In her doctoral dissertation, Chiara Galletti explores a widespread yet often overlooked phenomenon in children’s literature: the indirect translation of multimodal storybooks. In this process, translation is carried out sequentially by two distinct actors: a first translator produces a source-oriented crib, which is passed on to another translator, who develops the storytelling voice for the target audience. The study brings together Literary Translator Studies and narrative communication in Children’s Literature. Through contextual and textual analysis, it examines both the collaborative processes behind indirect translation and their impact on the published storybook. Drawing on archival research and the analysis of Bianca Pitzorno’s indirect translations, Galletti introduces two key concepts: the “multimodal mediating text”, which captures how words and images participate in the mediation process, and the “code of mediation”, which describes the interpretative choices through which translators reshape and transmit multimodal narratives for children. The findings offer Translation Studies a framework for understanding indirect translation for children as a complex process of interpretation and collaborative narrative mediation.
The doctoral dissertation of MA Chiara Galletti in the field of Translation Studies titled The one who speaks last speaks for all. Mediating mechanisms at play in the indirect translation of multimodal storybooks for children will be publicly examined at the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences at Tampere University on 21 November 2026.
The Opponent will be Associate Professor Anna Wegener from the University of Florence, Italy. The Custos will be Associate Professor, Docent Eliisa Pitkäsalo from the University of Naples L’Orientale and the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences, Tampere University.