Sahityasetu

Fantasy and Reality: Issues in Translating Children’s Literature

Childhood is really an important stage of a human life. This phase teaches different aspects of life to every child. It is the same stage in which a child begins to acquire its social and cultural values along with shaping his/her identity. Such values can be best acquired by a child through reading. Even parents and teachers always want their children and students to learn through reading. Hence, it emphasizes the role of literature in a child’s life. Thus, children’s literature is rendered an important means of not only educating but also instructing them. The literatures of various nations expose children to vivid cultures and so on. The need for children to be exposed to a variety of literatures invites translation to play the major role in this exercise. This research paper, reviewing briefly the beginning of Children’s Literature in Translation (ChLT), attempts to outline the issues of concern in general while translating any other type of literature and Children’s Literature (ChL) for children. It further attempts to provide the possible strategies in this field of translation focusing as well on the future possibilities and perspectives of translating for children.

It can be noted that the interest in the ChLT has emerged from the demand to read books from various nations of the globe. The credit can be given to this demand that it has started turning the ChL into the ChLT. However, no one will disagree with the fact that the ChLT is relatively and completely a novel area within Translation Studies (TS). Critics like Eithne O’ Connel (2005), Pinsent (2006), Thomas-Wolgemuth (2009) and Lathey (2010) have agreed to the novel entry of translation into the field of the ChL. It is true that the study of the ChL has been well established in the academics now but the study of its translation has begun very recently. O’ Connel states that the ChL has been “the site of tremendous translation activity” and she has been surprised “to discover recently the extent to which this area remains largely ignored by theorists, publishers and academic institutions involved in translation research and training” (O’ Connel 2006: 15). The variety of global reading will encourage good culture in the children. And therefore to say that scholarly and further more interest in translating the ChL was initiated in the demand to read books from many areas of the world is not wrong. Ronald Jobe states that “children need to read the best literature other countries have to offer. We must meet this challenge by respecting and providing the best in translations or they will be cheated out of part of their global heritage…” (Jobe 2004: 521).

This great demand for reading marks the establishment of the ChL in translation and known as “The Children’s Literature in Translation”, the new area of avenues of research. Comparative approach to literature results in an interest in translations during the 1960s and 1970s (Lathey 2006; Pinsent, 2006). Further, the founding of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL) in 1970 offered momentum to Children’s Literature in Translation (O’ Sullivan, 2005). The discussion on the ChLT was extended during the 1980s when TS emerged as a developing discipline. It was the same time when the polysystem theory was adopted as one of the first theoretical attempts to contextualize the ChLT.

The period after 1990 notices the growth of interest in the ChL as a series of publications appeared since the 1990s. About the development of interest in the area of ChL, Elena Xeni notes:
The growing interest in comparative aspects of ChL is illustrated by a series of publications since the 1990s. As noted in the International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature edited by Peter Hunt and Sheila Bannister Ray (2004) a large percentage of published work derived from international conferences in the field in question: Perrot and Bruno (1993), Ewers, Lehnert and O’ Sullivan (1994), Webb (2000) and Neubauer (2002). Well-known Comparative Literature journals such as Poetics Today 13:1 (1992), Compar(a)ison 2 (1995), New Comparison 20 (1995), META 48: 1-2 (2003) began to take comparative aspects of ChL into account. In line to the previous, renowned Children’s Literature journals like Children’s Literature Association Quarterly (ChLAQ) and The Lion and the Unicorn (L&U) dedicated special issues to ChLT. ChLAQ published a special issue on “International Children’s Literature” (Winter 2003-2004, Volume 28, N. 4) and the L&U published special issues on “European Children’s Literature Theory” (Number 1, June 1995), “Irish Children’s Literature” (Number 3, September 1997), and “French Children’s Literature” (Number 1, January 1998), aiming at enhancing research in the field of ChL3.

