An Exploration Into The Norms In Chinese-English Translation Of Children's Literature

Children's literature has long been the site where there are tremendous translation activities taking place.However,along with its translation,it has long been regarded as "the Cinderella of literary studies",despite its important role as an instrument for education and moral instruction.This peripheral status of children's literature,however,allows its translators greater flexibility for textual manipulation,compared with the "more serious" adult literature.The manipulation is by no means random.The translation process,together with its final product,is always governed by various norms of the target culture.Drawing upon the established model of translation norms by Andrew Chesterman,this thesis aims to explore the hitherto neglected study of the norms in the translation of children's literature from Chinese into English,based on a case study of the translation of Bronze and Sunflower,which is originally written by the Hans Christian Anderson Award-winning writer Cao Wenxuan.The case study of Bronze and Sunflower shows that,as required by children's literature as a specific literary genre,the norms that come into play in the translation include the following aspects:Firstly,the translation takes into account the understanding level of its primary readership-children,which is demonstrated by the widely used paraphrase and rewriting of the original;Secondly,there is a tendency to keep a certain degree of "foreignness" in the translation,but this consideration comes second when it conflicts the first point;Thirdly,the information of the original that is deemed "inappropriate" in the target culture is converted into harmless expression,which often leads to a radical change in the translation,for the consideration of the educational function of children's literature.