A Comparative Study Of The Two Chinese Versions Of Charlotte’s Web From The Perspective Of Translation As Adaptation And Selection

An increasing number of works of foreign children’s literature (CL for short) have been introduced to China with the boom in the economy and cultural exchange. Charlotte’s Web, written in1952by Elwyn Brooks White, one of the most outstanding essayist in the20th century America, is one of them. However, more attention is traditionally diverted to the study of adult literature. The study of CL makes up a tiny slice of the field of literature study, not to mention the study of CL translation.Independent from the adult literature, CL has some distinctive characteristics worthy of special attention. And its features can overwhelmingly and invisibly influence the translators’ decision-making in many ways. Whether the translation of CL is suitable for children’s understanding and caters to their needs and interests is of vital importance in deciding the popularity of CL. The notion of "being suitable for children’s understanding and caters to their needs and interests" finds its way into the approach to translation as adaptation and selection proposed by Professor Hu Gengshen (胡庚申) in2004. On the other hand, the study of CL translation has been done from such perspectives as reception aesthetics, translator’s subjectivity, translation ethics, functionalist approaches, skopos theory, relevance translation theory, but Hu Gengshen’s approach to translation as adaptation and selection has never been used. In this sense, the application of Professor Hu Gengshen’s theory into the comparative study of Charlotte’s Web’s Chinese versions is an initiatively tentative research, which may either suggest CL translation strategies, or trigger other studies concerning CL translation in light of Prof. Hu Gengshen’s theory.Prof. Hu Gengshen’s theory is systematically introduced in2004in his monograph entitled Translation as Adaptation and Selection where he defines translation as a translator’s adaptation and selection in the translational eco-environment. To be more specific, according to him, the translator, the central figure, by making multi-dimensional transformations, adapts to the translational eco-environment and selects proper words, and sentences to produce the optimal target texts. In this relatively new theory, the principle of living organisms’ adaptation to the environment and the environment’s selection of the living organisms from Darwin’s Biological Evolution is borrowed. Thus adaptation and selection for the first time are highlighted in the study of translation activities.A comparative study of two Chinese versions of Charlotte’s Web under the theoretical framework of Prof. Hu Gengshen’s theory unfolds itself from two stages: the first one is Kang Xin’s and Ren Rongrong’s adaptation in the pre-translating stage, including their respective adaptation to personal competence, and to translational eco-environment; the second is Kang’s and Ren’s respective adaptive selection in the translating stage from linguistic, cultural and communicative dimensions.Through the comparison of Kang’s and Ren’s versions of Charlotte’s Web, it is concluded that although Kang’s seems refined and elegant in adults’eyes, Ren’s version excels in that it adapts to the translational eco-environment of CL better for he is a writer and translator of CL by occupation, especially in its linguistic and communicative dimensions, and is therefore more favorable when child readers are concerned. In the broad sense, when it comes to the combination of CL translation and Hu Gengshen’s approach to translation as adaptation and selection, it means a translator adapts to the translational eco-environment in the pre-translating stage, and makes adaptive selections in the translating stage, to achieve a high degree of holistic adaptation and selection, produce the most desirable target texts, and finally set up a platform for the communication between the source text and the child readers.