A Report On The Translation Of The Circus Boys On The Mississippi (Excerpt) Under The Guidance Of Reception Aesthetics

The report is based on an E-C translation practice and the source text is an excerpt from The Circus Boys on the Mississippi written by Edgar B.P.Darlington.The work mainly talks about a touching story of two boys' work and struggle in a circus.Based on the particularity of the readers of children's literature,the author of the report takes reception aesthetics as the guidance,focusing on the readers' horizon of expectation and indeterminacy of the original work in order to make the translation easily understood by Chinese children.Children are different from adults and they like concrete words,lifelike expressions and simple sentence structures.Considering horizon of expectation of child readers,the author of the report properly adds reduplicated words,four-character phrases and onomatopoeic words to attract their interests during the translation.What's more,the author of the report pays particular attention to the translation of indeterminacy of the source text.In the course of translation,the author of the report reproduces indeterminacy if Chinese children can decipher the related culture-loaded terms,dialogues and sentence structures through their own efforts;but if they are beyond the readers,the author of the report makes some adaptions so as to facilitate readers'understanding.The guidance of reception aesthetics in the translation of The Circus Boys on the Mississippi helps the author of the report take children's acceptability and reading habits into consideration instead of following the source text rigidly.This translation practice enables the author of the report gain some valuable experience and makes her realize the qualities that a good translator must have as well as her own limitations.