On The Linguistic Features Of Two Chinese Versions Of "Happy Prince" From Reception Aesthetics

Children’s literature plays a very important role on the growth of the children. However, the study on children’s literature is a peripheral field within the literary polysystem. It has long been neglected. Children’s literature works is created for children, and its targeted readers are children, who have their own particularities. Moreover, children’s literature has its linguistic features, so the translators must consider the language habits of the targeted readers. The translation works not only convey the original style and taste, but also conform to the targeted readers’reading habits and cultural background.Reception theory emphasizes reader’s status and considers that the reader’s reception plays decisive role in the realization of the literary work’s meaning. Applying reception theory to translation of children’s literature can instruct translators to pay more attention to children’s specificity in the process of reception.This thesis made a comparative study on the Chinese versions of The Happy Prince written by Oscar Wilde. It has many Chinese versions. By selecting the version of Shi Jinhai(浙江文艺出版社,1999) and Ba Jin’s version (上海译文出版社,2007), the author makes a comparative analysis on their linguistic features from the perspective of lexical translation, sentence translation, and rhetoric translation, and find out that the translator should place children on the centered role and take account of their horizon of expectations. What’s more, the language of the translation of children literature should be concise, compact and vivid.It should adopt colloquial language. For the targeted readers are children, the language should be humorous, full of children’s disposition and easy to understand by them. Only such languages can meet children’expectation and attract their attraction.