CULTURAL TRANSCREATION IN PICTUREBOOKS: REIMAGINING HANS ANDERSEN’S FAIRYTALES FROM THE WESTERN TO THE QATARI CONTEXT

Abstract

In the context of globalization and cultural exchange, children in Qatar are increasingly exposed to Western picturebooks that contain culture-bound meanings which may not fully align with local identity, values, and sociolinguistic realities. This dissertation investigates multimodal cultural transcreation as a means of repositioning Western children’s narratives into culturally coherent Qatari target texts. It is guided by three research questions addressing the development and applicability of a transcreation model for culturally diverse audiences, the visual and verbal challenges encountered in transcreating Western picturebooks into the Qatari context, and the strategies and techniques used to overcome these challenges. The study transcreates five Hans Christian Andersen fairytales, as retold in Sienna Williams’ (2017) picturebook The Snow Queen and Other Stories, from their Western source context into the Qatari cultural context. The dissertation adopts a mixed-methods design, combining qualitative multimodal analysis with quantitative mapping the frequencies of transcreation strategies. Guided by Venuti’s domestication orientation, the study develops a multimodal categorization of Culture-Specific-Items (CSIs) informed by Newmark’s (1988, 2001) cultural categories. The identified CSIs are then analyzed using the proposed Cultural Transcreation Strategies (CTS) Model, adapted from Pedersen’s (2005) subtitling framework of Extralinguistic Cultural References (ECRs) to account for static visual–verbal texts. Practically, the verbal component is transcreated through English–Arabic transfer, using Modern Standard Arabic for narration and Qatari dialect for direct speech through code-switching, while the illustrations are digitally recreated through culturally motivated visual strategies. Findings demonstrate that picturebook transcreation requires coordinated verbal–visual decision-making shaped by cultural specificity and child-oriented design. The dissertation contributes an analytical framework for Culture-Specific-Items, a Cultural Transcreation Strategies model, culturally localized case studies, and a documented workflow relevant to transcreation research and practice in Qatar and beyond.

Date of Award	2026
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	HBKU College of Humanities and Social Science