This article examines pronominal references to anthropomorphic animal characters in contemporary Finnish-language picture books for children ( N = 531). In the Finnish language, the choice of third person pronoun is a key means of distinguishing humans from other animals. The study shows that animal characters in children’s literature are linguistically placed between humans and nonhumans: in about half of the analysed books, the pronoun typically referring to humans refers to the animal characters, whereas in the other half of the data, the pronoun referring to nonhumans is used. A quantitative analysis reveals that the use of the human personal pronoun correlates with the number of human-like traits the characters possess. The analysis shows that pronoun variation has a variety of functions in picture books. Different pronouns may refer to different characters, indicating their degree of humanity, and the treatment of characters as human or nonhuman may also change as the story progresses. The human pronoun can be used in dialogue to indicate that the characters treat each other as persons. On the other hand, since there are differences in the Finnish pronoun system between the spoken and written variety, pronoun variation can mark a dialogue as colloquial. The study compares original and translated Finnish literature, revealing some differences. Finnish authors use the stylistic values linked to the pronouns as a resource more widely than translators, which results in more book-internal variation. Conversely, translators orient towards the standard language and consider how human-liken the characters are when choosing pronouns.

中文翻译：

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人类还是动物？芬兰儿童原创和翻译图画书中动物角色的语言表现


本文研究了当代芬兰语儿童图画书中对拟人化动物角色的代词引用 （ N = 531）。在芬兰语中，选择第三人称代词是区分人类与其他动物的关键手段。研究表明，儿童文学中的动物角色在语言上介于人类和非人类之间：在大约一半的分析书籍中，通常指代人类的代词指的是动物角色，而在另一半数据中，使用了指代非人类的代词。定量分析表明，人类人称代词的使用与角色所具有的类似人类特征的数量相关。分析表明，代词变化在图画书中具有多种功能。不同的代词可能指代不同的角色，表明他们的人性程度，而将角色视为人类或非人类的处理也可能随着故事的进展而改变。人类代词可以在对话中使用，以表示角色将彼此视为人。另一方面，由于芬兰语代词系统的口语和书面变体之间存在差异，因此代词变体可以将对话标记为口语化。该研究比较了芬兰文学的原文和翻译文学，揭示了一些差异。芬兰作者比译者更广泛地使用与代词相关的文体价值作为资源，这导致了更多的书籍内部变化。相反，翻译人员以标准语言为导向，并在选择代词时考虑字符的人类形象。