Adult Translator And Child Reader In The Translation Of Children's Literature

Children's literature (CL henceforth) is written by adults for children. It plays an instrumental role in the growing process of children readers. CL is translated by adults, but its primary target readers are children. So, the "adult-child" relationship is unavoidable. The settlement of "adult-child" relationship depends on the perspective about children of a translator and the society within which s/he resides. Perspective about children is the way how adults understand and judge children's social status in the "adult-child" relationship. In history, two major perspective about children used to dominate: the Adult-orientation principle (AO henceforth) before the 18^th century and the Child-orientation principle (CO henceforth) thereafter.The shift from AO to CO avoided adult translators' neglect of children readers' role in the translation of CL (TCL henceforth) thus the loss of target text's understandability and appeal to children readers. But TCL under CO tends to over-emphasize the entertaining effect of translated CL at the cost of CL works' function of language training and culture information transmission. A philosophical analysis indicates that TCL under both AO and CO tends to over-emphasize one of the two participants while having the other neglected when settling the "adult-child" relationship. Both AO and CO falls into the trap of subjectivity theory which is based on the traditional "Subject-Object" thinking mode. The turn from subjectivity theory to intersubjectivity theory, from "Subject-Object" thinking mode to "Subject-Subject" thinking mode provides a philosophical way for avoiding the above-mentioned problems and rational settlement of "adult-child" relationship in TCL. Theoretical analysis of the "adult-child" relationship under intersubjectivity theory indicates that the following principles deserve to be adhered to in TCL: 1) A scientific and balanced "adult-child" perspective; 2) Understandability in terms of both language and cultural information; 3) Translating with children's perspective to achieve childish delight (童趣); 4) Translating with adults' perspective as the supplement of children's perspective; 5) Surpassing understandability moderately in terms of both language and cultural information.To prove the rationality and practical workability of these five theoretical CL translation principles, a case study of two Chinese versions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is carried out. The case study indicates that the CL translation principles drawn within the framework of intersubjectivity theory are theoretically rational and practically workable in CL translation. It's the evidence that CL works' entertaining function and educational function can be simultaneously obtained within the framework of intersubjectivity theory.