Translational mediation in children’s museum learning leaflets: an Arabic–English study at the Louvre Abu Dhabi

Children’s museum learning resources remain underexplored in museum translation research, particularly in Arabic–English contexts. This study examines the Arabic and English versions of a children’s self-guided learning leaflet produced by the Louvre Abu Dhabi, (mughāmarat al-azyāʾ, ‘A Costume Adventure’), to explore how pedagogical design and learning-oriented meaning are mediated across languages. The analysis combines a framework for museum worksheet design, adapted here to children’s learning leaflets, with a systemic functional approach to museum translation. The case study suggests a high degree of alignment across pedagogical design factors, while micro-level divergences illustrate how pedagogical intent is maintained through localisation, culturally situated lexical choices, and interactional recalibration rather than literal equivalence. In this case, learning content is localised to read naturally in each language without omissions or structural reorganisation. By extending established museum translation models to children’s learning materials, the study contributes empirical evidence from an under-researched Arabic–English museum context and suggests that pedagogical design should be considered an object of translational mediation in children’s museum learning leaflets.