On The Translation Of Children's Literature From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

For decades, translation studies have made great progress and there are a number of theories in the study of literary translation. However, the study on children's literature translation, a branch of literary translation, is still insufficient, which mainly due to the marginal statue of children's literature itself and its translation in literary multi-system. Meanwhile, as some scholars pointed out:"the translation of children's literature in China has an extremely imbalanced development in theory and practice---the translated works of children's literature are emerging in an endless stream, while the specific researches on children's literature translation are rather sparse." Therefore, there is a pressing need for in-depth research out of the need of children's literature translation so as to develop and enrich the specific theories, and provide children's literature translation with theoretical guidance and support as well.The thesis is oriented to introduce reception aesthetics to children's literature translation in view of the specific characteristics of its target readers, in the hope of providing a broader perspective in this field. Reception theory emphasizes the role of readers and believes that the reader is not the passive and unimportant factor in the overall relation of the author-the text-the reader. On the contrary, the literary work can achieve its aesthetic value and social function only when the reader understands and accepts it. The application of reception theory to literary translation provides a brand-new theoretical perspective and research method, and its basic views also have great inspiration for the study of children's literature translation. In order to illustrate this point, this thesis makes a contrastive analysis of the three Chinese versions of Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince, which exactly represent the three different periods in the history of children's literature translation. The thesis does not aim to conclude which one is the best or whose translation method is superior, but to draw a conclusion through the diachronic study and the specific comparison from levels of sound, lexis and rhetoric that only a version fulfils the communication between the original work and the translator as well as between the translated work and children readers, can the version be a good one, and be accepted and loved by children.At present, the application of reception theory in literary translation is merely in an experimental stage. It is still deficient and unsystematic in spite of some achievements have been made. In view of the fertility of reception theory itself, the thesis is just a pilot study on its application to children's literature translation. The author hopes this thesis can inspire more researchers'interests in this field so that the study of children's literature translation can be promoted and perfected.