It is perhaps not absolutely wrong to say that this may be the beginning of interest in the ChLT but not the complete movement in the direction of development fully and successfully. In her introduction to the MA dissertation, Thomson-Wolgemuth comments on the scarcity of translating for children. Having determined, she visited different libraries to exploit as many translated books as possible for children. Having disappointed, she writes:
. . . I was disappointed not to find the wealth of literature I had expected. There are a few books which deal comprehensively with all the aspects of this field and, of those which do, most date back to the 1960s and 1970s. Many libraries proved to be poorly equipped . . . A theoretical grounding has not, as yet, been developed, although everyone seems to agree on the importance of establishing one. (Thomson-Wolgemuth 1998: viii)

However, there are a number of critics who have never lost the hope of development in this area. This may be seen as an auspicious turn to the ChLT. Anthea Bell in the beginning of her talk at an international conference while observing an encouraging turn in this field of translation states:
I am delighted to reflect that in the past three or four years, I must have translated more books for children and young people than in the two preceding decades. We would all here today like to see translated children’s literature move out into public view; I do see a distinct tendency that way, and may it long continue.(Cited by Pinsent 2006: 53)

Along with Anthea Bell, Lathey (2006) also notes a critical interest developing with an increasing speed over the last thirty years. It can be mentioned that due to the boom in the TS found in 1990s (Metcalf 1995; Snell-Hornby 1996; Baker 1998; Andermann and Rogers 1999) and the increased interest in the ChL, it seems that the positive way for a turn in the ChLT has been paved.

It can never be claimed that the above given is an extensive account of the momentum of development in the ChL during the current but transitional period from the 20th to the 21st century. Further, the society requires the research, articles, more books to be written and more conferences to be held in the area of translating the ChL. Not much has been done in this area but much needs to be done in the contemporary times and ahead. What happens in one national literature cannot be studies in isolation to what takes place in the rest of the world and this thinking emphasizes the role of translation in the ChL. Translation of the ChL is further required to make the comparative study of different literatures not only as a means of another goal but also as the recognition it deserves by Comparative, Translation and Literary Studies. In facts, the critics like Lathey, Pinsent and O’ Sullivan never hesitate to say that the ChLT follows the steps of the ChL which has always suffered a low status for many years (Lathey 2010; 2006; Pinsent 2006; O’ Sullivan 2005 and others). Thus, the present paper very politely tries to examine the issues related that hamper the growth of translation of the ChL attempting to cope up with the international communities of scholars, translators, authors, readers of the ChL, publishers and others related all to generate interest in the field of translating the ChL more and more.

Translating for either adult or children offers various challenges. The translator must observe that the Source Language (SL) always offers certain challenges while translating it into any Target Language (TL) of the world. Therefore, his/her objectives must be very clear which play a significant role during the practice of this activity. When a translator especially translates for children, more problems are involved in this activity of translation because the ChL is related to the interest, needs, reactions, knowledge and reading ability of the child readers. Moreover, it is not always easy to define a clear boundary between the problems of translating a book for children and a book for adults (Klingberg 1986: 10). Therefore, the translator must bear in his/her mind that s/he is translating for particular readers with a particular purpose. Less maturity, limited exposure, limited experiences and limited knowledge make children special readers demanding more attention. Whatever is provided children to read needs to be tailored and censored. Whether the issues in translating for adult and children are the same or not, the methods used to solve these issues may differ in view of certain special devices.

Un/-translatability is most often underlined as the primary issue of TS as it governs all issues concerning translation of any type of literature. The complexity of the ChL is never the trouble-free matter. The process of translation encounters various “delicate matters” (Bell in Lathey 2006: 232), “peculiarities” (Gile 1998: 45), “issues” (Munday 2008: 4) and “problematic areas”1 (Leonardi 2000) or “problems”2 (Gerding-Salas 2000). While referring to un/-translatability, few reasons are important to refer to. Firstly, the translator is never mentally found free from the preoccupation with the complexities of translation activity. Secondly, the translator cannot forget to translate for child readers. Thirdly, at the international market, cultural differences frequently create the problems of un/-translatability. Translation critics are divided into the two groups of favouring possibility and impossibility. Anthea Bell, in an article published in Babel, raises a doubt: “Are children’s books translatable?” (Cited by Lathey 2006: 69). Even Brigit Stolt asks whether the translation of children’s books is “An impossible task then?” (Stolt 2006: 69). However, a critic like Elena Xeni3 (2007) believes that it is not impossible to translate the ChL because it has to be for itself and for children, the future of the world.

