A Report On The Translation Of Mouse Tales For Kids From The Perspective Of Literary Stylistics

In recent years, translation and study of children’s literature still position on the edge of the literary research, and they have attracted less scholars from academic fields than other literature. However, children’s literature of different countries have possessed their own characteristics which have carried various cultural and language features. If the literature for children could be spread and studied, they will become a big treasure for all the world. After all, most of people have little knowledge of non-native language and culture; then translation becomes indispensable before spreading and researching. As for this practice report which is based on English literature for kids, the stress will be laid on how to transfer and reproduce the language and cultural features in the original text.This series of fairy tales Mouse Tales for Kids is edited by Peter I. Katten, which involves eleven beautiful stories about mouse, rich in contents, humorous in plots and vivid in characters. Because of the lack of the translated version in Chinese, I determine to participate in this translation project. On the one hand, by doing so, the tales could be spread in China; on the other hand, fresh air will be poured into Chinese literature for children, which must promote the exchange and development of domestic and foreign children’s literature.In this paper, I intend to adopt stylistics and its related principles as the guidance of this translation practice. These stories are of the style of fairy tales which belong to literary stylistics, so the theories of literary stylistics can be applied in the translation of the stories as well. Well, literary stylistics is mainly used to analyze the language and stylistic features of source text from the perspectives of rhythm, vocabulary, grammar and discourse as well as figures of speech, in order to guide translators to achieve the thematic and aesthetic purposes by choosing proper words and expressions. Here, the thematic purpose refers to the tenor or the main idea of the text, and the aesthetic purpose means the techniques of expression used in the text for artistic effect. More importantly, literary stylistics could instruct translators how to reproduce the stylistic features of the original works in the Chinese version. In the end, I will conclude that the theories of literary stylistics have a great impact on the translation and study of literature for children.This translation practice report falls into five parts. The first chapter states the general introduction to the translation task. The second chapter describes the translation process including pre-translation, while-translation and post-translation. The third chapter mainly discusses the literature review which involves the concepts and characteristics of stylistics, literary stylistics and the style of fairy tales as well as their concerned studies in China and western countries. The fourth chapter emphasizes the application of the above mentioned theories in translation practice through some case studies which combines the original text with the translated version to demonstrate the stylistic features can be translated or reproduced generally. The last chapter comes to the conclusion, in which the experience has been summarized, the unsolved problems have been stated and the limitations and suggestions have been given, of course including the prospects for future translation of children literature.