Translating children's literature: Some insights from corpus stylistics

Abstract

In this article I explore the potential of a corpus stylistic approach to the study of literary translation. he study focuses on translation of children's literature with its speciic constrains, and illustrates with two corpus linguistic techniques: keyword and cluster analysis-speciic cases of repetition. So in a broader sense the article discusses the phenomenon of repetition in diferent literary (stylistic) traditions. hese are illustrated by examples from two children's classics aimed at two diferent age groups: the Harry Potter and the Winnie the Pooh books-and their translations into Czech. Various shits in translation, especially in the translation of children's literature, are oten explained by the operation of so-called "translation universals". hough "repetition" as such does not belong to the commonly discussed set of translation universals, the stylistic norms opposing repetition seem to be a strong explanation for the translation shits identiied.