A Report On The E-C Translation Of Every Soul A Star(Excerpts) From The Perspective Of Reception Theory

As families and society pay more attention to children’s reading habits,the question of translating foreign children’s literature is also becoming more important.While the number of translations of children’s literature is increasing,there is certainly still much room for improvement in the quality of the translation of many children’s literature works.The reproduction of children’s interest which the source text presumably has succeeded to win is the essential issue of the translation of children’s literature,and how exactly to reproduce it when translating children’s literature is a task that every translator must accomplish.This requires translators to take children as the center when translating.Reception Theory provides a perspective to study the translation of children’s literature.In this report,the present author chose to translate excerpts of yet untranslated book Every Soul a Star by a well-known contemporary American children’s literature writer Wendy Mass.The book is a heartwarming growth story of three American children against the backdrop of a rare and spectacular solar eclipse.It gives a unique focus and reflection on individuality,self-identity,and other questions that teenagers are bound to face in the process of growing up.It’s a book with a high translation value.Guided by Reception Theory,this report takes Every Soul a Star(chapter 1 to chapter 3)as an example,focusing on the reproduction of children’s interest in the English-Chinese translation of children’s literature.The present author intends to analyze the typical examples from lexical,syntactic and rhetorical levels,and summarize the translation methods of children’s literature.For the translation of the words and phrases,reduplication,onomatopoeia,modal particles,colloquialism and four-character phrases are recommended.To make the translation understandable for children,the present author uses methods including division,word order conversion and shifting of passive form of sentence into active.When translating rhetorical devices in the source text,the present author adopts the method of literal translation or free translation in accordance with different situation.Following these guidelines,this report expects to provide some enlightenment to the reproduction of children’s interest for the translation of children’s literature.