Linguistic and Cultural Changes in the Spanish and English Revised Editions of The Famous Five. The Case of Five on Kirrin Island Again

Abstract

[Abstracts] This undergraduate paper provides a comparative analysis of Enid Blyton’s Five on Kirrin Island Again throughout four versions of this book, two of them in English and the other two in Spanish. The main purpose of this work is to compile and classify the changes of different nature that were carried in the adapted editions of the book, namely changes that involve degree of formality, simplifications, updating of language and addition and deletion of content, as well as the fixing of some problematic elements, especially the ones that deal with gender issues. Due to the high amount of changes, this study is focused on the most relevant ones, most of them placed in the first half of the book. All these alterations have been listed in the appendix, following its order of occurrence in the body of this paper. The methodology used is mainly divided into three processes. First, the two English editions were compared, annotating the main modifications and classifying them under different categories. Second, the same procedure was followed for the Spanish editions. Finally, the English and Spanish books were juxtaposed altogether, so as to establish their main differences and similarities, taking into account the concepts of adaptation and retranslation. Throughout the analysis and classification of the changes it is possible to reach some conclusions, mainly concerning the updating of language and content to fulfil the standards of our current society. On the one hand, this study shows how the alterations in the Spanish adaptation usually correlate with the ones followed in the English one, suggesting a similar pattern of modifications. On the other hand, the divergent aspects between the English and Spanish versions are also revealed, proving a higher amount of changes in the Spanish adaptation, as well as slight differences, some which are related with the nature of each language. Lastly, this paper allows to reflect upon the role of language and how some words or expressions become outdated through the years, and it raises the issue of whether former children’s books should be adapted for the current generations, even if this implies certain changes of content.