E-C Translation Of Children's Literature Approached From The Perspective Of Reception Theory

Children's literature (CL) is the first enlightening printed material through which children indirectly learn about the world. It is of profound significance for the growth of children. Many excellent foreign children's literary works have been imported into China since the Chinese May 4th Movement in 1919. Today there are still many foreign children's literary works being imported or retranslated, some of which are so well translated that they are kept at hand by Chinese child readers. However, the study of children's literature translation in China has been left quite behind its practice—it seems that it cannot go beyond the limit of that of adult literature translation.In order to widen the study of CL translation, the thesis attempts to apply"horizon of expectations"and"fusion of horizons", two important notions of Reception Theory, to the practice of E-C translation of CL (here refers to the translator's translating job after his understanding of the source text) so as to prove the practicability and effectiveness of Reception Theory on the study of CL translation. It is widely recognized that child-orientation is an elementary principle in the circle of CL study, and the reader-orientation principle is proposed by many scholars in the translation sphere. Therefore, the CL translation should be child-oriented, which indicates that child readers'status and role is the basis of the CL translation study. RT shifts its study focus to the receptor from the author and the text, which just agrees with the child-orientation principle of CL translation.In E-C translation of CL, the translator is first a reader of the original work. While his horizon of expectations is fusing with that of the author of the original work, he must activate all his knowledge storage to explore the information conveyed by the source text (ST) as much as possible, only by which can a good rendering possibly be produced. At the same time, the translator is the author of his rendering, which is based on the fusion of his own horizon of expectations with the original work. The implied readers of CL are children, so the implied readers of the translator's rendering should also be children. Therefore, a shift of horizon of expectations is required in E-C translation of CL, that is, the translator needs to estimate child readers'horizon of expectations as detailed as possible, for the adult translator's horizon of expectations is by no means the same as child readers'. Due to the limitation of child readers'reception ability, in selecting translation strategies in CL translation, the author of the thesis proposes that domestication should be adopted as a primary strategy and foreignization as a supplementary one.Having analyzed the E-C translating process of CL in details from the perspective of RT provided with many convincing translation examples from several English children's literary works and from different versions of the same literary work, the thesis further proposes four principles in representing child language: 1) colloquial and concrete words rather than formal and abstract ones; 2) vivid expressions rather than plain ones; 3) simple sentence structures rather than complex ones; and 4) maintaining the rhythm and rhymes. Besides, due to child readers'decisive role in their reception of cultural elements, so in dealing with cultural differences in CL translation, the thesis proposes that the comprehensibility should first be guaranteed and then cultural exchange.