Translating Little Dorrit (Charles Dickens, 1857) for Children: Gender Representation and Feminist Discourse in Catalan and French Adaptations

[eng] This thesis conducts a comparative analysis of the representation of female characters in the only Catalan translation of Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit (1857), La petita Dorrit by Maria Lluïsa Cunillera (Edicions del Drac, 1987), and compares it to another adaptation for children of the same novel in French, La petite Dorrit (Librairie Delagrave, 1952), which is explicitly marketed for readers “de 12 ans”. While the Catalan edition does not indicate a specific age range, this study adopts the framework suggested by the French adaptation as its analytical benchmark, establishing a common parameter for a direct comparative analysis of how translational patterns address the capacities and formative needs of the young reader. Methodologically, the study employs Michelle Lazar’s Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA) to assess how femininity is constructed, negotiated, or erased through discursive practices that affect concepts of agency, morality, and domesticity (Lazar, 2000, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2018, 2021). The analysis draws on translation studies from a feminist perspective, conceptualising translation as an ideological space where gendered significations are upheld or challenged. Drawing on Luise von Flotow’s (1991, 1997, 2001) patterns of addition, omission, and reinterpretation, it examines translation as political practice, following scholarship by Castro Vázquez (2008) and Bacardí and Godayol (2013, 2014) on feminism and textual identity. A central contribution specifically created for this thesis is the proposition of the NEMILA analytical framework (Narrative Agency, Embodiment, Moral Virtue, Intersectionality, Language/Discursive Visibility, Adaptation Patterns), which systematically categorises shifts in the representation of females through translation. Within this framework, the arena of Children’s Literature and Young Adult Literature is a significant site to discuss the way gender norms are inherited or altered (O’Sullivan, 2003). Recent years have seen identity and equality become prominent in these literary genres (Liebig, 2015; Hassel & Clasen, 2017; Tang, 2022) and, consequently, new representations of femininity seek to dismantle traditional gender models (Lomas, 2005; Demirhan, 2020). Focusing on the sole and largely unstudied Catalan translation of Little Dorrit, this thesis addresses a critical gap. It examines how this specific adaptation, when compared to the French version, reshapes female visibility and agency for a child audience, arguing that its alterations significantly distort Dickens’s original female portrayals and consolidate reductive gender representations. To counter this, the study advocates for an adaptation model that respects the source text as high art, prioritising the preservation of its literary complexity and thematic integrity while making it accessible. It concludes by presenting a proposed translation using feminist principles. This approach acts as a mediation to ensure the “otherness” and richness of the original female characters are made visible to the young reader, rather than being contained or erased.