On Reproduction Of The Style In Three Chinese Translations Of Matilda From The Perspective Of Language Character Theory

Children's literature is an art of language. The translation of children's literature should not only represent the content of the source text, but also reproduce the style of the source text. Style can never go without language. The transference of different languages will definitely lead to some changes in style, which brings a big problem to the translator. The style of the source text is embodied in the choice of words, the construction of sentences and the employment of rhetoric devices. Thus, the translator should make efforts in these aspects accordingly so as to reproduce the style of the source text. However, while transferring the sign system and style of the source text into the target language, the translator will inevitably encounter hindrance caused by linguistic divergence. Gao Jian's Language Character Theory may be the very key to overcome such hindrance. According to the Language Character Theory, using a language to fully convey the meaning expressed in another language is almost impossible; during the process of translation, a text has to undergo thorough scrutiny, and knowledge of all the respective characters of both languages should be duly made use of. As far as possible, every aspect of language character should be thoroughly investigated, understood, and grasped. When in translation, the translator should have a thorough comprehension of the language characters of both the source language and target language before he finds the best compatible points, and then conveys all from the source into the target language, make the target text as optimal as possible not only in content but in form or style.Firstly, the paper briefly introduces the definition of children's literature and the development of children's literature translation both in China and in the rest of the world. Then, the author of the thesis provides the concepts of style, stylistics and stylistic characteristics of children's literature, so as to explain the necessity of applying the theory to children's literature translation. Secondly, Gao Jian's Language Character Theory and his viewpoints on style are illustrated. Thirdly, the paper compares the three Chinese translations of the novel Matilda on the lexical level, the sentence level and the level of figures of speech. After analyzing the importance of the choice of words (such as reduplicated words, onomatopoeia and content words), appropriate sentence types (including short sentences, reduplicated or colloquial ones), and rhetoric devices (such as simile and personification), we finally conclude that, in order to achieve a well translated version, the translator should bear in mind the stylistic characteristics of children's literature and pay full respect to the language character of both the source language and the target language. We also insist on the fact that close attention should be paid to the latter one, so as to reproduce the style of the source text in the target text in a changed way through necessary and active adaptation.