Communicative Translation And Children's Literature For Concrete Operational Stage

The translation of children's literature lies in the periphery of the literary polysystems whether in China or in western countries. Although many scholars in other countries have paid attention to this field, in China it is still not deeply researched. The translated foreign children's literature makes a prominent contribution to the naissance and development of Chinese children's literature. Therefore, the translation study of children's literature will create important influence to the improvement of Chinese children's literature. Nevertheless, Chinese scholars of translation study often ignore the research on translation theory of children's literature, which is one important reason that results in the poor children's literature versions that more than 300 million Chinese children readers must face. Hence, it is necessary to attach importance to the translation study on children's literature. The Chinese translators usually regard the children's literature as a whole to differentiate from the adults' literature. In fact, childhood can be divided into several different periods. In each period, children have different cognition and psychology and may react differently to a translation. Consequently, the translators should have a clear purpose toward which period of children the translation is directed. Thus, according to children's different interest-oriented in different periods, different translation strategies should be applied.According to Piaget, a current famous international theoretician of kidology, children' s developmental period can be divided into four primary cognitive structures (i.e. development stages): sensorimotor stage (0-2 years), period of preoperations (3-7years), period of concrete operations (8-11 years), and period of formal operations (12-15 years). Consistent with these different stages. children's literature is partitioned into three relevant types: literature for preoperational stage (3-7years), literature for concrete operational stage(COS) (8-11 years), literature for formal operational stage (12-15 years).Famous English writer Lewis Carroll's book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, is regarded as one of the most popular children's books in the world. Since it was published, it has gained massive fancy among children and adult readers. By the middle of the 19th century, it had been republished for over three hundred times. The popularity is just next to the Bible and Shakespeare's works in Britain. Although this book appeals equally to the young and the old, Alice's story begins as a gift to Carroll's good friend—Alice, a ten-year-old girl. Hence, the book is suitable for the stage's children whether in contents or in language. This thesis aiming to investigate the best version of Zhao Yuanren's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by drawing on communicative translation (CT) theory and the features of children in COS, is none other than an attempt to conduct a descriptive study on the literature translation of children during COS, which aims at the improvement of the approaches to the adequate translation of children's literature, and generalizes some principles for future theoretical references.The development of the thesis is as follows: Chapter 1 is an introduction part, which includes the statement of motivation, literature review, theoretical foundation as well as thesis structure. Chapter 2 deals with children's understanding of humor during COS and the version based on CT. Chapter 3 concentrates on children's language development during COS and the version based on CT. Chapter 4 focuses on children's reception to culture difference during COS and the version based on CT. Chapter 5 is a conclusion of the former chapters and reaches the conclusion that CT is suitable as a guild for the translation of children's literature during COS.