Apart from un/-translatability, the ideology and knowledge of the translator as a person always puzzles him/her because according to Simpson, ideology may be one of the taken for granted assumptions, beliefs and value systems which is shared by social groups collectively (Simpson 1993: 5). What a translator understands is what s/he already knows. Stolze argues that “the main problem in translation . . . is the translator’s knowledge base and ideology as a person, that will be activated by the textual input” because for Stolze, translation is not only “a question of language transfer” but even “ideology reflects in the formulations” (Stolze 2003: 214/220). The translation is an attempt to understand the text and the cultural background. Thus, ideology plays an important role in the life of translation and therefore, the translator’s decisions are bound to influence the children as the literature influences them.

Besides the ideological aspects and aims, the ChLT has also cultural aims because literature is the major carrier of the cultural content and the powerful medium for understanding the world. While translating for children, some elements of cultural context may not be as familiar to the readers of the TL text as to those of the SL text. If the translator is not serious to translate such cultural contexts, the TL text may become more difficult or less interesting for its child readers. Mythical references; foreign references; literary references; popular beliefs; historical, religious and political background; customs and practices; food items; play and games; personal names, titles, names of the domestic animals; names of objects, geographical names; weight and measures; buildings and home furnishings; vernacular words and so on puzzle the translators (Klingberg 1986: 17-18). While translating cultural references, the translator has to accommodate the SL to the readers which leads him/her into Venuti’s idea of translation methods like “domestication” and “foreignization”. Domestication method helps the translator to reduce “the foreign text to target-language cultural values, bringing the author back home” whereas the method of foreignization allows the translator to retain the original word as it is (Venuti 1995: 20).

Translation offers various ways of translating cultural contexts. The cultural context can be retained by adding explanation retaining the original words, rewording without using the cultural element of the SL text, by explaining the function of the cultural element rather than using the foreign name for it, by explaining with footnotes, prefaces outside the TL text, by substituting with equivalents, by simplifying the concept more generally, by deleting or omitting some words or parts of sentences and by localizing the cultural setting of the SL text very close to the TL text readers (Klingberg 1986: 18). However, advisable is that the translator should not, while translating for children, aim at domesticating everything for “furthering cross-cultural understanding” (Metcalf 2003: 324).

The reading ability or readability is another important character as well as the challenge for the translator. While writing especially for children, the author has to be more careful in the use of the language and the same is the case with the translator of the ChL. Translating for children consists in their interests, needs, reactions and reading ability. The translated text should be within the reading capacity of the child reader. The translated text should conform to children’s reading levels so that they may be able to read them independently along with its proper understanding because:
Children’s books are written for a special readership but not, normally, by members of that readership; both the writing and quite often the buying of them are carried out by adult non-members on behalf of child members.(Briggs 1989: 4)

The reading ability of every reader depends on the level of development achieved by him/her because Spink says that “to be able to read, we need to go through several stages of development: physical, intellectual, emotional, social, moral, spiritual, and those concerning personality and language” (Spink 1990: 29-45). Spink believes that the reader’s reception is affected by the factors like “our reading skills and background, experience and associations; our response to the imagined persona of the author, title, cover, illustrations; our past experience of the author’s other books; time and situations and several others” (Ibid). These factors change from person to person. The good combination of the factors mentioned here develop the understanding of the readers. Since the ChL is more reader oriented, the attempt to translate it needs more focus and clarification while dealing with the issues of translation. Therefore, Klingberg argues that adaptation method can be used while translating specially for children. Adaptation means “the rendering of an expression in the source language by way of an expression in the target language which has a similar function in that language” (Klingberg 1986: 14). Shavit counts two main reasons for adapting for children: “adjusting the text in order to make it appropriate and useful to the child, in accordance with what society thinks is ‘good for the child’” and “adjusting plot, characterization and language to the child’s level of comprehension and his reading abilities” (Shavit 1981: 172). This leads a translator into the right but an easy choice of words as well as a part of diction.

