The rhythm of texts: translating for children

Abstract

The Rhythm of Texts: Translating for Children Eva-Maria Metcalf (bio) Riitta Oittinen. I Am Me—I Am Other: On the Dialogics of Translating for Children. Tampere, Finland: University of Tampere, 1993. Translation research has experienced a boom lately. A considerable number of interesting and controversial studies about translation issues have been published during the past decade, sparked by a fundamental rethinking of the structure and function of language and literature. Poststructuralist, feminist, and systems theory approaches to translation theory have redirected perspectives and played havoc with established values systems. Few scholars have worked within the special field of translating children’s literature from any theoretical perspective. The Finnish scholar, teacher, translator, and illustrator Riitta Oittinen has filled a gap with her published dissertation. This is especially true because her approach to translating children’s literature—or rather, translating for children as she would prefer to call it—breaks with traditional research. Based on polysystems theory and dialogism, Oittinen is more interested in the broad picture of cross-cultural communication and on the processes that are at work in translation than on morphological, syntactic, or semantic detail, which tends to make her argumentation abstract at times. Inspired by the theoretical findings of the Tel Aviv group and by Bakhtin’s concept of the dialogic, Oittinen argues strongly for a special approach to translating for children because “the dialogic situation of translation for children differs from that for adults” (5). Children read texts differently than do adults, and they also like different texts than do adults. Finnish research from 1984 on children’s and adults’ favorite children’s books, mentioned by Oittinen, revealed that the tastes of adults and children tend to be quite different. With the exception of Astrid [End Page 292] Lindgren, who appeared on both lists, choices diverged considerably. Oittinen concludes that we should undo power relationships and hierarchies of status by listening to children and by truly entering into a dialogue with them. Dialogics applied to translation thus becomes “reaching out to children without the fear of relinquishing one’s own authority” (183). In the child-oriented translation Oittinen propagates, we ought to ask whether a particular translation is appropriate for a given situation, audience, and purpose rather than the decontextualized question: is this a good translation? As we judge translations of children’s literature, Oittinen suggests that we need to pay attention not only to the text itself but to metalinguistic and paratextual elements, such as the translator’s socio-cultural baggage, the layout and illustrations in children’s books, and the rhythm of texts. Rhythm becomes especially important in picture books that will likely be read aloud to children. Prime among the metalinguistic components influencing translation is the translator’s concept of childhood. This concept will determine the translator’s approach to translation and impact the final outcome. The concept of childhood underlying and affecting Oittinen’s study is the “wise and able” child who lives in a carnivalesque subculture. Therefore, in order to gain ready access to children’s culture, translators should dive into the children’s carnival. In her detailed review of translation theory, Oittinen’s preferences soon become clear. She would like to dethrone the original author and undercut the predominance of the original text. In postmodern times, the appreciation of the reader/critic’s creative input and her or his status has grown proportionately with the waning reverence for the originality of a work and the creative monopoly of the author—a foundation of modernism. Because translators are readers and critics too, the creative role of their efforts should be appreciated, resulting in a higher status of the translator and the translated text. The close connections Oittinen draws between recent literary theory and translation theory become evident in the many references to Bakhtin, Benjamin, Derrida, Fish, Gadamer, Iser, and Jauss she uses to support her arguments. The book’s not so hidden agenda is the empowerment of readers along with the empowerment of translators and illustrators. The translator’s humanity, personality, and worldview should openly enter into the dialogic process of translation. Translators should no longer be invisible, disappearing in their effort to make their texts a mere repetition and reflection...