Proyecto Final Literatura infantil y censura

Children's literature and censorship: Third Year at Malory Towers, by Enid Blyton

Sara Rodil Alonso

Tutor: Sergio Lobejón Santos

Curso 2023/2024

Grado en Filología Moderna: Inglés

Table of contents

04. Background information

08. Conclusion

09. Bibliography

07. Findings and results

03. Research questions

05. Methodology

02. Aims of the study

06. Analysis

01. Introduction

• Research on censorship in democratic Spain
• Role of the article written by Gutiérrez Lanza & Gómez Castro (2023)

01. Introduction

• Importance of children's literature in their education
• Censorship in literature during the Francoist regime
• Present-day censorship of literary works

02. Aims of the study

Main aims

1. To compare the censorship that existed under Franco and the censorship mechanisms that exist today.
2. To examine the different nature of censorship now and then.
3. To observe the modifications that have been introduced in Third Year at Malory Towers.
4. To examine the censorship that exists in democratic societies.

03. Research questions

Q1

Has censorship changed or evolved in the last years?

Q2

Is censorship today stricter than the Francoist censorship in children's literature taking into account the different periods of time compared?

04. Background information

• Children's literature and censorship
• Francoist censorship policy
• Censorship today
• Adaptations, revisions and retranslations
• Enid Blyton
• The censorship of Enid Blyton's books
• The censorship of Malory Towers

05. Method: the TRACE methodology

Establishment of a parallel corpus

• Chapters 6 & 7
• ST1: Third Year at Malory Towers (Blyton, 1948)
• ST2: Third Year at Malory Towers (Blyton, 2014)
• TT1: Tercer año en Torres de Malory (Blyton, 1964)
• TT2: Tercer año en Torres de Malory (Blyton, 2023)

Steps

1. Preliminary analysis of contextual data
2. (Cataloguing of source texts and their respective target texts)
3. Selection of representative sets of texts
4. Descriptive and comparative analysis of the texts selected
5. Establishment of translation norms

06. Analysis

Third Year at Malory Towers

• 3rd of 6 books
• Published in 1948
• It has been reissued more than 70 times and has sold more than 1 million copies

Tercer año en Torres de Malory

• First published in 1964
• Translated by C. Peraire del Molino
• Positive censor's report
• Advertised as a suitable book for children written by an author with a "literary, moral, educational and entertaining style"

Findings and results

07.

Examples

• Table 1: Neutralisation of controversial moral issues (p. 31)
• Table 3: Substitution of dated cultural references (p. 32)

ST1_1948 vs. ST2_2014

• Substitution of adjective "queer" by "odd"
• Substitution of adjective "gay" by "lovely"
• Elimination of names: "Blackie" and "Midnight"
• Modernization of cultural references: "gramophone"

07. Findings and results

TT1_1964 vs. TT2_2023

• Different translator
• Neutralisation of racism: elimination of names or references to slavery.
• Neutralisation of references to corporal punishment
• Substitution of dated references: gramófono
• Neutralisation of some insults: tonta, estúpida
• Modernisation of certain expressions
• Correction of mistakes

Examples

• Table 6: Neutralisation of controversial issues (racism) (p. 34)
• Table 7: Neutralisation of references to corporal punishment (p. 35)
• Table 8: Substitution of dated cultural references to current ones (p. 35)
• Table 9: Neutralisation of insults (pp. 35-36)
• Table 10: Modernised use of language (p. 36)
• Table 11: Word-for-word vs. functional translation (p. 36)

08. Conclusion

Mechanisms deduced from the analysis

1. Neutralisation of controversial moral issues.
2. Elimination of references to corporal punishment.
3. Neutralisation of insults.
4. Substitution of dated cultural references and modernisation of language.
5. Replacement of word-by-word translation by a functional translation.