In view of readability and understanding, translators are required to create a new situation that can be considered as being equivalent. Vinay and Darbelnet consider adaptation as a special kind of equivalence, a situational equivalence (Vinay and Darbelnet 1995: 39). Even Hervey and Higgins offer two techniques namely “compromise” and “compensation” (Hervey and Higgins 1992: 34). These techniques usually help to solve the linguistic problems. Compromise means, in a translator’s attempt to do full justice to the “richness of the ST”, one’s TL text “inevitably suffers from various translation losses” (Ibid). In order to give priority to certain aspects, some property of the SL has to be sacrificed. Generally, in the translation of poetry rather than the prose, more aspects are sacrificed in order to achieve desired metric and phonic effects. Klingberg believes that the author has to limit the vocabulary, to use short sentences and to prefer verbs to nouns and if possible has to avoid metaphors in order to adapt the capacities of the intended readers (Klingberg 1986: 63).

Ultimately, it amounts to state that the interest of the child reader should be maintained when s/he reads a translated text. Simultaneously, the translator has to depend on the SL author’s use of the language. If the translator attempts to change the level of the language, the TL text may lose its charm and grip. It even questions the fidelity on the part of the translator because the translator is supposed to be honest to the SL text and not to the TL text. Therefore, one who translates has to bear in his/her mind that children should read only those books which they like and generate interest and joy in them. Thus, the translation made by the translator, according to Nida and Taber, “should not be easier or more difficult to read” or should not “be more or less interesting” because they suggest “to find methods to measure the degree of adaptation in the source text and in the translation and to compare them” (Nida and Taber 1969: 24).

The transfer of language which plays an important role in the activity of translation also incorporates changes in it over a period of time accepting new words and usages. The permitted changes in the usage of the language create problems when the old classics written in the old structure of the language are translated in the modern times. The basic decision the translator has to take is whether s/he should modernize the old classical texts with the modern use of the language as the translator him/-herself is more conversant with the modern usage of the language and therefore it would be a challenge to him/her if the classical texts are to be translated retaining not only the classical flavour but also the old usage of the language. Oittinen believes that “Modernizing can be done by the original author or the translator” and it always involves the adaptation of “old-fashioned language to reflect current usage” (Oittinen 2000: 90). Modernization means, “alerting whole texts to fit some more recent time and place” (Ibid). Certain events and situations described in the old texts need to be modernized through language during its translation because the old language is out of date today and moreover, the translation targets the contemporary readers, specially children. This strategy helps the translator to refresh the old classics in the modern version of the language today. Modernization is the most useful technique but while translating for children, it is necessary to keep the old traditional idea of home, certain situations and so on otherwise the children may never get the true picture of what the old traditional house looked like. This technique is more aim-dependent of the translator. If the purpose of the translator is to make the children familiar with the old ways of life, this technique fails and the challenge remains.

Modernization is rendered useless as literature plays a missionary role for its young readers. Many translation critics like Ben-Ari (1992), Von Stockar (1996), Zohar Shavit (1996), Van Coille and Verschueren (2006), Klingberg (2008), Lathey (2010), Frimmelova (2010) and others stress the pedagogical and missionary role of the ChLT. To Von Stockar, TL texts, “help children to become well integrated citizens in society” (Von Stockar 1996: 25), to Klingberg “Didacticizing can be defined as the intention to instruct” because “since it from the beginning had instructional aims”4 (Klingberg 2008: 15). But moving a step further, Zohar Shavit states that the didactic aspect also refers to morality, broadening the nature and mission of the ChLT by linking it to past years and traditional context (Shavit 1996: 112). Even Frimmelova accepts in her PhD dissertation that “translated books play a role in the development of a positive reading attitude and may even stimulate the more reluctant readers towards reading” (Frimmelova 2010: 28). Thus, it can be noted that the translated literature renders children with the great opportunities to expand their vocabularies and knowledge.

