An Empirical Study Of Readers’ Response To E-C Translation Of Children’s Poetry

In the era of globalization,a large number of worldwide excellent works of children’s literature have spread into China.Compared with the boom of children’s literature,the study on translation of children’s literature has not been paid much attention to in the field of literary translation both from theoretical and empirical points of view,translation of children’s poetry is even more the case.With the focus of translation studies has shifted from texts to readers,more and more research has been done from the perfective of readers’ response,but there is still a vacancy in translation of children’s poetry.Based on this concern,this paper adopts Readers’Response Theory as a theoretical framework,and carries out an empirical study on readers’response to E-C translation of two children’s poems.This paper collects data from a form-focused poem The Star and an appeal-focused poem The Land of Counterpane,along with four translations for each.A questionnaire survey is conducted among two groups of Chinese Children(each group includes 30children)and one group of 30 English children ranging from 9 to 11 years old.In the phase of data analysis,similarities and differences are compared between English readers’response to the original poems and Chinese readers’response to their translations,and the quality of different translations is evaluated.The data show that the translations《星》and《闪耀的小星星》of the poem The Star,and the translations《被子的大地》of the poem The Land of Counterpane are considered as good translations under the guidance of Readers’Response Theory,and proper translation skills are summarized in translating the two children’s poems.The results reveal that the translations which are widely enjoyed by children readers have produced a similar readers’response as the original poem does.The results also indicate that high-quality translations should take full account of TL readers’response,which in turn proofs the applicability and feasibility of Readers’Response Theory in E-C translation of children’s poetry.According to conclusions,this paper points out major problems and difficulties in E-C translation of children’s poetry and sums up proper translation skills for the two poems respectively from the perspectives of rhyme,vocabulary,verse,figure of speech,etc.This paper aims to extend the application of Readers’ Response Theory in empirical studies.By exploring the translation mode focusing on TL readers,this study attempts to provide theoretical and factual bases for application of Readers’ Response Theory into E-C translation of children’s poetry,which has potential guiding significance and practical values.