Translating culture in children’s literature: A case study on the Turkish translation of Letters from Father Christmas

Year 2020, Volume: 16 Issue: 2, 729 - 737, 24.06.2020

Gökçen Hastürkoğlu

https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.759280

Abstract

Translation has been considered as a cross-cultural act comprising the transference of the cultural signs, rather than only finding the equivalence of linguistic patterns in the target text. As bridge-builders between different cultures, translators assume a very significant role in order to achieve the most appropriate cognitive, cultural, stylistic, and linguistic equivalence in the target system. This role becomes more challenging and problematic when the target audience are children. By emphasizing the difficulties in translating children’s literature and the required strategies, the present study examines the Turkish translation of culturally-bound words and expressions in Tolkien’s Letters From Father Christmas. Within the framework of Lawrence Venuti’s concepts of domestication and foreignization, and Klingberg’s scheme of cultural context adaptation categories, this study analysed the translator’s strategies and decisions and discussed whether the translator successfully conveys the same impression in the target audience in a context which is foreign to the Turkish culture and children in particular.

Keywords

: culture-specific items; domestication; foreignization; translation of children’s literature; Tolkien; Letters from Father Christmas

References

• Berman A. (2004). Translation and the trials of the foreign. In L. Venuti (Ed.), The translation studies reader (pp. 276–289). London: Routledge.
• Duranti, A. (1997). Linguistic anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Erten, A. (2016). Translating culture-bound features in children’s literature. Humanities and social sciences review. 05(02), 67-72.
• Hunt, P. and Bannister Ray, S.G. (2004). International companion encyclopedia of children's literature. London: Roudledge.
• Klingberg, G. (1986). Children's fiction in the hands of the translators. Lund, Sweden: C.W.K Gleerup.
• Lathey, G. (Ed.) (2006). The Translation of children’s literature: A reader. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
• Newmark, P. (1988). Textbook of translation. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
• Oittinen, R. (2000). Translating for children. New York, NY: Garland Publishing, Inc.
• Peeters, J. 2005. Localizing and globalizing trends in language through the looking glass. In M. Sidiropoulou (Ed.), Identity and difference. Translation shaping culture (pp. 129–149). Bern: Peter Lang.
• Persson, U. (2015). Culture-specific items. Translation procedures for a text about Australian and New Zealand Children’s Literature. Unpublished MA Thesis, Linnaeus University. Retrieved on September 23, 2019 from http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:850704/FULLTEXT01.pdf
• Puurtinen, T. (1998). Syntax, readability and ideology in children’s literature. Meta, 43(4), 524-533. doi: 10.7202/003879ar.
• Shuttleworth, M. & Cowie, M. (1997). Dictionary of translation studies. Manchester, UK: St Jerome Publishing.
• Tabbert, R. (2002). Approaches to the translation of children’s literature: A review of critical studies since 1960. Target, 14(2), 303-351. doi: 10.1075/target.14.2.06tab.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1995). Letters from Father Christmas. London: Collins Children’s Books.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (2005). Noel Baba’dan Mektuplar. (L. R. Çağlar, Trans.). Istanbul: Okuyan Us Publishing.
• Venuti, L. (1995). The Translator‘s invisibility: A history of translation. London & New York: Routledge.
• Venuti, L., (1998). Strategies of translation. In M. Baker (Ed.), Routledge encyclopedia of translation studies (pp: 240-244). London: Routledge.
• Why is it called ‘Boxing Day’. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/46454700
• Wolf, S., et al. (2010). Handbook of research on children's and young adult literature. Taylor & Francis.