Adaptation In Translating Children's Picture Books

Children's picture books play an important role in the emotional and mental growth of children.In recent years,the market of picture books in China has developed gradually with more and more foreign picture books imported.The quality of translation,however,is far from expectation.Based on The World of Peter Rabbit,a series of picture books written by Mrs.Potter Beatrix and translated by Ren Rongrong,the thesis aims to analyze Ren's translation from the perspective of adaptation theory,from which three points are mainly discussed including structural objects of adaptability,contextual correlates of adaptability and salience of the adaption process,and figure out whether adaptation theory is appropriate for judging the value of translation of children's picture books and work out important points when translating picture books.Through lots of examples,the thesis shows: 1)the translator takes many aspects into consideration,such as language style and mental characteristics of targeted readers,and adapts to children's speaking style and recognition ability through different ways like reduplication,onomatopoeia,repetition and rhyme,etc.2)to analyze contextual correlates of adaptability,the writer focuses on cultural aspect.It turns out that the translator aims to make targeted readers familiar with western culture,but he doesn't consider Chinese culture at the same time so that some parts of translation are not appropriate enough for young children.3)Ren has mainly adopted literal translation but also enriched the translation by using addition,abridgement to show his own understanding of content.4)meanwhile,he knows well that pictures in books are critical,and therefore his translation adapts to targeted language and mental characteristics of readers and enables interaction between children and parents.At last,the thesis concludes that translators of children's picture books are supposed to satisfy demands of targeted readers in language and culture,and if necessary,rewriting is also acceptable.Besides,they should focus on the beauty of rhyme and form and achieve dynamic adaptation taking into account of many factors such as words,sentences and culture when they commence to translate picture books,in order to work out better books that can be better accepted and appreciated by children.