A Brief Remark On The Translation Of Children's Literature

Talking about translation, we often ignore the translation of children's literature. And when the translation of children's literature is mentioned, it is believed easy enough for the translators to translate the meaning of the original work in simple words. As a matter of fact, the translation of children's literature is as difficult as, if not more difficult than, that of adults'. Children's literature can be seen either as literature produced and intended for children or as literature read by children. Children's literature is different from adults' in many aspects, such as subject matter, theme and structure of the story and so on. When translating for children, the translators must keep it in mind that the readers of the translation are young children. The translation should guarantee that it is easy for the target young readers to understand and accept the meaning of the source work via their reading, so that they can get similar impression, inspiration and education as that of the original readers. The readers of the translation of children's literature are mainly children. According to the reception theory, readers play an important role in the interpretive process. Thus we must take the children readers into consideration when we translate for them.Reception theory provides theoretical guidance for the translation of children's literature. As a reader-centered approach, reception theory aims at the reception of the reader and it believes that in the triangle relationship between the author—work—reader, reader is nothing unimportant or nothing unnecessary. On the contrary, reader plays an active role in the process of the literary creation as well as the realization of the literary work. Since the readers of the children's literature are mostly children, translators should take their psychological characteristics,...