Comparative Study Of Translation Strategies In Two Chinese Versions Of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

The young generation is the future of a nation. Children’s literature is an important part of the general literature. As an excellent way to educate and entertain children, children’s literature is of vital importance. During recent decades, many foreign books for children have been introduced to China and translated into Chinese. However, in China, children’s literature translation has not been given enough attention. The book market for children readers is filled with books that are poorly translated. Therefore, there is an urgent need in China that translators advance their translation skills and translation researchers do more researches concerning children’s literature translation.Skopostheorie first appeared in the 1980’s. The word “Skopos” refers to purpose or aim. This theory holds that the purpose of translation is the foremost guiding principle in the overall translating process. It emphasizes the importance of the target receivers in the translating process, including their expectations and background knowledge. Target-text receiver is the decisive factor in the production of the target text. In translation of children’s literature, the translator has to take the special features and expectations of children into consideration. Therefore, Skopostheorie provides appropriate guidance for the translation of children’s literature.Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland written by Lewis Carroll is full of imaginary things, fantasies, poems, rhetoric devices and word plays. It poses great difficulty to the translators. The author of this thesis selected the translation of Zhao Yuanren and the translation of Jia Wenhao and Jia Wenyuan to study which are both well-received in China. These two versions are distinguished from each other by their own advantages, distinctive characteristics and special charm. There is deep significance that we do a comparative study of the two versions and find some useful and inspiring translation strategies.With Skopostheorie as the theoretical foundation, this thesis endeavors to do a comparative study of two Chinese versions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The comparative study is done on three levels: lexical level, syntactical level and rhetorical level. After the comparative analysis, the main translation strategies applied by the translators are discussed with the aim to provide practical assistance for future translators of children’s literature.