A Research On Translation Principles Of Children's Literature From Stylistic Aspect

As a unique branch of the general literature category, children's literature not only possesses the general characteristics of literature, but also has its own distinctive features that distinguish itself from other literature types. As the literature written specially for children, apart from the easy acceptance both in content and in form, children's literature attracts its readers by another major feature—the unique language style. Only by achieving the stylistic equivalence with the original texts could the translators compose the excellent translations children are glad to read. Since the main target readers of children's literature are children, the language of it should be simple, easy to understand and with vividness. This requires that the translators of children's literature should have high sensitivity towards the styles of the original texts so that they can present them completely and faultlessly to its readers.As a new research field, the study on stylistic translation with the aim of studies on translation styles from the stylistic aspect is a new and promising research direction both at home and abroad. As a result, the appliance of the relevant theories of stylistic translation theories into the practices of children's literature translation will become a new orientation in the field of children's literature translation.Based on the former studies, this paper explores the stylistic principles with which translators of children's literature should apply. Through the comparisons between typical examples from the two versions of Harry Potter series, a famous and popular masterwork of contemporary children's literature, four principles from stylistic aspect are brought forward: the simpleness of the translations should be similar with that of the original texts from the aspects of word choices, sentence patterns, etc; rhythmic beauty of the original texts should be achieved as much as possible; sentiments and interests of the language of children's literature should be paid special attention to so as to transmit the humor to the readers; names with special meanings should be dealt with special methods.This study is meaningful both theoretically and practically. Theoretically speaking, this study conducts comparisons and analyses of the two versions with the help of the relevant theories of stylistic translation theories and determines the instructional functions of the stylistic translation theories towards children's literature. Practically speaking, this study provides references and suggestions for the translation practices of children's literature.