With these views of the translation critics discussed above, the translator now faces the challenges of what to censor, what to purify and what to manipulate while translating. The idea and the technique known as “purification” refers to “sanitizing values in translation through deletion and addition” (Oittinen 2000: 90). This attempt to purify the SL text leads the translator into the direction of censorship and manipulation. Therefore, Lathey writes that “differing cultural expectations of children readers give rise to censorship in the process of translation particularly in the representation of violence and scatological references in which children take such delight” (Lathey 2006: 6). With a purpose to teach child readers, the translator would always either add or drop something to/from the SL text to make the TL text more fruitful and purpose oriented. The ChLT acquires the peripheral position in the literary system which authorizes the translator to “manipulate the text in various ways by changing, enlarging or abridging or by deleting or adding to it (Shavit 1986: 112). This authority to the translator author is justified “on pedagogical grounds or resulting from children’s assumed incapability of understanding” (Ibid). The translated text may hold a responsible position in the development of a child with the aim “to get the target text to correspond to the set of values of its readers – or rather in correspondence with the supposed set of values of those who feel themselves responsible for the upbringing of the child reader” (Klingberg 1986: 58). What is improper in the eyes of the translator will be purified and adapted to make appropriate for the intended child readers.

However, here the fear is that this purification technique imposes certain limits on the translator and his/her TL text. Therefore, the TL text is led away from the SL text resulting into the great loss of fidelity. By purifying the content passed on to the child reader, the translator prevents the child reader from learning about the ways of life of other societies. What is considered to be a positive value in one society, may not be necessary so in another society. The TL text with the complete use of this technique will impress the child reader to believe that all societies have the same values or that the values that the child is exposed to are the only ones existing. Bravo-Villasante however does not agree to the technique of purification because it is “in conflict with one of the aims of translation, i.e., to internationalize the concepts of the young readers” (Cited by Klingberg 1978: 48). Bravo-Villasante believes that it treats the TL text as the text of “the values, or the supposed values, of adults” (Ibid).

The long practice of shortening or abridging editions for children renders the translator into a problem. Klingberg points out that in the history of the ChL, most of the works that are available are mostly the abridgements of works originally published for adults. But there also exist shortenings of texts originally intended for children. Translators may also find it necessary to produce shortened versions when they are translating for children. The main purpose for abridgement should be to provide the child reader with reading material of a reasonable length. Abridging goes, of course, along with some changes to content, form and even language. Thus, even the translated text undergoes many changes, facing many challenges while being translated, which may result into the loss of some content, form or structure (Klingberg 1986: 73). Additionally, the books of ChLT deviate from their normal conventional literary norms and therefore they do not and cannot shape up very well as they are forced to describe themselves in terms of unestablished norms.

This dual readership of the TL text, adults and children, results into ambivalence. To Rudvin and Orlati, ambivalent texts are those which are “written for and received by both adults and children at various textual levels of both production and reception” (Rudvin and Orlati 2006: 159). In the context of TS, this is a challenge to a translator and an issue of concern in the ChLT. The translator passes through the confused state of his/her mind while practicing this profession as in the opinion of Metcalf, “More children’s books than ever before address a dual audience of children and adults, which on the other hand comes with a dual challenge for the translator, who now has to address both audiences in the translated literature” (Metcalf 2003: 323). The translator is forced to take into account both the child reader as a primary audience and the adult reader as a secondary audience. Both these types of readers’ demands and needs are to be considered, catered to and cautious practices should be applied for as Frimmelova underlines:
Complete omission of ambivalent elements (deleting them, transforming, or adding explanations) can result in the loss of characteristics making the literary text unique. Adults will no longer enjoy the book when reading it aloud; it may lose its linguistic quality. To preserve multiple levels in the text, the conventional one to be simply realised by the child reader; the other one only understandable to adults, is one of the biggest challenges for translators of children’s literature. (Frimmelova 2010: 35)

