Translating Alice in Wonderland for different audiences through the years

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to compare four French translations of Alice in Wonderland with the original version in order to study the strategies used by the French translators to render certain cultural elements while addressing different audiences. Another aspect of the research is the study of paratext in the selected translations. The theoretical framework is based on Klingberg’s approach to cultural context adaptation and Rojo Lopez’s approach to the translation of humour. Selected passages are analysed and suggestions are made at the end of the research. The research showed that the first French translation of Alice in Wonderland which was released in 1869 was localised and contained more deletions than the other three French translations. Also, the style of the contemporary illustrators of Alice in Wonderland presented in this study differs considerably from that of the original illustrator.