On The E-C Translation Of Children's Literature Work When The Sea Turned To Silver From The Perspective Of The Reception Aesthetics

This report selects an English book named When the Sea Turned into Silver,as the translation practice object.This English book is written by Grace Lin,a best-selling children's author.She is an Asian-American and taped into Chinese traditional culture.Her books are embedded with numerous Chinese elements,and her recent book When the Sea Turned into Silver has also drawn materials from Chinese folklore and created some new fancy plots centering on the Chinese mythological figures.This shows the natural conditions and social customs of China.With a Chinese characteristic and awe-inspiring full color illustrations,this book is very popular among child readers.Due to its popularity,the book ranks the eleventh among the best Children's Asia Books in Amazon Best Sellers.What's more,it has been selected as one of best children's books by the New York Times in 2016.And it's also an IndieBound Bestseller.Mostly importantly,it is a National Book Award for Young People's Literature Finalist.This Award is one of four annual National Book Awards,which are given by the National Book Foundation(NBF).Thus,this translation practice not only gives vitality to the children's literature with Chinese folktale themes,but also inspires children's literature writers to create more children's literature with Chinese elements.The Reception Aesthetics was founded by Hans Robert Jauss,a German literary theorist and Wolfgang Iser,a German esthetician in the late 1960s.This theory focuses on the readers and their reception.Jauss put forward the concept of the horizon of reader's expectation and established the central status of the readers in the literature theory and the aesthetics research.What's more,according to Iser's calling structure,there exist the blanks,gaps and indeterminacies in the literary work,which call for readers' participation.Readers could fill the vacancies and acquire the meaning of the texts depending on their knowledge and imagination.As special readers,children have limited knowledge and life experience,but their minds are full of imagination.From this point of view,the Reception Aesthetics has an advantage over the translation of children's literature.Thus,the E-C translation practice of the children's literature work When the Sea Turned into Silver is guided by the Reception Aesthetics Theory.From the perspective of the Reception Aesthetics Theory,with examples in When the Sea Turned into Silver,this report reveals that the Reception Aesthetics Theory has the edge on the children's literature translation,thus enabling child readers to have a better understanding and appreciation of children's literature works,and also providing some useful strategies for translators to improve the quality of children's literature translation.This report could be divided into the following parts:Firstly,it's about the description of the report,such as the background,significance and purpose of the research.Secondly,it centers on the process of the task,including preparation for translation,translation procedure and revision after-translation.In the stage of preparation,the translator should get familiar with the characteristic of children's literature,and analyze the translated book called When the Sea Turned to Silver with the aid of a parallel translated text named When the Mountain Meets the Moon.Thirdly,it focuses on the Reception Aesthetics Theory,consisting of the foundation and development,and the main concepts of the theory such as the horizon of expectation,the aesthetic distance and the calling structure.Fourthly,it's the core part of the report.Typical examples selected from the translation practice of work When the Sea Turned into Silver are fully used to testify the feasibility and practicability of the Reception Aesthetics Theory,which includes the adoption of simple language structures to meet children's expectation,the preference of the rhythmical and visualized expressions to cater to children's taste,and the employment of proper blank-leaving to spark children's imagination.Finally,the author gives a brief summary of the translation features,rules and techniques about children's literature.This research shows that simple language structures and rhymes cater to child readers,some annotations of culture-loaded words can broaden children's expectation and the proper blank-leavings could stimulate children to fill the gaps with their knowledge and imagination.These findings will deepen and widened the research and the application of the Reception Aesthetics Theory in children's literature translation centering on the child readers.