Ambivalence continues to appear at the level of translation, when it incorporates in itself the marks of identification attributed to a human being, an animal or a place. Proper names like Vishnu and Krishnā trouble the translator to express whether as the names of the Hindu Gods or those of men whereas the names like Narmadā and Godāvari as the names of the Indian rivers or those of women. Even when the translator has to write the name of the Lord Rāma without mentioning the word “Lord” or “God”, it creates an ambiguity of the female Indian name of Ramā especially if the diacritical mark is not used by the translator. Pet names and those of domestic animals like Moti for the dog cannot be rendered into English as “pearl” or Popat as “parrot”. The names of houses like Jannat and Pratikshā cannot be translated into English as “Heaven” and “Waiting” otherwise the meaning is completely changed. The names of places, the names of objects, the historical names, the geographical names, the names of buildings and the names of plays and games cannot be rendered into English. For example, the names of the games like Kho-kho, Kabaddi and Santā-kukdi cannot be translated into English. However, Santā-kukdi has often been rendered into English as hide and seek but other traditional names of the Indian games have no equivalents in English. Even it is difficult to translate the nickname like Babi as “daughter” in English as it changes the entire context. If translated they are, the original marks of identification are lost depriving the child readers from the flavour of the originality. If not translated, the child readers may not understand them. But by retaining the SL names as the original, the translator emphasizes that the story is really situated in a foreign nation, in a foreign culture letting the child readers learn new things about new cultures. This process educates children about the international culture based themes. Oittinen suggests that the translator should retain:
the information in the original—like names, years, places—as it is. Thus, the translator emphasizes the fact that the story is really situated in a foreign country, in a foreign culture, letting the child readers learn new things about new cultures, educating the children about international themes.(Oittinen 2000: 90)

In the contemporary times, the translation and selling of books have become a profession which also influences the translation of a text. Issues such as appropriateness, suitability and usefulness underline that adults are very protective towards child readers and are much concerned with their choices regarding what to provide child readers with. This attitude has led the translators into a dilemma while translating. Their fear not to be published determines the course of their translation activity. They have to purify the TL text because for parents what their children should have is not a risk-taking matter. Overall, for conscious or unconscious reasons, didactic, moral, ethical, religious, social, political, sexual and ideological issues are issues in the ChLT where censorship and manipulation are applied so as to preserve the educational, informative, therapeutic, intellectual and entertaining aspects.

Children, when they read the translated text, are unaware of the process of translation and the role of a translator. To them, the translator is invisible as they like fantasy and hardly the reality. Anyhow, in the translation of the ChL, the most significant role has to be played by the translator who though invisible in the text is the soul of the TL text. Because children’s books were never valued earlier, the translation of such books were according to Anthea Bell were considered “a kind of ghetto” (Cited in Pinsent 2006: 48). The low status of the ChLT has never made a translator very serious in the act of translation especially while translating for children. Billings and Hoskins outcry that “a perceived lack of interest from the general public” and the most important “a lack of real interest on the part of bookshops in stocking them” have reduced the translator’s interest in the praxis of this activity (Billings and Hoskins 2006: 103). Thomson-Wolgemuth comments on the role played by booksellers and parents especially:
Booksellers and publishers, feeling the pressure from parents, will adapt in order to sell their books; or rather, they will anticipate what it is that parents want and will censor anything that they feel would not meet with parental approval. Authors will adapt to survive in the market and write only “good” books –that is, meaning superficial, sanitized books– avoiding controversial and taboo subjects. What society wants, in the end, are good citizens who function according to society’s norms. It will therefore exercise pressure in its citizens. . . (Thomson-Wolgemuth 1998: 26)

