A Study Of Words Translation Of Children’s Literature Under The Hprizon Of Expectations

This paper is a report of a translation project, based on the author’s translation experience of The Wind in the Willows (Children’s Literature). In this paper the author tries to compare her own practice with a master’s (Yang Jingyuan) translating work, in order to find the shortcomings and ways to improve her skills in translating words in works of Children’s literature under the guidance of the theory of horizon of expectations. The author chose The Wind in the Willows to translate which is one of the most famous Children’s classics in the world. There are about a dozen versions of translation of the work in China, among which the author chose the version of Yang Jingyuan, which won much praise. Just because the author is just a student and Mr.Yang is a well-known translator, however, such comparison can easily reveal the difference and the author’s shortcomings. This paper includes five parts. The first part is to briefly introduce the original work for translation and the consideration the author took into before choosing it for translation, and the content that will be discussed and the theory to follow in translation. The second is to introduce the background for translation project, including brief introduction of the original book, the characteristics and style of its language, who are the target readers, and what kinds of characteristics they will have as well as its translation in China, also the author will explain the concept of the theory used in the paper. And the third is to explain the problems the author met in translation and try to find some means to solve them. For example, trying to use oral words, incremental repetition properly, and in order to improve and increase the children’s cultural knowledge, idioms and phrases should also be used sometimes. The forth part is a survey for the children’s reading experience, including its purposes, theory based, design, process and its result analysis. And the last part is to conclude that in translating a children’s literary work, we should try to center on the children, use oral words, incremental repetition, idioms and phrases as often as possible. This article will pursue some strategies in words translation under the Horizon of Expectation, and try to seek some better ways to meet the children’s horizon of expectations and at last can bring a good feeling of reading for them.