Translator as a Second Author in the Translation of Children’s Literature. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in Grzegorz Wasowski’s Rendition

• Main Author: Jolanta Staniuk
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cracow Tertium Society for the Promotion of Language Studies 2019-01-01
• Series: Półrocznik Językoznawczy Tertium
• Subjects: cultural turn; children’s literature translation; translator as a second author; manipulation
• Online Access: https://journal.tertium.edu.pl/index.php/JaK/article/view/108
• ISSN: 2543-7844; 2543-7844

The aim of the article is to present the phenomenon of the translator as a second author within the context of children’s literature translation. With the cultural turn in translation studies, the translator, who up until this point had adhered to the common norms preferring the transparency of the translated text, became visible and this visibility is no longer deemed a failure. Sometimes, the translator manifests his or her presence in a text in a more extreme manner, introducing a number of changes, which can lead to a significant modification of the original text and which place him or her in the position of the second author. Children’s literature seems to be a proper background for the analysis of this problem since its translators, similarly to its authors, are expected to put themselves in the place of a young reader as well as to adjust the translated text to the norms governing the target literary system. A text which belongs to children’s literature, in which the translator assumes the role of the second author, is the newest Polish rendition of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The translator, Grzegorz Wasowski, introduces numerous changes to the translated text, which result in a significant modification of the book known to the Polish readers through numerous past translations.