Domestication In Translation Of Children’s Literature

As an indispensable part of the world literature, children’s literature carries tender lovingcare and expectation of the human to the next generation and is responsible for the educatingand humanizing of children, whose significance is self-evident. In recent years, with thedevelopment of children’s literature and introduction of foreign children’s literary works, alarge number of translation works of children’s literature emerge in an endless stream, so arethe translation studies on children’s literature. This is not only reflected on the growth in thenumber of relevant research articles, but is also embodied in the hierarchy and diversificationin research methods. It is obvious that children’s literature has reached its unprecedentedachievements in China.However, as translations of children’s literature and translation studies have madesignificant progress and breakthroughs, they also show some disadvantages and deficienciesthat cannot be ignored. Compared with the flourishing and influential research status ofliterary translation, the marginalized position of children’s literature in literary translation hasnot been improved radically. Children’s literature has long been neglected in literarytranslation study. The main problems existent are lacking of overall planning, repetition intopic selection, lacking of creativity, and retranslation of the classic, etc; meanwhile, theresearch on translation of children’s literature strategy starts relatively late. Although therehave been many translation theories widely used in translation of children’s literature study,the combination of translation theory and practice is far from mature. The guiding role oftranslation theory to translation practice is not reflected.Domestication and foreignization are the most representative perspectives in translationtheory. From Schleiermacher’s speech on foreignization to Lawrence Venuti’s foreignizingtranslation strategy; from Lefevere’s domesticating translation theory to Nida’s “FunctionalEquivalence”; from Qian Zhongshu’s “Transformation” to Guo Jianzhong’s viewpoints ondomestication, it can be seen that the controversy on domestication and foreignization neverstops in translation history. Especially in China, some translators fail to have a clearunderstanding and proper use of domestication and foreignization, resulting in endlessemergence of mistranslations.In view of all these, the author mainly starts off from the discussion of the degree indomestication based on domesticating and foreignizing translation theory. Through acomparative analysis of two translated versions of the Newbery Honor Book The Wanderer, this thesis pays special attention to the choice of domesticating and foreignizing translationstrategies in translation of children’s literature, especially the appropriate grasp ofdomestication degree. Then the author sums up translation strategies of children’s literature.The major achievements of this study are as follows:1. This thesis displays a diachronic statement of studies on translation of children’sliterature in China and abroad. The analysis of study methods is more comprehensive and theinadequacies existing are then pointed out by the author, which provide a reference for latertranslation theory study. At the same time, the initiative introduction of the Newbery HonorBook The Wanderer will help arising domestic concern to this award to a certain extent.Consequently, the repetition in topic selection and lacking of innovation status will beimproved in translation of children’s literature and translation of children’s literature studies.2. The author summarizes and puts forward strategies of children’s literature translation.She points out that domestication and foreignization are the most important strategies intranslation of children’s literature. They are complementary to each other and neither isdispensable. Domestication as the mainstream translation strategy in translation of children’sliterature has been accepted by the contemporary theorists and translators. But takingdomestication as the main method of translation of children’s literature does not mean that wecan ignore the important role of foreignization in cross-cultural communication.Over-domestication is inadvisable. In the cultural communication, foreignization strategyprovides readers with opportunities to understand western culture fully. Too much emphasisor neglection on one aspect will make the translation run to extremes. The “degree” ofdomestication and foreignization should be measured in the process of translation practicebased on text types and the target readers’ dynamic response. The ultimate goal is to bring therole of translation into playing and promoting exchanges and communications betweendifferent languages and cultures.