22067/lts.v47i1.42893

Author

Abass Emaam^*

Department of English Language and Literature, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran

Abstract

Translating children’s literature is a challenging enterprise; easy at the first sight, but rather difficult in practice. It is assumed by some translators that because children’s works are intended for an audience/ readership of young age, they are simple and easy to deal with in every way. Even some naïve translators consider such works as texts whose words, grammatical structures and rhetoric in translated versions do not need any particular precaution, care, and/or creativity. However, at least translation of children’s works of fiction and poetry has proved that things are in fact otherwise. Among the challenges to be mentioned in this connection is to retain the characteristics of the overall atmosphere of the original. The lion’s share of this is represented in how properly “tone” is transferred from the source text into the target text. In what follows, a range of samples from Persian translations, both in prose and poetry, are introduced, their translational inadequacies are traced, and are finally re-translated to improve their quality.

Keywords

Translation; Translator; Children’s Literature; Prose and Poetry; Tone; Re-Translation

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