Skopostheorie In The English-Chinese Translation Of Children's Literature

Foreign children's literature (CL) not only means a lot to Chinese children readers, but also plays an important role in the development of CL in China. Ever since the Late Qing Dynasty, foreign CL has been introduced to massive Chinese readers in a great number, among which there are both classic children readings such as The Little Prince, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, "Harry Potter" series, and some unsatisfying versions. The situation bears some relationship to the inadequate concern about translation studies of CL nowadays. Up to now, there has not been a single systematic translation theory of CL which is used particularly to instruct the practice. Only a few articles about the CL translation can be found in journals, yet they are mostly the translators' experience sharing rather than systematic studies. Based on the above-mentioned reasons, author of the thesis tries to find a translation theory which could guide the translation practice of CL. With English-Chinese (E-C) translation as an example, the thesis tries to explore the significance of Skopostheorie to the translation of CL.Skopostheorie was put forward by German functionalists. The theory posed a challenge to the traditional translation theories which were mainly based on equivalence, by allowing translators to make proper adjustments to meet the needs of the target readers. Skopostheorie requires that a translator should make clear about the purpose of translation before action and this purpose should be kept in mind to determine what strategies might be adopted throughout the whole translating process. Skopostheorie maintains that the purpose of translation mostly relies on the target receivers. As for CL, although there are a small number of adult readers, its main readers are children, whose acceptance ability remains at a relatively low level because of their limited experience. Intracoherence rule guides that the translation should at least be acceptable by target readers. Accordingly, a qualified translator of CL should make sure first that the rendering produced could be understood by children. What kind of books can be accepted, or saying, favored by children readers? With the question comes the need of understanding children. The author gives an analysis of children's language development and cognitive features from the psychological perspective in the third chapter, which serves as a foundation for the adoption of translation strategies. As the kernel of the thesis, the fourth chapter compares the two Chinese versions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland under Skopostheorie, ascertains the translation of "adequacy" and gives corresponding advice wherever necessary.The thesis consists of four chapters in addition to the introduction and the conclusion. The thesis begins with the introduction, which gives an overall picture concerning the situation of the translation studies of CL, declares the objective and the significance of the study and provides an overview on the chapters. The first chapter introduces CL, to be specific, the definition, features and status of CL, presents a brief history of CL translation and makes a reflection on it. Chapter two provides a review on the Skopostheorie and explores its inspiration to translation. Chapter three is a combination of theory and practice on the theoretical level. Skopostheorie requires translators to fix the target readers of CL renderings before translating, that is, mainly children, and then translators could probably choose suitable ways to translate according to children's needs. In this regard, this part also makes a detailed analysis of children's thinking features and language acceptance abilities from the psychological perspective. Chapter four explores the significance of Skopostheorie in the CL translation practice. This part can also be regarded as a comparative study between two Chinese versions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland under Skopostheorie. Through comparison, the author points out which version is better and gives the corresponding advice. The last part serves as a conclusion of the whole thesis, which generalizes the whole thesis briefly, summarizes the main viewpoints of the author and points out the contributions as well as the limitations of the study.