Prevođenje jezičkih varijeteta u dečjoj književnosti: „Tim Talir ili Prodati smeh” Džejmsa Krisa
Translating Linguistic Varieties in Children’s Literature: James Krüss’s “Timm Thaler”

Summary/Abstract: The translation of children’s literature calls for careful consideration of the readers’ linguistic competences, more so than in the case of literary translations for adults. It is for this reason that translators hold a certain responsibility towards the recipients of the target text, and should therefore put the young readers and their understanding of the text above their loyalty to the original. This viewpoint corresponds with the ideas of the functional approach to translation, according to which the recipient should be placed in the foreground and the translation process determined by the purpose (skopos) of the target text. Such an approach is suitable when dealing with linguistic varieties in literary texts, as these varieties are the result of the authors’ creative manipulation of the language and they do not have a clear equivalent in the target language. Keeping their function in mind, the translator should determine how to transfer the information these nonstandard forms have to offer about the characters that use them, and do so in a way which is accessible and comprehensible for young readers. Several characters appear in James Krüss’s novel Timm Thaler (Timm Thaler oder Das verkaufte Lachen), whose manner of speaking is characterised by the use of linguistic varieties. In this paper, using the novel’s Serbian translation by Spomenka Krajčević and from a functional standpoint, the translator’s strategies when dealing with linguistic varieties will be analysed, with the goal of determining whether or not the purpose of the varieties was preserved and by what means this was achieved.

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