A Survey Of Three Chinese Versions Of Kipling’s Just So Stories

In1902Just So Stories for Little Children was published．This book broughtKipling reputation which had faded before and helped him regain his literarystatus．As one of classic children literature written by Kipling this book was heavilypraised by Gilbert Keith Chesterton．He reviewed the12fairy tales saying：They arenot fairy tales，they are legends. A legend is a fairy tale told to men when men weresane．The12short stories provided plausible answers to children to help them acceptand understand secrets of the world；animals and human beings，even English lettersand letter. In1929, since the first official Chinese translation version came out，it hasbeen translating throughout the past century．At now there are more than22differentversions in the market and new Chinese versions are still coming．After readingseveral Chinese translations translated in different times the author noticed that thereexist a variety of differences and apparently they are related to the change of time inChina．To this purpose this thesis will compare and analyze the differences betweenthree Chinese translations published in different times, according to AndrewChesterman＇s norm theory and strategy theory to discuss what limit and influencetranslation product in translation process．In the first chapter the norm theory and strategy theory will be summed up andexplained．Its content，including meme theory；expectancy norm；professional norm；accountability norm；communication norm；relation norm and all the three types instrategy norm will all be listed and explained．The second chapter will mainly discuss the background of the three Chinesetranslation texts．Also with some most influential political affairs and some importantevents happened in the literature circle as marks in the process of Chinesedevelopment，the outline of the process and corresponding expectancy normchanges will be written to discuss factors inducing the changes．The subsequent parts will analyze the differences in three Chinese translationtexts and they will be discussed in four aspects：Culture filtering；Interpersonalchange；Loan and Information change．In this part the thesis will also try to find and determine factors affecting translation texts．The factors are changes of childrenexpectancy，the zeal of learning English in China，high technology which bringscomputer and internet and changes of Kipling’s reputation in Chinese literature.．Fromthe comprehensive angle，all the differences embodied in the three Chinese translationtexts are matched up with the changes of times in China．From their comparison thelimitedness and influences that the time imposed on translation process are showedclearly．...