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From Translation to Transcreation to Translation: Excerpts from a Translator’s and Illustrator’s Notebooks

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Negotiating Translation and Transcreation of Children's Literature

Part of the book series: New Frontiers in Translation Studies ((NFTS))

Abstract

The present chapter discusses verbal and visual renderings of picturebooks and illustrated stories for two audiences, children reading for themselves and adults reading aloud. I am looking at my material (see below) from the angle of translation, transcreation, carnivalism, cannibalism, and intersemiotic or visual translation. One of the purposes of my chapter is to find out if there are any differences—and if, of which kind—between translation and transcreation. Moreover, my research deals with Mikhail Bakhtin’s views about dialogics and carnivalism as well as Haroldo and Augusto de Campos’s views about cannibalistic translation.

In other words, I am exploring what the reflections of different kinds of rewriters and illustrators can tell us about the characteristics of different versions of picturebooks and their further verbal and visual renderings. My research is also autoethnographic and I am using myself as an informant dealing with the material through the translator’s and illustrator’s notebooks.

The chapter deals with two sets of material: the author Hugh Lupton’s and the illustrator Niamh Sharkey’s Cree Indian story “The Curing Fox” (1998; Finnish translation “Parantava kettu” 2002) with my translator’s notebook, and my yet unpublished illustration of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) with my illustrator’s notebook (2016-2018). In other words, I am looking at myself in two roles, as the verbal and visual recreator of the stories.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tampere University, Tampere, Finland

    Riitta Oittinen

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  1. Riitta Oittinen
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Correspondence to Riitta Oittinen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Pedagogical University of Kraków, Kraków, Poland

    Joanna Dybiec-Gajer

  2. Tampere University, Tampere, Finland

    Riitta Oittinen

  3. Pedagogical University of Kraków, Kraków, Poland

    Małgorzata Kodura

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Oittinen, R. (2020). From Translation to Transcreation to Translation: Excerpts from a Translator’s and Illustrator’s Notebooks. In: Dybiec-Gajer, J., Oittinen, R., Kodura, M. (eds) Negotiating Translation and Transcreation of Children's Literature. New Frontiers in Translation Studies. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2433-2_2

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