Wasted world o sporco mondo: tradurre i testi divulgativi per ragazzi sull’ambiente

• Authors: Annalisa Sezzi

Title variants

EN

Wasted World o Sporco Mondo: Translating Informational Books for Children on Environmental Issues

Abstracts

IT

Il presente studio si concentra sulle traduzioni italiane di due libri informativi per bambini in inglese – Wasted World (2009) e Kids Fight Climate Change (2020) –, che trattano di tematiche ambientali. I testi divulgativi sono il risultato di un complesso processo il cui scopo è quello di rendere comprensibile ai giovani lettori un sapere specialistico. Per farlo, questi libri si affidano a diverse strategie discorsive, come diversi tipi di spiegazione, e a diverse forme di coinvolgimento dei lettori, come le domande e l’ironia. Sono parte, infatti, di un fenomeno chiamato “edutainment” in cui educazione e intrattenimento si intrecciano per creare un “genere ibrido” (Buckingham e Scanlon, 2005). In particolare, i testi in analisi affrontano questioni ecologiche ed ambientali. Hanno pertanto un duplice scopo: informare e sensibilizzare i bambini all’interno di una prospettiva di sviluppo dell’“ecoliteracy”. Nonostante l’importanza di questi prodotti letterari, la traduzione di testi divulgativi è ancora un campo di ricerca poco esplorato sia in termini di diffusione destinata agli adulti che di diffusione destinata ai bambini. L’analisi comparativa si concentra sulle modalità tramite cui il riscaldamento globale e il cambiamento climatico vengono affrontati all’interno di questi testi e nelle rispettive traduzioni. Si esamina, nello specifico, come vengono tradotte le strategie divulgative, data la loro importanza nella disseminazione della conoscenza rivolta ai bambini. I risultati mostrano che le traduzioni italiane, pur mantenendo il connubio tra educazione e intrattenimento, tendono ad essere più precise e più complesse. Questo è in linea con le differenze interculturali identificate tra le culture a basso contesto (LC) e quelle ad alto contesto (HC).

EN

The paper focuses on the Italian translations of two English informational books for children: Wasted World (2009) and Kids Fight Climate Change (2020), which deal with environmental issues. Informational books texts result from a complex dissemination process aimed at making specialised knowledge comprehensible to young readers. To achieve this purpose, informational books rely on various discursive popularising strategies, such as an array of explanations, and various methods for eliciting readers’ engagement, such as questions and irony. Indeed, they are part of what has come to be known as “edutainment,” in which education and entertainment are intertwined to create a “hybrid genre” (Buckingham and Scanlon, 2005). As the texts examined in the paper engage with ecology and environmental issues, they have a dual purpose: to inform and to raise awareness (ecoliteracy). Despite the importance of popularising texts, the translation of such products is still an underexplored field of research. The comparative analysis of the two English texts and their respective Italian translations centres on how global warming and climate change are described in the source and target texts. It examines how the popularising strategies are translated, given their importance in knowledge dissemination for children. The findings indicate that Italian translations, though retaining the combination of education and entertainment, tend to be more precise and more complex than the source texts. This is in line with the intercultural differences identified between Low Context (LC) cultures and High Context (HC) cultures.

Keywords

EN

ecology; translation; informational books; popularisation for children; edutainment

IT

ecologia; traduzione; testi divulgativi; divulgazione per bambini; edutainment

• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek
• Journal: Italica Wratislaviensia
• Year: 2022
• Issue: 13.1
• Pages: 165-192

