The Research Of Children's Literature Translation In China

Translation of children's books from other languages increases the number of truly excellent literary works available to young people, introduces them to segments of life in other cultures, and fosters an international outlook and an understanding of both the uniqueness and the universality of human experience. Although such translation of children's literature would greatly enhance the literary and cultural experiences of young readers, on account of deficient investigation and scarce concern about its research in the literary translation realm, some issues such as profound reflection over application of translation theories to the unique literary category still exist. In other words, the problem that multi-theory or one-theory only should be taken as children's literature translation's infrangible and steady basis on earth is still in the air, for which another reason can be raised, that is, children's literature is often regarded affiliated to the literary works, thus for children's literature translation, its uniqueness or its own significance of being studied neglected. What's worse, there are even some translators who just utilize one so-called almighty theory to all children's literature, ignoring whose own diversity in categories and peculiarity by virtue of its specific readers, in other words, different works, due to their own different types such as fairy or tales, need various theories to assist and translation for adults is divergent from that for children in cognitive aspect or language etc. Consequently, say nothing of probing into its flexible multi-application of translation theories from an integral perspective, analyzing its distinctions as an individual literary type, on the basis of which, to study the distinctions from other literary categories in terms of its development history.For the reasons mentioned, this paper is intended as an introduction, or more concrete, a synopsis of the translation of children's literature in China. As a general view, the study is aimed at a better understanding of relevant theories and principles of translating children's literature during the development of children's literature and its translation in China, thus it would ultimately lay a good foundation, as well as providing an original perspective for further research. To put it anther way, this study will propose a novel approach to studying children's literature, considering it an individual literature category requiring concrete and pertinent investigation into its uniqueness, as well as a result of definite history atmosphere bearing the traits of various social or political events.To begin with, although being an indispensable part of literary translation, yet neglected for a long time, children's literature translation is as difficult as, if not more than, that for adults. Therefore, this paper puts forward the theoretical study on children's literature translation on the very beginning page. Through the analysis of the theories relevant to the children's literature translation, the paper attempts to point out that in accordance with the particularities of children's literature and its translation, when translating different categories of children's literature, multifarious translation theories can be adopted in its research, instead of being restricted or confined by one fixed theory.In order to deal with the problem of children's literature translation, the first and foremost step need be to understand the children, including their characteristics and cognition development, as well as the children's literature with its uniqueness as an individual literary category. Children are the hope of society's future and a special part of social group with peculiar cognitive features. In the same sense, children's literature is the literature written for children. It has very different values and criteria distinct from that for adults in terms of theme, plot, language style and rhetoric devices and so on, which is the point of the second part of this paper, including features and definition of children's literature and children. The paper argues that great importance ought to be attached to the uniqueness of the children's literature, hence its translation.And then historically speaking, children's literature and children's literature translation have always influenced mutually in China, accordingly they have very close relationship and share similar development history. Accordingly, from the perspective of available translation history of children's literature in China, with comparatively detailed introduction of renowned translators and their strategies for children's literature translation in each stage, the author provides an elaborate view of the background of origin and utilization of translation principles, namely, children-orientation approach to children's literature translation.Last but not least, on the basis of profound understanding of the principles of children-orientation, originating from the development of children's literature in China also demonstrated by diverse translation theories mentioned in the first chapter, some examples are taken advantage of, such as different versions of Happy Prince, Alice' Adventures in Wonderland, and Tom Sawyer's Adventure, etc., to illustrate strategies of translating children's literature abiding by the translation theories, especially the functional equivalence, Susan Bassnett's translation theory about encoding and decoding, in the meantime, demonstrate the feasibility of the principles of children-orientation. At the end of this part, the author has offered some further reflection on the children's literature translation about application of children-orientation, such as necessary requirements for translators of children's literature.