The translated texts are considered “a vain investment” and “a money-losing proposition” by publishers (Lathey 2006: 88). Moreover, the translated texts are also considered “expensive, time-consuming and unsuccessful in the marketplace” (Stephen 2004: 48). Their unwillingness to spend money on the ChLT, deprives the child readers of certain opportunities to read. The denial of an access to child readers to certain books, only because some books have been rejected by the publishers from publishing, results into their losses. This attitude of the publishers towards the ChLT is very clear in the statement of Pullman:
But these days, more and more mainstream publishers are owned by big multi-national corporations that are interested only in profit, and in nothing else whatsoever. And it costs money to translate books, because it’s a demanding intellectual activity and there aren’t many people who can do it well, and publishers are reluctant to spend money on producing books that booksellers won’t sell, and booksellers are reluctant to give space to books that readers don’t want, and readers don’t want books they’ve never seen reviewed, and literary editors won’t review books if the publishers don’t spend much money on advertising. And it all goes round in a circle, and outside the circle is the rest of the world.(Pullman, 2005: 23)

Publishers’ very little attention to translators results into their receiving very meagre wages and therefore their paying less serious attention to the praxis of translation. These translators are poorly paid both, attention and money. Royalties were low and rates unsatisfactory. Worse than that, many translators witnessed difficult working conditions –and still are. Torstein Hoverstad, the Norwegian translator of Harry Potter, is a living example of a professional translator, who, speaking of his experience of being a literary translator, confesses that to him it feels like attempting something integrally impossible. Although he is successful, he is being badly paid, and remains virtually invisible.5 The little acknowledged translators belong to the disappeared part of history as the anonymous “unsung heroes” or “shadowy figures”, finding their place no where in the translated work i.e. the front page, preface, afterword or elsewhere (Lathey 2006: 209).

On the other side, however, there are also critics who appreciate the invisibility of translators in the act of translation. They appreciate their fidelity and invisibility both as this renders them the status very close to the SL writers. Pat Pinsent underlines that “translators today have a higher profile than any time in the recent past” (Pinsent 2006: 1). Anthea Bell says that translation is “a low-profile profession” and the translator had better be invisible. But Bell further adds that “if someone says that she or he didn’t realize a book was a translation at all”, she is very much delighted. Her idea is not to allow the translator an ego trip but the readers should have the same pleasure that “from the reading of a book in translation as readers of the original” have (Cited in Pinsent 2006: 48). Lathey’s (2010) recent book The Role of Translators in Children’s Literature: Invisible Storytellers points to the significance of translations and translators through the years. The book highlights the crucial role the translator plays in the translation process, giving him/her voice and power, and turns the research attention to translation process issues such as the translator’s methodology, strategies and motivation.

Ultimately, the most important role in the field of translation is played neither by translators nor publishers, nor booksellers but by the readers or consumers of this type of translated literature. If the readers do not want to read or they do not appreciate the TL texts, the entire labour of the translators is lost then. In the modern times of more scientific inventions, internet and other media forms have taken the young readers away from reading books, as it is possible that many young readers may consider it their waste of time. The fast pace of the modern world is also responsible for this. When it comes to child readers, if possible, they should be inspired to read as much as possible and the literature that is produced in the SL should be able to attract the attention of the young readers so that when it is translated, it may be able to catch the young readers’ attention and interest.

Nevertheless, the future of the TS in the ChL is very bright. The initiatives like the Marsh Prize for Children’s Literature in Translation, the catalogue Outside In: Children’s Books in Translation (Hallford and Zaghini 2005), the establishment of research centres and academic departments offering MA and PhD degrees in the ChLT in several parts of the globe mirror the increased interest in the study of translation in the ChL. It is hopeful that the field of the ChL has started getting attention of translators. Several aspects of the ChL meet the need for multicultural research.

