An invisible storyteller or a loud recreator? A translator-centered approach to the translation of children’s literature

Abstract

This paper aims to demonstrate that, like the original author, a translator of children’s literature (hereafter CH. L.) possesses a distinct style or idiolect, shaped by both linguistic and extralinguistic expectations. The study focuses on the first three books of the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, translated into Albanian by Amik Kasoruho, who is renowned for his contributions to the translation of classic adult literature. Given the study’s scope, the analysis will concentrate exclusively on Kasoruho’s creative use of the lexicon in the Albanian translation. Both internal and external factors are considered to identify and analyze translator Kasoruho’s idiolect at the lexical level. Internally, sentences containing words and phrases with common patterns (e.g., archaic terms, dialectal expressions, phraseological units, substandard words) are selected from the target text. These are compared with their counterparts in the source text to determine whether such patterns reflect the author’s style or the translator’s linguistic preferences. Externally, these lexical clusters are assessed against the norms of children’s literature translation (Ch. L. T.) to ascertain whether the translator adhered to or deviated from these norms. The findings suggest that the translator’s linguistic idiosyncrasies significantly influence the translation process.