A Report On E-C Translation Of The Tomato Thief From The Perspective Of Horizon Of Expectation

Since the middle of the 20 th century,with the introduction of many excellent Western fantasy literature into China,Western fantasy literature,especially children’s fantasy literature,is popular among Chinese readers of all ages.At present,domestic research on translation strategies of Western children’s fantasy literature is insufficient.Especially,it does not pay much attention to the reader’s response.Hence,it is a very meaningful attempt to study its translation strategies from the perspective of horizon of expectation to make Western children’s fantasy literature more palatable to Chinese readers.As a special group of readers,children are quite different from adults in terms of cognitive and language abilities,thus they need special attention.Translators can create valuable and popular translation works only if they put themselves in children’s position and take care of their directional and creative expectations.Owing to excellent creativity and extraordinary imagination presented in it,Vernon’s children’s fantasy literature The Tomato Thief(《番茄盗贼》)won the2017 Best novelette of Hugo Award.Currently,no research on Ursula Vernon can be found in CNKI.This means that domestic research on Ursula Vernon and her works is still blank.The author holds that it is necessary to translate and do research into Vernon’s works to make Chinese scholars notice this talented and prolific American woman writer.As a reader-centered theory,reception theory attaches importance to the reader’s response and takes it as the principle of judging a literary work.It is of great significance to literary translation.“Horizon of Expectation”,an important concept of reception theory,refers to the prior estimation and expectation of the receiver formed on the basis of personal and social reasons before reading a literary work.It can be further divided into directional and creative expectations.Based on the concept of horizon of expectation,this report puts emphasis on meeting the reader’s directional and creative expectations,combines with specific cases in The Tomato Thief to analyze translation strategies of children’s fantasy literature.Through case analysis,the author comes to the following conclusions.In the aspect of meeting reader’s directional expectation,through the adoption of colloquial words and modal particles,a translation can be made more lively,interesting and approachable.Besides,through the utilization of reduplicated words and onomatopoeic words,the translation can be made more pleasant to ears and attractive to children.Apart from this,by conversing rhetorical devices,the utilization of figures of speech is more acceptable to Chinese children.Furthermore,by adopting creative translation,the translator can reproduce the fantasy element in the novelette.In addition to this,through using Chinese idioms and four-character pattern and annotating the translation,the translator can achieve the purpose of enriching the reader’s reading experiences,expanding their structure of knowledge and renewing their horizon of expectation.Meanwhile,poetic expressions can increase aesthetic distance between the reader and the text,break and renew the reader’s expectation of literary genres,thus meeting the reader’s creative expectation.This report verifies that there are certain development space and practical significance to analyze translation strategies of children’s fantasy literature under the guidance of horizon of expectation.The author hopes that this report can provide help for translators to translate Western children’s fantasy literature,thus making a bit of contributions to the acceptance of excellent Western children’s fantasy literary works in China.