On Children's Literature Translation On Vocabulary Level

Children's literature (CL for short) is an important and indispensable part of literature, but researches on this issue lag behind those on adults'literature. Moreover, the studies on CL translation are far from sufficiency, not given due consideration. Making an overview on the limited studies, we find that the studies can mainly be classified into two groups:one is on the documentary study of CL translation from a retrospective angle, normally combing the translation activities from the late Qing Dynasty to the present; the other is on the translators who dedicated themselves to the translation for children, introducing their translation works and summarizing their translation philosophy with the May 4th period as the main stream. Up to now few studies have been made on CL translation on the vocabulary level, so this thesis provides a new angle.This thesis aims to make a research on CL translation on the vocabulary level with the case study of the world-famous CL Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to examine the readability of the Chinese version, that is, whether it belongs to CL; if it does, whether it has the same readability among Chinese children as British children of the same age. The comparative study is made between the original book and its Chinese version on three levels:on the number of vocabularies; on the general vocabularies, including ultra-curriculum vocabularies, specific field vocabularies, idiom vocabularies, and dialect and common saying vocabularies; on the culture-loaded vocabularies, consisting of cradle-related vocabularies, religion-related vocabularies, and legend-related vocabularies. Upon the analyses, the conclusion is reached that the Chinese version belongs to CL; however, it does not have the same readability among Chinese children as British children of the same age.As to how to increase the readability of the translated works of CL, three suggestions are provided:applying illustrations, making notes or adopting simple or popular characters, and translating into various versions differing in complexity based on the age of the intended children.In the end comes the limitation of this thesis:the matter that it is on earth suitable for children at what age to read, namely, children at what age in China can gain the same readability as British children is not discussed. The author really hopes this thesis can provide some revelations and suggestions for further research on CL translation.