The Narrative Construction of the Others in a Translation of Little House
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Abstract
The objective of this paper is to examine the narratives of American-ness and Native American-ness as the others constructed through Thai translations of Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie in the Little House series. The research also aims to study the roles of translation agents (including translators, editors and publishers) and the roles of the two translated works in the construction of narratives through translation. In spite of to their depictions of the American nation building period, the series contain the racist content and language in the books. This led to the removal of the author’s name from the children’s book awards hosted by an American organization in 2018. This study, thus, focuses on the construction of the narratives of American-ness and Native American-ness as the others through a Thai translation and will be conducted by analysing the translated texts, paratexts and contexts which influenced the translations through narrative theory. The paper will not only expand the scope of the research of translation studies but also contribute to the construction of a new body of knowledge in the field of translation studies in Thailand, which can be applied to study translations from foreign languages into Thai and translations of literature and other types of media from Thai into other languages.
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