Social Science and Human Research Bulletin

This study examines the original The Story of Foolish Wolf and its Korean translation, adopting Geoffrey Leech’s Politeness Principle as the theoretical framework to explore translation strategies for violations of politeness in children's literature dialogue. Existing research has largely focused on linguistic style, cultural elements, and narrative strategies in children's literature translation, while the pragmatic features of politeness violations in character dialogues and their cross-cultural adaptation remain underexplored. Taking a pragmatics-based approach, this study analyzes the specific strategies employed in the Korean translation to handle "impolite" utterances, including tone adjustment, emotional intensification, and cultural adaptation. It reveals how translators balance fidelity to the original work with target language children's linguistic habits and aesthetic expectations while preserving humor and character individuality. The findings suggest that violations of the Politeness Principle in children's literature translation are not merely instances of pragmatic deviation but rather a deliberate retranslation practice aimed at achieving cross-cultural adaptation and ensuring reader acceptance. This study broadens the scope of children's literature translation research by shifting from linguistic style analysis to a pragmatic strategy perspective, highlighting the complexity of dialogue translation and offering practical guidance for translators working with children's literature.

Children's literature; Politeness Principle; Violations; Dialogue translation; Cultural adaptation; Korean translation of The Story of Foolish Wolf

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