A Comparative Study Of Two Chinese Versions Of Charlotte's Web From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

More and more foreign children literature works have been introduced to China in recent years, but the study on children literature translation as a special branch of literary translation has been neglected for a long time. In the field of literature translation, more attention is usually paid to adult literature, while the study on children literature falls far behind its practice.Children literature is usually translated by adult translators, most of whom do not take children's characteristics into consideration, so the thesis explores children literature from the perspective of Reception Aesthetics. Reception Aesthetics, which is also called Reception Theory, was founded by Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser in the 1960s. Reception Aesthetics stresses the role that readers play in the process of reading and receiving, which brings the shift from text-centered paradigm to reader-centered paradigm. Children literature works are mainly for children, so children's characteristics and acceptability should be considered in children literature translation.There are totally four Chinese versions of Charlotte's Web, of which Ren Rongrong's version and Kang Xin's version in the mainland of China are more well-known. From the internet, the author found Kang Xin's version is preferred by adult readers because of its elegance, superior translation skill and beautiful language. However, Ren Rongrong's version is more welcomed by children because they think it is lively and interesting. It is these different comments on the two versions that urge the author to study this project. The study on the translation of Charlotte's Web is fewer. Some authors have analyzed Charlotte's Web from Skopos theory, Selection and Adaptation theory and Aesthetic Education theory, but no one has ever applied Reception Aesthetics theory to the study of the translation of Charlotte's Web, so the thesis applies Reception Aesthetics to the study of the translation of children literature through the analysis of two Chinese versions of Charlotte's Web.In her survey, the author not only keeps track of her son's inner feelings during his reading the two versions but also tries to use questionnaire to find out which version is more acceptable and preferred by children, Ren Rongrong's or Kang Xin's? From the point of aesthetics, adults and children have some difference, so they have different needs for books. Comparing the two versions from linguistic level, rhetoric level and cultural level, the thesis draws the conclusions that Ren Rongrong's version is more acceptable to children than Kang Xin's and that translators of children's literature should be child-oriented in the process of translating children's literary works. What strategies translators can adopt are decided by children's psychological characteristics and language and their acceptability. Only when the translator is child-oriented, can his/ her version be understood and accepted by children readers.Charlotte's Web by E. B. White is a classic in the world's children literature now, which is a beautiful fairy tale in plain and playful words totally from children's angle. Its versions should also reproduce the characteristics of the original work. Based on children's characteristics and needs, translators should keep in mind the following points:1) choose colloquial and concrete expressions instead of formal and abstract ones; 2) try to make the target text humorous, vivid, musical and rhythmic; 3) use different rhetoric devices such as simile, pun, parallelism and others to attract children; 4) In cultural translation, domestication and foreignization can supplement each other. By comparing its two versions in the mainland of China and conducting a survey of children's acceptability of the two versions, it is proved that Reception Aesthetics is applicable in children literature translation. Reception Aesthetic is reader-oriented, which can instruct translators of children literature translation to pay more attention to children's characteristics so that proper translation strategies can be adopted to improve the acceptability of the translated works of children literature.