Translation Of Children’s Literature

Children’s literature plays an important role in children’s literary development. It may beregarded as spiritual food for children, influencing their mental growth and development ofsound values. With increased communication between Eastern and Western cultures, manyexcellent literary works have been introduced to China from Western countries. Some havebeen successfully translated and popular amongst children while others have not. In China,from an approach of entire literary translation system, detailed studies of these children’sworks are still in their infant stages, lacking the in-depth research and guidance of provenpractical theories of translation.As far as children’s literature translation is concerned, some Chinese scholars havealways believed it appropriate to directly translate word for word and in short sentences.However, this is not always effective. This endeavor is more difficult than the literaltranslation of other types of documents. The translator faces a two-fold challenge. The first iskeeping intact the cultural aspects of literary form of the original text. The second is makingsure the target readers easily comprehend the text and receive the similar mind stimulatingmessage inspired from it. This entails the translator being familiar with backgroundknowledge, literary levels and cognitive features of their audience, the children.From an approach based on German Skopostheorie, this thesis illustrates how Skopos,Coherence and Fidelity Rules influence a translator’s practical approach and choices ofstrategies. The case study is on Charlotte’s Web rated top of the list of “Ten of AmericasGreatest Children’s Literature Works”. There are currently three translated versions in China.The most recognized is from noted literary translator, Mr. Ren Rongrong. In contrast to theother two Chinese versions, this thesis studies how the three illustrated rules mentioned aboveinfluenced Ren Rongrong’s choice of his successful approach to his translation process.