Translators in the politically correct discourse: Translating contemporary children’s literature

Abstract

A new axiological scale of the politically correct discourse in today’s multicultural society influences the key characteristics of contemporary children’s literature and, particularly, its language. The paper considers contemporary children’s literature within the politically correct discourse imposed by society nowadays. The object under consideration is children’s literature translated from English into Russian. The subject of the research is axiological linguistic changes of these texts functioning in the PC discourse.

In the contemporary politically correct discourse, the values, relationships, wishes of communicants are often connected to the emotiogenic factors in communication. They are discourse participants’ racial, gender, and other identifications, which generate definite emotions, positive or negative. Achieving the communicative goals of making contact, obtaining information and selfpresentation of communicants is associated with the need to form a common emotiogenic space for the participants in the politically correct discourse.

The texts under consideration are Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: Modern Tales for Our Life and Times by J. F. Garner and some translations of these stories into Russian; The Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit, retold by J. Lester, which have been recently published in its Russian edition with a wide translator’s commentary.

With the help of such methods as discourse analysis, cultural linguistic analysis, axiological linguistic analysis, the paper investigates some of the constitutive components of the politically correct discourse (its members, chronotope, objects, values, strategies, and discursive formulae), which form a new axiological scale in the texts of contemporary children’s literature.

The paper stands for the hypothesis that the politically correct discourse is not acute yet for the Russian linguistic culture. The research reveals that contemporary Russian children’s literature (including the translated part of it) is just coming into the frame of the politically correct discourse, whilst English children’s literature is actively functioning in this type of a discourse.

The politically correct discourse functioning in the English-speaking countries is the target of ironic or sarcastic parodies using its discursive formulae or its manipulative strategies.

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