engleski

Why retranslate: from text to context and back: the case of "Robinson Crusoe" in Croatia

An analysis of the selected elements of the paratext in Robinson's retranslations (prefaces, afterwords and translators/editors’ notes) is combined with textual analysis in order to disentangle a complex web of motivations standing behind publishing a first translation with a large number of its re-editions, three retranslations and modifications of the first retranslation. Three of the analyzed TTs contain prefaces and afterwords written by translators, Berislav Grgić and Milan Crnković. In their comments on previous translations they foreground a consideration for the original ST as a motive for a new translation. However, textual analysis along with a detailed analysis of the selected paratextual elements (prefaces and afterwords) shows that the translators were aware that their translations contain interventions in the ST, which they explained by a need to adapt the ST to “our little readers”. On the other hand, after radical political changes in the 1990s, in a modified version of Crnković’s translation, Crnković announces that now the moment has come for the “original Robinson” in Croatian. While the translator in the peritext points to the work’s literary value and canonical status, which indicates an attempt to reposition the ST within the TC, the paratextual elements indicate the publisher’s intention to cater for two types of audience: agents in the education system and school children on the one hand and the general readership on the other. The analysis of the peritext of the two retranslations produced in the 2000s shows differing publishers’ motivations: on the one hand, a good market potential of the book that is on the required reading list and on the other hand, the intention to position Robinson Crusoe as a canonical work, not necessarily addressed exclusively to schoolchildren.

retranslation, paratextual elements, peritext, translators’ prefaces, children readers, the education system

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