Study Of Adaptive Phenomena In Two Chinese Versions Of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland

Based on the exemplification of two Chinese versions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this thesis analyzes the adaptive phenomena in children’s literature translation from the perspective of Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory.Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory provides a fresh pragmatic angle for studies of translation. Verschueren believes that language using is a process of continuous linguistic choice making. And the reason why languages users can make proper choices in the process of language using is the three properties of language—variability, negotiability and adaptability. Adaptability is the core of the process of language using. Any language using is dynamic adaptation on the basis of context. The ingredients of the context correlates of adaptability range from the physical world, the social world to the mental world. The context is not given in advance, but changes with the continuous development of communication process.Since the readers of children’s literature are children, this feature determines the distinctiveness of children’s literature translation. Translators should pay attention to many factors which may have an impact on translation while they are translating children’s literature works. This thesis first analyzes how to adapt to different factors in the process of translating children’s literature from the aspects of style and utterance-building ingredients. Translators should retain the stylistic structure of the source text while translating. On the translation of figures of speech, the significant factor of children’s literature works, translators should not only convey the sense but also the humorous effect. Translators should select the language for children’s literature which is not only pleased to children readers but also simple and understandable during translating. They also need to keep the style of the source text when dealing with the translation of sentences even discourse. Then author studies how the social, cognitive and culture factors have an influence on selection of translation of children’s literature from the adaptation of the physical world, the social world and the mental world.