Character Names, Place Names and Styles in the Translation of Children’s Literature

In this study, the translation of character names and place names and the narrator’s language style in children’s literature are examined using Le Petit Nicolas, a series of children’s storybooks, and its translations. The first book of the series (Le Petit Nicolas—The Little Nicolas) and two stories (La plage, c’est chouette—The Beach is Great and On est rentrés—We are back) from the third book (C’est papa qui decide—It’s Dad who decides) with their Turkish, English and German translations constitute the corpus of this study. The study first focuses on the universal aspect of the stories. In addition, translators' decisions affecting the reception of the texts by the target text readers, particularly those concerning the translation of character names and place names, are treated in this study by comparing the source text with its translations. Jan Van Coillie’s (2014) classification of 10 strategies concerning the translation of character names in children’s literature is used, based on a previous study (Tuna, 2017), to investigate the translators’ consistency in the use of the strategies through different books of the series, as new characters are introduced. Van Coillie’s (2014) classification is also used to evaluate the translation of place names. Another aspect that this study deals with is determining the closeness of the translations to the original child language produced in the source text, their deviation from it, and whether they exceed it or fall behind it. In addition, the impacts of the translators’ decisions concerning the reflection of the child language in the translations are elaborated. On the whole, the fact that different decisions produce different results and manipulate the signs of the text is underlined. Accordingly, the importance of considering the potential consequences of each decision before shaping the target text in terms of not only the translation of more concrete items such as character names and place names but also other particularities such as style is emphasized by taking style as a contribution in itself to the literary work’s universe of meaning and as a factor that affects the text's readability and popularity.

Keywords

Sempé and Goscinny, Le Petit Nicolas, Jan Van Coillie, character and place names, style