A Report On Translating Children’s Literature Based On Functional Theories

Recently, parents have paid more and more attention to their children’s education,which results in the translation of such books as that are both at home and abroad.However, the translation quality of some foreign books on children’s literature is notsatisfying due to the periphery status of children’s literature as it has been ignored for along time, let alone its translation. Moreover, lack of the guidance of translation theoryis another reason.Based on German functional theories, this report, taking the translation of Chapter7and8in The Joyful Child as an example, by analyzing text typology, intendedfunctions and intratextual coherence, explores proper translation strategies in thetranslation of children’s literature.The report first locates some problems that will arise during the translation process:text types defined improperly, ignoring the intended functions and translationese inchildren’s literature translation. Then it finds that:(1) the source text is hybrid text typethat contains informative texts and expressive texts.“Plain prose” is suitable forinformative texts in translation, while for expressive texts, the translation should use“identifying” method which adopts the standpoint of the source text writer, and transmitthe aesthetic and artistic form of the source text.(2) The target reader of the translationis children, so the translator should take children’s understanding and linguisticcharacteristic into consideration, applying such translation strategies as amplification,repetition, onomatopoeia and adaption to highlight the instructive function andinterestingness in children’s literature.(3) To avoid translationese, especially adult’sformal language, the translator should apply instrumental translation and colloquial andchildren’s language.The above translation strategies can effectively guide the translation of children’sliterature to better its translation quality, and hopefully promote the development ofchildren’s literature translation.