A Study On The Translation Of The Trumpet Of The Swan From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Children’s literature translation in China has developed for over a hundred years. Plenty of foreign children’s literature works have been introduced to China in cultural exchanges. However, even though numerous foreign children’s literature works have been brought into China, the quality of the translation need to be improved and lots of problems remain to be solved. What is worse, the study of children’s translation is not systematically conducted and is generally roughly done. And most studies are basically cases studies with emphasis on one or two particular aspects.Written by E.B white,"the Trumpet of the Swan" is translated by the famous translator of children’s literature named Ren Rongrong. With its characteristics of representativeness and persuasiveness in the translation of children’s literature, the thesis aims to base on the Skopos Theory to make a comprehensive analysis on this version of "the Trumpet of the Swan". This thesis will cover all the points including lexical, syntactical and cultural elements with a purpose of researching the translation methods of children’s literature.Firstly, the lexical elements will be studied. Based on the Skopos Theory claiming that purpose determines methods, the thesis thus focuses on those lexical items including colloquial words, r-ending retroflection, reduplication, onomatopoeia and modal particles to analyze this translation version in consideration of the particularity concerning the children’s literature and its readers. According to this kind of particularity presented in language, physical and mental development of children, the translators will accordingly choose particular expressions owned by children to cater for them. Secondly, the syntactical elements will be discussed. Instead of using complex sentences used frequently in English, those compound-complex sentences like the adverbial clause and the attributive clauses are translated into simple sentences in Chinese. With that, the children’s literature presents itself the characteristics of simple and easy, which is suitable for children. Lastly, this thesis will come to the cultural elements. As the translation on the children’s literature amounts to a kind of cross-cultural communication, excluding all of the exotic culture in translation is such an unwise act that might block the ways for children to exotic culture. Based on this kind of consideration, the translator should to some extent hold some images of the source text through foreignizing and domesticating for being faithful to the original one.With the Skopos Theory, the thesis sets this version "the Trumpet of the Swan" translated by Ren Rongrong as an example to study the translation methods of the children’s literature. It is hoped that this study will be of some help to improving translation of the children’s literature in China.