On The Translation Of Children's Literature From The Perspective Of Nida's Functional Equivalence Theory

Children's literature occupies an independent position in the field of literature and plays an important role on children's education.However,for a long time,children's literature has not received enough attention from scholars.It was not until the late 18~thh century that children's literature was presented to the world in a special,independent form of literature.After two centuries of exploration,scholars have made some achievements in the research of children's literature.Translation studies and the vigorous development of children's literature also provide a good platform for children's literary translation.However,more professional and systematic research should be carried out on the development of children's literary translation.Functional equivalence theory indicates that translation should not be confined to form.In order to achieve the equivalence of content and information,necessary adjustments could be made to the form and structure of the original text.In this way,the readers of the translated text can have the same response as the readers of the original one.When translating children's literature,translators should abide by the principle of“child-orientation”.Taking full consideration to the special physiological and psychological characteristics of children readers,the translators should not constrained by the language structure of the original text.They should try to use simple,vivid and natural language expression form,so that the target language readers could get the same emotional experience as the source language readers.From this point of view,Nida's functional equivalence theory coincides with the guiding ideology of children's literary translation.They both focused on the readers'feelings.Considered a masterpiece since first appearance on stage in 1904,Peter Pan is J.M.Barrie's most famous work and the greatest of all children's stories.This thesis is based on the exemplification of the Chinese version of Peter Pan by Yang Jingyuan and Ma Ainong.Based on functional equivalence theory,this thesis compares two Chinese translations of Peter Pan from the aspects of meaning,style and culture,and it also points out that how the translators realize the closest equivalence with the original text.It further proves the applicability of functional equivalence theory to children's literary translation.This study has two main meanings.In theory,through the comparative analysis of two Chinese versions of Peter Pan,the author proves the guiding role and evaluation function of functional equivalence theory on children's literary translation.In practice,the analysis of the individual cases in Peter Pan can enlighten children's literary translators on how to achieve functional equivalence in the process of translation,and it also helps translators to translate excellent works that can be understood and accepted by children.It is hoped that this study will provide some theoretical help to children's literary translators.At the same time,it is hoped that the researchers pay more attention to Eugene A.Nida's functional equivalence theory and its guiding role in the translation of children's literature.