ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to examine the archaeology of translating for Arab children. Due to space limitations, it only covers ‘the limits and forms of conservation’, which involve investigating the corpus of translated and retranslated children books as well as those published, republished, and unpublished. It also evaluates the textual manipulation strategies adopted by translation agents while translating, especially in relation to texts containing certain elements that cannot be translated for ideological, ethical, or poetic reasons. The chapter’s quantitative analysis is based on the only comprehensive bibliographical guide to Arab children’s books covering the period 1950–1998, compiled by Al-Hajji (1990, 1995, 1999), whereas its qualitative analysis is based on two examples of manipulation strategies observed in two published translations in Syria and Egypt. The two manipulation strategies examined in the chapter reveal that translating for children is a good pretext to add or delete values that decision-makers are keen on inculcating in the pliable Arab children.
