Tradurre “germi, virus, batteri e altri microscopici mostri” per ragazze e ragazzi

The translation of informational texts is still an unexplored field of research, in terms of popularisation both for adults (Liao 2013) and for children (Reiss 1982; Tabbert 2002; Sezzi 2017, 2019a; Masi 2021). In particular, the latter poses many challenges to the translator in that implies a form of “edutainment”, a “hybrid genre” that merges education and entertainment in multiple ways and to different extents (Scanlon e Buckingham 2002). In the context of the recent Covid-19 pandemic and the related need to give children guidance and information on topics related to the viral disease and its variants, risks, consequences, as well as prevention, this paper concentrates on the Italian translations of three English informational books for children which were published or re-edited to provide knowledge about germs, viruses and bacteria in general before and during the Covid-19 outbreak. In particular, working along the lines of Calsamiglia and Van Dijk (2004: 370), we shall compare and contrast the discursive strategies adopted in order to recontextualise and disseminate knowledge from experts to non-experts. As will be seen, the translated texts appear to be more complex both from a content and terminological point of view, and more formal, sometimes to the detriment of the humour that characterizes both language and images in the source texts. In the Italian translations, humour is restricted to the iconic apparatus. On these grounds, it is safe to claim that the Italian translations undergo a further re-mediation based on the idea of (more formal) knowledge, while still retaining the expressive dimension and popularising goals of the source texts.