Translation of Violence in Children’s Literature: Violence in Translated Peter Pan

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study explores how violence in children’s literature and translated children’s books is displayed for young readers, taking Peter Pan, written by Scottish dramatist James Matthew Barrie, as an example, and selecting two Chinese translations by Shiqiu Liang and Jingyuan Yang to conduct a comparative analysis of the texts. Violence in Peter Pan is represented by verbal violence, metaphorical violence and narrative violence. While anticipating that most elements of violence would be deleted or downplayed by the translators, this paper finds that violence is retained in the two translations based on textual analysis but with some different manifestations. In the translation of violence, Liang is more loyal to the source text and does not mark the special characteristics of figures due to any associated connotation of violence, while Yang’s translation makes the diction livelier in line with children’s language and renders the identities and behaviors of figures with more prominence. Their different interpretations of violence result from their different expectations for their readers.