Dates

published

2022

Contributors

author

Annalisa Sezzi

• Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italia

• https://orcid.org/0000000170020718

References

• Arnold, N. (2009). Wasted World. Horrible Science. London: Scholastic.
• Arnold, N. (2012). Sporco Mondo, Brutte Scienze (translated by P. Formenton). Milano: Salani.
• Bell, A. (2008). The Childish Nature of Science: Exploring the child/science relationship in popular non-fiction. In A. Bell, R. Davies, & S. Mellor (Eds.), Science and its Public (pp.79–89). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• Benevento, S. V. (2022). Communicating Climate Change Risk to Children: A Thematic Analysis of Children’s Literature. Early Childhood Educ J. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-021-01294-y.
• Buckingham, D., Scanlon, M. (2005). Selling Learning: Towards a Political Economy of Edutainment Media. Media, Culture and Society, 27(1), 41–58.
• Calsamiglia, H., van Dijk, T A. (2004). Popularization Discourse and Knowledge about the Genome. Discourse & Society, 15(4), 369–389.
• Collet, H. (2006). Stakes and prospects of historical popularization books for children regarded as educational media. In B. Bruillard, E. Aamotsbakken, S. V. Knudsen, & M. Horsley (Eds.), Caught in the Web Or Lost in the Textbook? Eighth International Conference on Learning and Educational Media (123–132). Retrieved from http://www.iartem.no/documents/caught_in_the_web.pdf.
• Cristini, A. (2014). Leggere per Scoprire: I Libri di Divulgazione Scientifica. In M. Campagnaro (Ed.), Le Terre della Fantasia. Leggere la Letteratura per l’Infanzia e l’Adolescenza (pp. 233–264). Roma: Donzelli.
• Cuccolini, C. G. (2008). Divulgare non significa render volgare. Liber, 74, 75.
• De Marchi, V. (2007). Divulgazione: chi la fa e chi la legge. Liber, 73, 7–8.
• Dorey, M. (2021). Kids Fight Climate Change. London: Walker Books.
• Dorey, M. (2021). 70 (e più) missioni anti cambiamento climatico. (translated by S. Lombardi). Milano: De Agostini.
• Fina, M. E. (2018), Investigating Effecting Audio Guiding. Roma: Carocci.
• Forni, D. (2020). Amare e proteggere il mare. La letteratura per l’infanzia e la sensibilizzazione ambientale. In G. Annacontini, & C. Birbes (Eds.), Scenari di futuro: creatività e immaginazione per lo sviluppo sostenibile (pp. 55–62). Bergamo: Zeroseiup.
• Gibbons, E. D. (2014). Climate change, children’s rights, and the pursuit of intergenerational climate justice. Health and Human Rights Journal, 16(1), 19–31.
• Goga, N. (2020). Verbal and Visual Informational Strategies in Non-Fiction Books Awarded and Mentioned by the Bologna Ragazzi Award 2009–2019. In G. Grilli (Ed.), Non-Fiction Picture Books. Sharing Knowledge as an Aesthetic Experience (pp. 51–67). Pisa: ETS.
• Gotti, M. (1996). Il linguaggio della divulgazione: problematiche di traduzione intralinguistica. In C. Giuseppina (Ed.), Tradurre i linguaggi settoriali (pp. 217–235). Torino: Cortina.
• Grilli, G. (Ed.). 2020. Non-Fiction Picture Books. Sharing Knowledge as an Aesthetic Experience. Pisa: ETS.
• Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond Culture. New York: Anchor Books.
• Hall, E. T., & Hall, M. R. (1990). Understanding Cultural Differences. Yarmouth ME: Intercultural Press.
• Katan, D. (2004). Translating Cultures. Manchester: St Jerome (2 ed.).
• Kress, G., van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge.
• Larkin‐Lieffers, P. (2010). Images of childhood and the implied reader in young children’s information books. Literacy, 44, 76–82.
• Liao, M. H. (2013). Popularisation and Translation. In Y. Gambier, & L. van Doorslaer, Handbook of Translation Studies (pp. 130–133). Amsterdam– Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.
• Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s Consequences: comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications (2 ed.).
• Klingberg, G. (1986). Children’s Fiction in the Hands of the Translator. Malmo: Liber/Gleerup.
• Mallet, M. (2004). Children’s Information Texts. In P. Hunt (Eds), International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature (pp. 622–630). London e New York: Routledge.
