A Comparative Analysis of Character and Characterization in the Authored and Translated Stories of the 80s and 90s for B and C Age Levels, Based on Maria Nikolajeva's Viewpoint

In recent years, translated stories have always been more successful in attracting audiences than stories written by children in the country. Part of this is due to factors that go back to the content structure of the story. Character and characterization are crucial elements in the narrative structure of the children"s literature. As a matter of fact, it is the fictional character which modifies the stable initial status of the story and builds up its axis. This paper investigates the character and characterization, comparatively in the Authored and Translated Stories for B and C Age Levels, to analyze their features in order to ‎evaluate which one has been more successful to allure the addressees based on the viewpoint of Maria Nikolajeva.

The relevant data in this analytical-interpretive research together with a quantitative approach have been collected and classified through extracting the features of character and characterization in every single story of 50 best- seller Persian stories (30 translated volumes and 20 authored volumes) published during the years 1385 to 1395. After obtaining the numerical values of variables relevant to the matter, qualitative analysis has been performed according to Maria Nikolajeva"s theory.

The findings show that human characters are mainly used in the both of these stories. The ratio of main human characters in the translated stories to the authored ones is 90 to 35 percent. Inside the main human characters, the proportion of the children characters in the translated books to the authored ones is 81/5 to 54/5 percent. In both of the mentioned stories, a high percentage of the characters are gray, dynamic and one-dimensional. The ratio of gray characters in the translated stories to the authored ones is 42 to 18 percent, the ratio of dynamic characters in the translated to the authored stories 46 to 26 percent, and the ratio of one-dimensional characters in the translated stories to the authored ones is 36 to 42. In both of these stories the characters are simple and extroverted ones which lack intricate motivations but contain credible elements. Characterization in the most of translated stories is integrated, while in the authored ones implicit and integrated characters are used equally. In both of the mentioned stories characterization is mainly explicit, and tools like performance, speech and defamiliarization have been used as the relevant tools in character development.

The findings obtained from the comparison show that translated stories, due to better and efficient character selection and characterization have been more flourishing in attracting the addressees.