뉴베리상과 아동문학의 번역주체

Abstract

Since the first conferment in 1922, the Newbery Award has been regarded as the most worldwidely recognized children’s literary book award. After the announcement of the awarded books every January, the Newbery winner and its honor books sell fast and well in the book markets. Korea is well-known for its huge enthusiasm for young children’s learning English in their early ages. Newbery books are immensely popular for Korean K-12 students who are keen on following American education system and literacy teaching method. As a result, 62 Newbery awarded books out of 93 have been translated into Korean and quite a number of honor books have also been translated. However, the translation for children’s book is a very tricky issue because children are neither yet regarded as a mature nor a critical reader. The translators for English written texts need to be more cautious in their translating works in that the young readers’ identity can be lost when reading the uncritically translated books. Newbery Award is often thought of as the safe and recommendable books. This paper, however, argues that Newbery Award books are not always so. The controversies around Newbery Award books such as gender, race,and culture are discussed here and the issue of ideal translation is also taken into account along with them. The modern era is called an age of translation and translation becomes the battlefield of cultural confliction. Without the critical subject in translation, the reading of mindlessly translated books might be the same as travelling without a good guidebook. Although Walter Benjamin's concept of pure language is still abstract in literature, its potential polysystemic power practiced by translators of English texts is much in need specially in the translation of children's literature whose readers are still immature.