On The English-Chinese Translation Of Children's Literature From The Perspective Of Reception Theory

Children's literature 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, and some of which are so well translated that they are very popular with Chinese child readers. However, there are also many poor translations greatly frustrate a huge readership and damage the translation undertaking. In order to devote the study of children's literature translation, there a kind of pragmatic and workable strategies will be applied to guide children's literature translation. The thesis attempts to apply two important concepts of Reception Theory, which is the "horizon of expectations" and "fusion of horizons", to the practice of E-C translation of children's literature so as to prove the practicability and effectiveness of Reception Theory on the study of children's literature translation.According to Reception Theory, the translator should not only take the reader's reception but also should focus on the horizon of reader's expectation and that of the literary text in the processing of translating. In the thesis, the author chooses three Chinese versions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland which appeared in different historical periods to do a case study. With the help of the two concepts of "horizon of expectations" and "fusion of horizons" in reception theory, the author analyzes some examples from the three Chinese versions and simply introduces the reception of the three versions. At the same time, the comparative study focuses on the lexical level, rhetoric level and cultural elements of each version, giving a conclusion that the three translators have different "horizon of expectations" for their different historical and cultural background. Moreover, the target readers of the three versions also have their own "horizon of expectations" and receptivity.Instead of evaluating the gains and losses in the three versions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the thesis only intends to show that readers living in different times have different "horizon of expectation" and reception ability, and that one version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland can not satisfy the need of every reader in every period. Meanwhile, by studying the Reception Theory on the translating of children's literature, the major concern is finding a new way for translators to study translation of children's literature from English, and probe the translating criterion when translators handle with children's literature from English.