• Manca, E. (2012) Translating the Language of Tourism across Cultures: From Functionally Complete Units of Meaning to Cultural Equivalence. Textus, 25(1), 51–68.
• Manca, E. (2017). Verbal techniques of the language of tourism across cultures: an analysis of five official tourist websites. In M. Bielenia-Grajewska, & M. E. Cortés de los Ríos (Eds.) Innovative Perspectives on Tourism Discourse (pp. 91–110). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
• Masi, S. (2021). Translating non-fiction picturebooks for children across age groups and languages: the case of informative books on geography in English and Italian. Translation Matters. Special Issue: Picturebooks and Graphic Narratives, 3(2), 60–74.
• Myers, G. (1989). Science for Women and Children: The Dialogue of Popular Science in the Nineteenth Century. In J. R. R. Christie, & S. Shuttleworth (Eds.), Nature Transfigured (171–200). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Myers, G. (2003). Discourse studies of scientific popularization: questioning the boundaries. Discourse Studies, 5(2), 265–279.
• Oittinen, R. (2000). Translating for Children. New York: Garland.
• O’Sullivan, E. (1998). Losses and Gains in Translation: Some Remarks on the Translation of Humor in the Books of Aidan Chambers. Children’s Literature, 26, 185–204.
• O’Sullivan, E. (2005). Comparative Children’s Literature. London: Routledge.
• Oziewicz, M., & Saguisag, L. (2021). Introduction: Children’s Literature and Climate Change. The Lion and the Unicorn, 45(2), v–xiv. doi:10.1353/uni.2021.0011.
• Paladin, L., & Pasinetti, L. (1999). L’arte della divulgazione. Viaggi nei libri di divulgazione per bambini e ragazzi. LG Argomenti, 2, 14–29.
• Pappas, C. C. (2006). The Information Book Genre: Its Role in Integrated Science Literacy Research and Practice. Reading Research Quarterly, 41(2), 226–250.
• Puurtinen, T. (1995). Linguistic Acceptability in Translated Children’s Literature. Joensuu: University of Joensu
• Ramos, A. M., & Ramos, R. (2011). Ecoliteracy through imagery: A close reading of two wordless picture books. Children’s literature in education, 42(4), 325–340.
• Reiss, K. (1982). Zur Übersetzung von Kinder – und Jügendbchern. Theorie und Praxis. Lebende Sprachen, 27(1), 7–13.
• Scanlon, M., & Buckingham, D. (2002). Popular histories: “education” and “entertainment” in information books for children. The Curriculum Journal, 13(2), 141–161
• Sezzi, A. (2015). Horrible Histories e Brutte Storie: La Traduzione dei Libri Divulgativi storici. In L. Soliman, G. Palumbo, & I. Palandri (Eds.), Processi Evolutivi della Traduzione: Formazione, Nuove Tecnologie e Nuovi Orizzonti d’Analisi (pp. 83–105). Roma: Officina.
• Sezzi, A. (2017). “History is Horrible. Especially in Schools:” Remediating History Books for Children in Translation. In M. Canepari, G. Mansfield, & F. Poppi (Eds.), The Many Facets of Remediation in Language Studies (pp. 447–466). Beau Bassin: Lambert Publishing.
• Sezzi, A. (2019). “’History is horrible but it is MORE Horrible in Some Places than Others’: the Translation of History Books for Children”. Équivalences, 46(1–2), 189–212.
• Tabbert, R. (2002). Approaches to the translation of Children’s Literature. Target, 14(2), 303–351.
• Shavit, Z. (1986), Poetics of Children’s Literature. Athens and New York: The University of Georgia Press.
• Vee, R. (1998). The Greening of School Science. In J. Martin, & R. Veel (Eds.), Reading Science. Critical and Functional Perspectives on Discourse of Science (pp. 114–151). London: Routledge.
• Unsworth, L. (2007). Image/text Relations and Intersemiosis: Towards a Multimodal Text Description for Multiliteracies and Education. In B. Leila, & T. Berber Sardinha (Eds.), Proceedings of 33rd ISFC International Systemic Functional Congress (PUCSP, São Paulo, Brazil) (pp. 1165– –1205). Retrieved from www.pucsp.br/isfc/proceedings/. Last accessed 29 April 2018.
• Unsworth, L. (2006). Towards a Metalanguage for Multiliteracies Education: Describing the Meaning Making Resources of Language-Image Interaction. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 5(1), 55–76.

Identifiers

DOI

10.15804/IW.2022.13.1.07

Biblioteka Nauki

2117685