On English-Chinese Translation Of Children's Literature From The Perspective Of Inter-subjectivity

As the first enlightening material for children, Children's literature plays a significant role in children's growth. However, the overall quality of China's translated children's literary works is low. The study of children's literature translation has been left quite behind its practice. Children's literature translation is in urgent need of the guidance of systematic theory. In order to broaden the theoretical horizon of children's literature translation, this thesis focuses on E-C translation of children's literature from the perspective of inter-subjectivity."Inter-subjectivity" derives from Western philosophy, which concentrates on the interaction between a subject and other subjects. It is the extension of subjectivity among subjects and is widely applied to many fields. Translation activity is a process of linguistic communication, which involves multiple subjects. The original author, the translator and the target reader are all its subjects. Translators cannot escape from the confinement of other subjects. According to inter-subjectivity, translation activity should be seen as a harmonious, equal communication among its subjects.Children's literature translation is unique, whose particularity is mainly reflected in its adult author, adult translator and children reader. It is this particularity that makes the inter-subjectivity in children's literature translation more obvious. This thesis intends to find some guiding lines for E-C translation of children's literature within the framework of inter-subjectivity theory based on the analysis of two Chinese versions of The Secret Garden.It turns out that in the process of children's literature translation, the original author, the translator and the target reader should have mutual acknowledgement, mutual respect and carry out active dialogue. In order to do good translation in children's literature, the translator must deal with the relationship between the original author and the target reader properly, and choose appropriate translation strategies and techniques.Having analyzed examples from two Chinese versions of The Secret Garden in detail, this thesis further proposes:in the process of children's literature translation, the translator should faithfully reproduce the theme, character and plot created by the original author, vividly translate the rhetorical devices occurring in the source text. In representing child language, colloquial and concrete words, simple sentence structures, maintaining rhythm and rhyme should be chosen as priority. In choosing translation strategies, domestication should be used as a primary strategy, complementing with foreignization.