herding theoretical cats (anyone seen Schroedinger?)

[dchenes]

Well, at least now my paper has an introduction, and a page of really good stuff about the process of getting children's books off the page and into the kid's brain. The problem is, I believe in what I said and I think I'm right, but I don't know that I can back it up. Almost everybody seems to think that reading to kids is a good idea, but nobody seems to deal with the fact that an adult reading a British book to a kid isn't reading exactly what the author created. I bet J.K. Rowling hears what she's writing in a British accent in her head, and I bet there aren't a lot of people who are reading it aloud to their kids in this country in a British accent. The words are there (providing the American publishers haven't changed them), but the act of reading it in another accent is a kind of cultural translation. (That's what I'm trying to get at, and I can't prove it. ARGH.)

Oh well, at least I've also got another eight pages of fragments of good stuff, most of which I can either prove (theory) or defend (practice). Now all I have to do is get them all to play nice together. I should have done that yesterday, but yesterday my brain decided I had a lot of very important nothing to do, and that's what I did. Unfortunately that lands me right back where I was last week with the trombone playing (aka, I haven't touched it since last Monday), and I've really got to quit doing that.

I was thinking about cooking for this week, but it doesn't really make all that much sense if I've got three days of leftovers from last week and I'm leaving on Thursday night anyway.

I hope this is really all going to work out and I don't end up looking like an idiot at the end of it. I'm presenting right before lunch on Friday, and I sort of hope all my ex-professors have better things to do then, because I really don't want to end up looking like an idiot in front of my ex-theory professor...

I know, I know, quit worrying and write.

Comments

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

I understand what you're talking about, and to some extent publishers back you up in audio editions. I bet JK Rowling actually hears her stuff in a Glaswegian accent, just saying, since she's vaguely scottish, no?

The books I've been listening to, lately, the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith (another Scotsman) are read in the audio versions by a South African woman, Lissette Lecat, and that really sets them off properly--they mean more when they are read in the right sort of accent.

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

The words are there (providing the American publishers haven't changed them), but the act of reading it in another accent is a kind of cultural translation.

You might do some googling - I do think that the editors change words that American public may not likely know. I vaguely recally reading about this when they first started coming out.

I'm curious to hear how you think it's translation for it to be read in a different accent? I certainly do think it makes a big difference to hear something read in the same accent of the author's origin.