• Censorship has evolved
• Self-censorship as a by-product of Francoist censorship was justifiable

• Less reading and more engagement with modern technologies
• Lack of censorship regarding really inappropriate material

• Alvstad, C. (2010). Children’s literature and translation. In Y. Gambier & L. Van Doorslaer (Eds.), Handbook of Translation Studies, (Vol. 1, pp. 22-27). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/hts.1.chi1
• Ariza, M. (2019). Creatividad y diálogo en la traducción de la literatura infantil y juvenil. In M. R. Álvarez Silva, A. Muñoz Alvarado & L. Ruiz Miyares (Eds.), Comunicación Social: Lingüística, Medios Masivos, Arte, Etnología, Folclor y otras ciencias afines, (Vol. 2, pp. 701-705). Centro de Lingüística Aplicada.
• Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2024, April 23). Enid Blyton. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Enid-Blyton
• Colpisa (2017, March 14). Jordi Sierra i Fabra: "Lamento que seamos más borricos e incultos que nunca". Diario de Navarra, https://www.diariodenavarra.es/noticias/cultura_ocio/cultura/2017/03/14/el_escritor_jordi_sierra_fabra_mas_leido_espanol_del_mundo_lamenta_borricos_que_somos_521570_1034.html
• Dastjerdi, H. and Mohammadi, A. (2013). Revisiting “Retranslation Hypothesis”: A Comparative Analysis of Stylistic Features in the Persian Retranslations of Pride and Prejudice. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 3, 174-181. http://doi.org/10.4236/ojml.2013.33024

Secondary sources

09. Bibliography

Primary sources

• Blyton, E. (1948). Third Year at Malory Towers. Methuen & Co. Ltd.
• Blyton, E. (1964). Tercer año en Torres de Malory [Third Year at Malory Towers]. (C. Peraire del Molino, Trans.). Editorial Molino.
• Blyton, E. (2014). Third Year at Malory Towers. Egmont UK Ltd.
• Blyton, E. (2023). Tercer año en Torres de Malory [Third Year at Malory Towers]. (Mireia Rué, Trans.). RBA Molino.

• Del Molino, S. (2017, June 5). Pequeños pero no tontos. El País. https://elpais.com/cultura/2017/06/02/babelia/1496404972_208595.html
• Dixon, B. (1974). The nice, the naughty and the nasty: the tiny world of Enid Blyton. Children’s literature in Education, 5(3), 43-61.
• Editorial Molino. (1963, December 27). Novelas juveniles. ABC Madrid. https://www.abc.es/archivo/periodicos/abc-madrid-19631227-53.html
• Egmont (n.d.). Our history. https://www.egmont.com/our-history
• Fernández López, M. (1996). La traducción de textos infantiles y juveniles anglosajones y la censura franquista. In R. Rabadán (Ed.), Traducción y censura inglésespañol: 1939-1985. Estudio Preliminar (pp. 227-253). Universidad de León.
• Fernández López, M. (2000). Comportamientos censores en la literatura infantil y juvenil: traducciones del inglés en la España franquista. In R. Rabadán (Ed.), Traducción y censura, inglés-español 1939-1985: estudio preliminar (pp. 227-254). Universidad de León.
• Fernández López, M. (2007). Comportamientos censores en la literatura infantil y juvenil traducida del inglés en la época franquista: Establecimiento de un corpus textual. In R. Merino (Ed.), Traducción y censura en España (1939-1985). Estudios sobre corpus TRACE: cine, narrativa, teatro (pp. 19-48). Universidad del País Vasco.
• Gómez Castro, C. (2009). Traducción y censura de textos narrativos inglés-español en la España franquista y de transición: TRACEni (1970-1978) [Doctoral dissertation, Universidad de León]. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de León. https://buleria.unileon.es/handle/10612/1413
• Gutiérrez Lanza, C. & Gómez Castro, C. (2023). Revision and retranslation of children’s classics in modern-day UK and Spain: The case of Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five and Malory Towers. Perspectives, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2023.2237982
• Hanán Díaz, F. (2020). Sombras, censuras y tabús en los libros infantiles. Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha.
• Hevia, E. (2013, May 16). En pleno siglo XXI aún se lee a Enid Blyton. El Periódico de Aragón. https://www.elperiodicodearagon.com/cultura/2013/05/16/plenosiglo-xxi-lee-enid-47413592.html

