Translation Of Children's Literature From The Perspective Of Dialogism Theory

Children's literature has received more and more attention with the change of views on children.At the same time,a lot of scholars paid attention to study on translating foreign books into Chinese and ignored the spread of wonderful Chinese children's books overseas.Under such a condition,this paper employs dialogism theory to analyze Bronze and Sunflower,the English version of a contemporary fabulous Chinese children's book.Five dialogical relationships are analyzed in order to figure out how the translator represents original flavor.Bronze and Sunflower is a book with the theme of tragedy in beautiful language.It is written by Cao Wenxuan,a famous writer specializing in children's literature in China.He criticized the prevailing hedonism in the hope of helping children adopt correct attitude towards hardships.This book beautifully describes the normality of hardships and the language complies with children's characteristics.It is filled with childishness,but with the sense of bitterness.In 2015,its English version,translated by Helen Wang,was published in U.K..And she won the 2017 Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation for her wonderful translation of Bronze and Sunflower.Dialogism theory was put forward by Mikhail Bakhtin,a great Russian philosopher.It is the essence of his thoughts.He states that human existence is the result of dialogue and language is also a kind of dialogue.Dialogism concentrates on otherness,equal status of two sides in a dialogue and openness and durability of dialogues.Translation is the bridge between two different cultures and the differences make dialogues possible.Dialogism theory,different from previous translation theories that are author-oriented,text-oriented or reader-oriented,provides theoretical basis for equal participation of author,translator,protagonists and readers in translation process.The achievement of translation is generated from active dialogues among these participants.This thesis mainly discusses about five kinds of dialogic relationships existing in translation process and how the translator represents the source text.What's more,translation methods are concluded for translating Chinese children's books into English.The implication of original text is reproduced through methods like precise diction,special spelling,explicitation and omission;rhetorical devices,alliteration and end rhyme are adopted to reproduce original images and aesthetic;repetition,imitation,short sentences and literal translation are used to reshape protagonists;literal translation plus notes and free translation are employed to display cultural flavor of source text;illustration,addition are used to help readers better understand the target text.