A Comparative Study Of The Two Chinese Versions Of The Little Prince Based Upon Reception Aesthetics

Children’ s literature is the first enlightening and funny material which indirectly have a profound influence on the children’ s worldview.These works play an important role in the children’ s growth as they offer great spiritual guidance and also help foster greater understanding.Study of translation of children’ s literature has made rapid progress in recent decades,but its development has been extremely imbalanced in theory and practice.In order to provide more practical strategies for the children’ s literature translation,this thesis tries to apply Reception Aesthetic Theory in children’ s literature translation.It can prove its effectiveness and practical usage on the translation of children’ s literature.For the translation of children’ s literature,Reception Aesthetic Theory enlightens scholars that the translation study should shift from the source text-centered to the reader-centered paradigm.Because of the readers’ particularity,the translator should give priority to the readers’ acceptability.This thesis takes The Little Prince for example,and selects some translation examples from Zhou Kexi’ s version and Li Jihong’ s version.The author applies three concepts of Reception Aesthetic Theory “readers’ status”,“horizon of expectations” and “vacancy of text” to make a comparative analysis and discuss the acceptance of two versions.At the same time,after a comparative study,the author attempts to prove the importance and necessity of proper creativity by translators in the translation of children’ s literature under the guidance of Reception Aesthetic Theory.The purpose of this study is not to judge which Chinese version is much better,although the author prefers Zhou Kexi’ s version,as the readers’ “horizon of expectations” and acceptability are different in different eras,a translation version can’ t meet all readers in different eras.The author also hopes the topic will attract more attentions of Chinese scholars to study the translation of children’ s literature,and dig out more strategies and skills for the translators of translation of children’ s literature.