A Comparative Study Of Two Translations Of A Little Princess From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

With the development of reform and opening up, a great number of foreign literatures have been introduced into China including children’s literature. But as a special branch of literary translation, the translation of children’s literature has been in a marginal status, for researchers in the translation field mostly focus on the study of the literary translation for adults ignoring the correlation research of the translation of children’s literature. As a result, the translation practice of children’s literature is conducted without the guidance of proper theories, producing a lot of low quality translations. To improve this situation, more attention and researches should be given to the translation of children’s literature.This thesis studies two translations of A Little Princess written by Frances Hodgson Burnett from the perspective of Reception Aesthetics. Reception Aesthetics, also called Reception Theory, was put forward by Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser in the 1960 s with the core concept emphasizing readers’ status and role in the process of reading. It transforms the focus of translation research from traditional text-centered and author-centered theories to reader-centered one. Children’s literature, a special part of literature, has its own unique characteristics for the target readers are children whose reception ability and language are quite different from those of adults. So in the translation of children’s literature, translators must take children’s characteristics and ability of reception into consideration. The novel A Little Princess has been popular with children since its publication and enjoyed a high reputation. The author selects two Chinese versions translated by Tao Pengxu and Guo Yongchang respectively. Studying the two translations from the perspective of Reception Aesthetics, the author intends to find out whether both translations are suitable for children and whether Reception Aesthetics can offer effective guidance to the translation of children’s literature.In this thesis, the author makes a comparative study of the two Chinese versions from the aesthetic characteristics, rhetorical devices and the translation strategies employed to enhance the acceptability of children. Through the study, the author finds that Reception Aesthetics,stressing children’s status and role, can be used to guide the translation of children’s literature for this theory can effectively lead translators of children’s literature to thoroughly understand children and consider their characteristics so as to choose effective strategies and produce high-quality as well as popular translations among children. The author suggests that translators should take children’s psychological features and language acceptability into consideration when choosing translation strategies as the translation of children’s literature should be children-centered. Finally, based on the language the two translators use and the strategies they employ the author concludes that from the perspective of Reception Aesthetics Tao Pengxu’s version is more acceptable and will be more popular than Guo Yongchang’s version. Hopefully what the author has done can be a contribution to the translation of children’s literature.