A children's comparative study of recall, comprehension and motivation of one foreign book in three translation versions

Abstract

This article presents the results of a research project on the translation of children's literature. The main objective was to determine how the reception of literary works by children can be affected by the general translation strategy used. Second-grade primary school children participated in this study. The material used was one story originally written in English, but which had been translated into Spanish. After producing different versions of the translation, subjects read them and had to answer a series of questions. It was found that for that specific age group, recall and motivation (and therefore comprehension) was higher for the translation in which cultural aspects and references were adapted to the readership (domesticating translation). The translated story that contained both domesticated and foreignized elements (mixed translation) obtained the second-best results. Finally, the translation that retained elements of the foreign culture (foreignizing translation) produced less satisfactory results.