"Death" In Children’s Literature Translation

Death is not only an eternal topic in literature,but also a philosophical proposition that we cannot conclude.It has a unique charm in literary works.Therefore,“death”is a topic that has often been discussed and pondered over in adult literature.However,children’s literature,known for its lightness and ease,rarely discusses this topic.Since the emergence of the 21^stcentury,the number of children’s novels with death as their theme is rapidly increasing daily due to the liberation of writers’literary ideas.However,compared with the rapid development of the creation of the death theme in children’s novels,attention and research on“death”from the academic circle have been neglected,which to some extent affects the widespread acceptance and further development of“death.”As an essential branch of literature,children’s literature has unique linguistic and psychological characteristics,and the“death”translation strategy in ordinary literature is not entirely applicable to children’s literature translation.Ecological translation theory holds that translators should actively adapt to the“translation ecological environment”of the original text in translation activities and make“adaptive selection”through“three-dimensional transformation”to present a translation with a high degree of adaptation and selection to the original text.This paper takes two versions of Chinese translations of The Great Blue Yonder as examples to analyze the texts from the perspective of Eco-translatology Theory.This paper discusses the translation of“death”in the translation of children’s literature and explores its translation strategies from the three dimensions of language,culture,and communication.The findings are shown below:Regarding linguistic dimension,the structures of reduplication,modal words,conjunctions,and short sentences are more in line with children’s reading psychology and language level.Zhang’s version primarily uses idioms,while Lu’s uses simple and understandable words.Zhang’s version is dominated by long sentences,while short sentences dominate Lu’s version,so Lu’s version is better adapted to the translation ecological environment.In terms of cultural dimension,translators should fully consider the cultural information conveyed to children readers in the source language and combine literal translation with free translation.Both versions have adapted and selected the translation ecological environment of the original text.In the communicative dimension,the translator should judge the communicative intention of the original text and make an appropriate choice.Under the background of adapting to the translation text and target reader-children,translators can translate the author’s real purpose,style,and stylistic characteristics to achieve the best communicative effect.The communicative style of Zhang’s translation is implicit and personal.The communicative style of Lu’s translation is detailed,mostly with background culture style.Lu’s translation is generally closer to the original text’s straightforward and pure language style and has a better communicative style.It can be seen that translation of children’s literature should aim at children’s readers.The text form and composition should be adjusted according to the uniqueness of children’s groups to meet their special reading needs.The actual research method and outcomes of“death”may provide a valuable reference for the current practice of children’s literature translation.