This promising activity has made critics think of this scientific area as a promising direction that needs be further explored in the future. Really, TS has struggled to gain the position it deserves in the realm of sciences. Today, anybody can speak with much pride on the “evolution of a genre traditionally marked by its marginal position of all fronts6” (Camara 2008: 8). The future of the ChLT is very hopeful as the critic like Fernandes Lopez believes that the attempt to translate the ChL has “less complexity than corresponding studies of adult literature” as TS reveals “yet again the richness of the field and the need for multidisciplinary research” (Fernandez Lopez 2006: 52). There lies the current and future focus on the ChLT that derives itself from the global needs to translate for children’s global heritage.

The turn of TS to the new technologies, process research and new methodologies possibly can lead to challenging research pathways and shed some light on aspects of the ChLT that have not been thoroughly investigated yet. Research topics such as translators’ attitudes, behaviour, emotions, feelings and choices as they translate the ChL or children’s attitudes, emotions, motivations and reactions as they read the translated ChL are issues that could be studied in an attempt to further advance this promising scientific field. New trends in TS research and globalization have affected the research of the ChLT.

The latest electronic era with its electronic media as the route of communication and as a means of machine translation will hold the future of translation. This implies that the ChLT also needs to communicate through this new media. Burnett and Marshall remark that “Information and communication technology shape our perception, distributes our pictures of the world to one another and constructs different forms of control over the cultural stories that shape our sense of who we are in the world” (Burnett and Marshall 2003: 61). The development of the new technologies like radio, e-books, talking drums, telegraphs, LCD and LED televisions, laptop and palmtop computers and above all mobile phones have created evolution in the field of communication. They create new opportunities and perception for reflection and social experience. Though the internet has many negative aspects, the internet can also be utilized to counteract these influences and be made the positive source of formation and cultural transition.

The Internet can play a significant role in the creation and transfer of cultural identity, including the advancement of indigenous languages in general and literature and literacy in particular. The vast technical possibilities of the Internet, its cost-efficiency and interactive and inviting character makes it an important option to consider for the advancement of the ChLT. As “Google translator” and many other soft wares are easily available on the internet and the professionalism on the part of translators have made the ChLT fast. New websites can be developed to provide content and services for other target groups and language as well. The ChLT has a lot of scope for marketing, mediating and the vast reception. However, it must be mentioned that machines cannot have human emotions and therefore cannot know them. They cannot know how to use censorship. They do not know how to use manipulation power. They hardly have a human ideology and the knowledge of cultures. Machines have translatability of that data only that has been fed into them. Thus, it is impossible to replace human power by the machine power and hence the scarcity of good translators and translated works challenge the future of human beings and the future translators.

NOTES

1. Leonardi, V. “Equivalence in Translation: Between Myth and Reality.” In Translation Journal, 4 (4), 2000. http://translationjournal.net/journal//14equiv.htm (Consulted on December 28, 2013).
2. Gerding-Salas, C. “Teaching Translation: Problems and Solutions”, Translation Journal 4 (3), 2000. http://translationjournal.net/journal//13educ.htm (Consulted on January 28, 2013).
3. Xeni, Elena. “Issues of Concern in the Study of Children’s Literature Translation”. keimena.ece.uth.gr/main/t13/Xeni_final_text_English.pdf (Consulted on February 4, 2013).
4. Klingberg, G. Facets of Children’s Literature Research: Collected and Reused Writings. The Swedish Institute for Children’s Books, no 99, 2008. http://www.sbi.kb.se/upload/Public/Forskning/Klingberg_Facets.pdf (Consulted on February 1, 2013).
5. Goldstein, S. (2005). “Translating Harry - Part II: The Business of Magic” 2005. http://www.globalbydesign.com/resources/translating_harry_potter_2.html (Consulted on January 31, 2013).
6. Camara Aguilera, E. “The Translation of Proper Names in Children’s Literature”, 2008. http://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/4666.pdf (Consulted on December 23, 2012).