Alireza KarimdadianFrom Iran

Presented In The 2011 Children’s Book Festival

Kuala LumpurOctober 2011

IntroductionWhy translation?Since all human being came from one origin and have a common

desires and needs so they need to be in touch with each other and for this reason they must find a way to communicate.

Translation can be a means for exchanging and sharing ideas and experiences.

Translation can build a bridge between different cultures.

Cont.Translation may be defined as rereading and

rewriting for target-language audiences, which makes translations uniquely different from their originals:

every time texts are translated they take on a new language a new culturenew readersand a new point of view

Cont.Lefevere (1992:2) considers to translation

and its influences on culture. He emphasizes that translation is not just a

"window opened on another world," Rather, translation is a channel opened, often

not without a certain reluctance, through which foreign influences can

penetrate the native culture challenge it and even contribute to subverting it

Cont.Translations are not made in a vacuum. Snell-Horny has a similar view in this issue. It

has for centuries been taken for granted that translation merely takes place between languages.

Instead, language is not an isolated phenomenon suspended in a vacuum but is an integral part of culture (Snell-Hornby 1988:39).

In this sense translation of children's literature is very similar to that of other literary texts.

Yet translating children's literature has its own special features.

Cont.Children's literature is full of simplicity and

beauties because it prepared for a group of innocent people whose thinking are beyond boundaries of races , political parties and all these kind of boundaries so it will be a good ground to start for building a bridge between civilizations .

Today`s world because of the impact of technology and world wide web being in touch with other people and other nation is a very simple task only problem is language barriers so translation play a key role in today`s world.

Cont.Children`s book is a mixture of illustration and

text and the beauties of illustration can help to convey the messages easily and can help to chose the book for translation much more easier.

The virtues of each culture is a main factor to chose a book for translation and defiantly for introducing a title to a new nation and culture must be in line with these cultural values.

So one of the necessity of entering to a new market is the deep understanding and being familiar with the overall cultural concerns of a target audiences.

Challenges of Translations for Children

Here we are going to have a short glance on the challenges of children`s book translations with some practical examples of newly translated works in Malaysia and Iran.

In spite of the general views translation of children`s books is not an easy task.

Limited experience of children face the translators to problems adapting their text to the level of children`s knowledge.

Cont.Normally the level of children`s knowledge

depends on the culture that they are living so translator must know the both cultures well.

The existence of and interest in text-specific challenges that books for children pose to the translator like:

interplay of picture and words in picture bookscultural referencesplayful use of language; dialect; namesThe possibility of double address, i.e. that of

children and adults

Cont.Cultural differences between source and

target languages always be the problem of translation and the way translators approach it to converge these to extreme is a challenge as well.

So translator must know the two cultures and he tries to encode and decode the text in a way that the reader of the target language does not feel the strangeness of the text and it must be somehow like an original writing.

Con.The general view held in translation studies is

that translators can produce accurate, reliable and professional results only when working into their mother tongues

and only translating into the language of a translator´s habitual use yields maximum accuracy and reliability.

We experienced it practically here because it can produce a better results for readers and much more easier for production regarding time and cost.

Cont.Texts translated for children have been often

treated with great liberty because of adaptation purpose and this entitles the translator to manipulate the text in various ways by :

ChangingEnlargingAbridgingDeleting Adding to itEven change of the text genreSo this kind of liberty may affect the original

message of the author and the outcome will be something else.

Cont.Another main challenges of translation specially in

children`s literature is the translation of proper names

Names in translated literature have an additional function, namely, they reveal the existence of the “cultural other” (Hejwowski 2004, 93), and signal the reader that the text originated in a different culture.

Akiko Yamazaki argues that replacing foreign names with more familiar ones not only shows “a lack of respect toward other cultures” but also “deprives child readers of the chance to realize the wealth of cultural diversity that surrounds them” (2002, 53)

Cont.proper names usually have various allusions

indicating sex, age, geographical belonging, history, specific meaning, playfulness of language and cultural connotations.

In translating this information, translators usually have to choose between two general translation strategies,

foreignization, which aims at preserving all the cultural elements, and

domestication, which brings the text closer to the readers by adapting or even leaving out many of these elements.

Some Examples of practical experiencesBeside all these theories in practice we need

to be more realistic When we publish a book in a new

environment our target audiences have the right to get the essence of the book just like the original audiences but definitely because of cultural differences we need to do some alterations and adaptation in text and also illustration in some cases.

Cont.But up to what extent we can do these kind of

adaptations ?

According to some international agreements the publisher give us the permission to do the adaptation up to 20% and for more we need to discuss.

Translation itself sometimes is a challenge, why?Because in the process of translation we face

some challenges that we will see in the next slide.

Example:

Cont.

Cont.We also tried an alternative way and that was

finding a Malay translator who knows Farsi(Persian) (of course this was not easy because finding proper person who knows both languages was difficult) the result of this one is much more better for some reasons:

Saving the timeAcceptable translation(because of his/her

proficiency)Better Price Preserving the essence of the original text Saving the cost

Cont.So finally we reach to this conclusion that:for better results we need to have a good and

printable English translation

orwe can translate the text direct to Malay with

a good Malay translatorBut all in all a competent translator is the one

that transmits the intended message in a language which is clear and sufficiently correct

Few examples of name changes Already we discussed about different views

toward changing namesHere we will see some examples of name

changes in translated books in MalaysiaOriginal Persian title is: I have Been Found

Cont.Second example :The original title isThe Story of Ali and Goli

Cont.The third example :The original title is:There is a song in everyone's heart

Examples of Illustration ChangesSometimes we face some cultural and religious

considerations and we must change the illustrations according to target audience`s culture

For example we can not draw the body of prophets in some countries and only we may use some symbols but in some other countries they can do this so we need to be careful regarding sensitive issues .

In Malaysia you can not use the prophets illustrations whereas you can find it in Indonesia so it shows even two neighboring countries with many cultural similarities have different views toward certain issues

Example:Two examples from Indonesia:

The example of illustration adaptation