‘Genialna bomba’ or ‘niesamowity hit’ as a ‘terrific whiz-banger’ of Wordplay, Slang and Idioms: On Domestication and Foreignization in Polish Translations of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

The study aims at determining the strategies of translating wordplay, slang and idioms in children’s literature. The main focus of this article is a book by Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2007/1964) and its two Polish translations, namely by Tomasz Wyżyński (1998) and by Magdalena Heydel (2015). Children’s literature, which for centuries was overlooked and underestimated, has recently become a major challenge for translators. Its features and specifics have to be carefully examined since young minds are particularly sensitive when it comes to the language. An emphasis is placed on culture-specific features, along with linguistic ones, as well as on strategies of translation proposed by Lawrence Venuti, domestication and foreignization. Since the Polish versions are separated by twenty years, the objective of the paper is to establish and present their diversity and its explanation, along with analysis of the cognitive scene.