On The Translation Of Children’s Literature From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Nowadays, more and more foreign children’s literature has been introduced to Chinese readers. However, the translation of children’s literature is still at an undeveloped level, there has no proper translation theory to instruct the translation practice of children’s literature, and some unsatisfying versions of translation failed to fulfill children’s expectations. Thus, with English-Chinese translation of Jean Webster’s book----Daddy-Long-Legs as a case study, the translator chooses the Skopos Theory to guide the translation practice of children’s literature, and to demonstrate the significance of Skopos Theory to the translation of children’s literature.In this thesis, the translator not only focuses on the features of children’s literature, but also discusses the development and the three rules of Skopos Theory, namely, the skopos rule, the fidelity rule and coherence rule. In order to cater for the reading habits of child readers, the translator applies the three rules of Skopos Theory to the translation practice of Daddy-Long-Legs aims to create a target text that is understandable and readable for Chinese children. Under the guidance of skopos rule, the translator employs reduplicated words, interjections, adverb of degree and onomatopoeia to create a target text that is full of fun and beautiful rhythm. Based on the fidelity rule, the translator simplifies the complicated sentences into short sentences with a view to keeping the fidelity between source text and target text. Meanwhile, the translator also applies coherence rule to instruct the translation of cultural words so as to realize the cultural coherence between the author and target readers.This thesis, with the English-Chinese versions of Daddy-Long-Legs that is translated by Zhang Qi, Yu Fanqin and Ai Ke as research objects. According to the comparison and analysis, the translator demonstrates that Skopos Theory can provide theoretical guidance for the translation practice of Daddy-Long-Legs, and offers a few suggestions for the translation of children’s literature in China.