Translation Of Children’s Literature Under The Guidance Of Functionalist Approaches

In the1970s, Functionalist Approaches sprang up in German. Its core theory is Skopos Theory. This theory persists that the whole translation process depends on the purpose to be achieved by translating behaviour. Functionalist Approaches which highlights translation purpose provides a brand-new perspective for literary translation criticism. Children’s literature plays a very important role in children’s growing up. There are a lot of excellent foreign children’s literary works, the translations of which, as proved by the development of Chinese children’s literature, constitute an important part of Chinese children’s literature. This thesis, under the guidance of Functionalist Approaches, makes a tentative analysis of the translation of foreign children’s literature with the Chinese translation of It’s Like This, Cat as the case study.The thesis first introduces Functionalist Approaches from the aspects of the background of the theory’s formation, its leading proponents and their thoughts, and discusses its role in guiding children’s literature translation. Then it expounds the three principles to be followed in children’s literature translation. After that, the thesis uses It’s Like This, Cat as a case study and, based on functionalist approaches together with the original language features, explores some methods for the translation of foreign children’s literature. This exploration is closely related to the author’s experience of translating It’s Like This, Cat. The author believes that the application of Functionalist Approaches to children’s literature translation can help the translator to avoid being fettered by traditional translation theories, so that he or she will show respect to the original works and at the same time pay attention to the realization of the translated works’functions and purposes. Only by choosing appropriate translation methods and taking the acceptance of child readers into consideration, can the translator produce excellent children’s literary works which are very interesting for children and accord with children’s aesthetic taste, thus meeting with the need of child readers as much as possible. The ultimate purpose is to improve the quality of translated children’s literary works and produce more excellent translations for child readers.