09. Bibliography

• Kapori, B. (n. d.). Using ‘he, she, it’ for reference to animals in English. Bernd Kapori. https://www.usinggrammar.com/english-grammar/he-she-it-foranimals.php#google_vignette
• Koskinen, K. & Paloposki, O. (2010). Retranslation. In Y. Gambier & L. Van Doorslaer (Eds.), Handbook of Translation Studies, (Vol. 1, pp. 294-298). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/hts.2016.ret1
• López Ruiz, M. del C. (2022). La traducción de elementos ideológicos y didácticos a través del análisis crítico del discurso. El caso de Los cinco y el tesoro de la isla, de Enid Blyton. MonTI, (14), 292-322. https://doi.org/10.6035/MonTI.2022.14.10
• Martínez Mateo, R. (2015). Una revisión de la censura en la Literatura Infantil y Juvenil (LIJ) traducida del inglés en España desde la etapa franquista a la actualidad. Quaderns de Filologia: Estudis Literaris, XX, 163-182. https://doi.org/10.7203/qdfed.20.7535
• Merriam Webster (2024). Censor. In Merriam Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/
• Merkle, D. (2010). Censorship. In Y. Gambier & L. Van Doorslaer (Eds.), Handbook of Translation Studies, (Vol. 1, pp. 18-21). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/hts.1.cen1
• Milton, J. (2010). Adaptation. In Y. Gambier & L. Van Doorslaer (Eds.), Handbook of Translation Studies, (Vol. 1, pp. 3-6). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/hts.1.ada1
• Mossop, B. (2011). Revision. In Y. Gambier & L. Van Doorslaer (Eds.), Handbook of Translation Studies, (Vol. 2, pp. 135-139). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/hts.2016.rev1
• Pascua Febles, I & García Martínez, M. del P. (2006). Censura y traducción para niños. Anuario de Investigación en Literatura Infantil y Juvenil, (4), 31-46.
• Penguin Random House. (n.d.). Enid Blyton. Penguin Libros. Retrieved 3 July 2024, from https://www.penguinlibros.com/es/178362-enid-blyton
• Rojas Chávez, M. B. (2020). Forbidden to Read: Censorship in Children’s and Youth Literature from the Twentieth Century to the Present Days. Interpretatio. Revista de hermenéutica, 5(1), 159-161. https://doi.org/10.19130/iifl.it.2020.5.1.0018
• Royal Academy UK (n.d.). Methuen & Co. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/organisation/methuen-and-co

09. Bibliography

• Press and Printing Law of 22 April 1938. Boletín Oficial del Estado, 550, 24 April 1938.
• Decree of 24 June 1955, establishing the rules to which children's and young people's publications must conform. Boletín Oficial del Estado, 204, 23 July 1955.
• Ministerial Order of 24 June 1955, implementing the Decree on the organization of children's and young people's publications. Boletín Oficial del Estado, 33, 2 February 1956.

Legislation mentioned in the dissertation

• Ruiz Arriaza, J. (2020). La censura en la literatura infantil y juvenil: una historia interminable. Voces de la Educación, 5(9), 76-89. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7188-841X
• Sanz-Villar, Z. & Andaluz-Pinedo, O. (2021). TAligner 3.0: A tool to create parallel and multilingual corpora. In J. Lavid-López, C. Maíz-Arévalo & J.R. Zamorano-Mansilla (Eds.), Corpora in Translation and Contrastive Research in the Digital Age (Vol. 158, pp. 126-146). John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.158.05san
• Sherwood, H. (2023, August 14). Jacqueline Wilson says rewriting children’s books can be justified. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/14/jacqueline-wilson-rewriting-childrens-books-sometimes-justified
• Soriano García, I. & Rodríguez Domínguez, A. (2023). La influencia de la corrección política en la traducción de Los Cinco: tipos de intervencionismo y censura en torno al personaje de Jorge. Mutatis Mutandis, Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción, 16(2), 494-515. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.mut.v16n2a12
• Theil, S. (2022). Private Censorship and Structural Dominance: Why Social Media Platforms should have obligations to their users under freedom of expression. The Cambridge Law Journal, 81(3), 645-672. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008197322000484
• TRACE (n.d.). Proyecto Trace. https://trace.unileon.es/

09. Bibliography

Sara Rodil Alonsosrodia00@estudiantes.unileon.es

Thank you!