The Differences in the Lexical Structure of Children’s Authored and Translated Books Based on the Principles of Natural Morphology: A Case Study of Persian Linguistic Database (PLDB)

Abstract

All over the world, translated books make up a significant part of children’s literature. Therefore, studying the linguistic structure and features of these books, and also the factors based on which children, their parents, and Children’s Books Council approve of a book, is essential. One of the most crucial linguistic aspects of children’s books translation is choosing the appropriate set of vocabulary since the translator is supposed to select proper equivalents from kids’ limited vocabulary to facilitate conveying the content and hence, their comprehension of the book. The current research is mainly concerned with how different these word choice methods are through the framework of natural morphology theory as well as how successfully translators have managed to select the proper set of vocabulary using this theory. concerning the aim, this is applied research involving mixed methods. The data were extracted from PLDB. The inferential statistics findings indicated that the principles of natural morphology (iconicity, transparency, binarity, and word length), no significant difference was observed between the words in authored versus translated books, Although, based on descriptive statistics, authored books have a more natural rate in the parameters of iconicity and word length. Thus the results indicate that overall, the translators & authors of children’s books have successfully managed to select the right set of vocabulary.

Keywords

• children’s authored books
• translated children’s books
• the principles of natural morphology
• children's literature
• children’s books