From Natsu no Niwa to The Friends : The Balancing Act Involved in Translating Children's Books

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  • From Natsu no Niwa to The Friends: The Balancing Act Involving in Translating Children's Books

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Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of translation in general and that of translating children's books in particular. This report endeavors to critically compare Natsu no Niwa [The Summer Garden] , Yumoto Kazumi's Japanese novel for children, with The Friends, the English translation by Cathy Hirano. In the general sense, Hirano's translation, adopting the methods of interpolation, deletion, and replacement, very carefully-and sometimes boldly-attains the level of a creative adaptation while rendering a faithful reproduction so that her North American audience can enjoy the book in the same way as those reading the original Japanese text. Examined in the light of translating children's books in particular, however, her translation is subject to the assumed social and moral norms of adults, such as didacticism, underestimation of children's ability and curiosity, and sentimentalizing and prettifying attitudes. In spite of Hirano's attempts at both pointing out underlying similarities that encourage young readers to overcome superficial differences and bringing out the charm of what is new and strange that broadens their horizons, these two goals are not always easily reconcilable in the translation. Performing a balancing act between faithfulness and intelligibility is a difficult task with which all translators must contend.

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