论文总字数：32188字
摘 要
儿童文学是文学不可缺少的一部分，它有着非常重要的作用。儿童文学是由成人创作供儿童阅读的作品。它应该要适应儿童的学习能力、理解能力等特点。基于儿童文学的翻译理论，并以杨静远的《柳林风声》汉语译本为例，本文从可读性、故事性、趣味性等角度分析了外国儿童文学中译本的词汇、句式翻译特点，为以后的翻译实践提供理论基础。
关键词：儿童文学；儿童文学翻译；翻译特点；《柳林风声》
Contents
1. Introduction 1
2. Literature Review 2
2.1 The development of children’s literature 2
2.2 The development of translation of children’s literature 4
3. The Features of Lexical Choice in Translation of Children’s Literature 5
3.1 The application of informal words 6
3.2 The massive use of reduplicated words 6
3.3 Extensive application of onomatopoeia 8
3.4 Extensive application of notional verbs 8
4. The Features of Sentence Structure in Translation of Children’s Literature 9
4.1 The colloquial characteristic of sentences 10
4.2 Extensive application of short sentences 10
4.3 The advantages of these features 11
5. Conclusion 12
Works Cited 14
1. Introduction
Children"s literature is essential for the development of children. It helps children develop their intelligence, enhance their ability to imagine and interest in reading. In recent years, although the market of literature publications has been shrinking, children"s literature has developed quickly. And the publication of literature for children has been rising year by year. This not only reflects the attention paid to children"s literature and education in China, but also reflexes its increasing social influence. Due to children"s mental characteristics, they are rather plastic. Concerning children"s intelligence level and their taste, works of literature which are created for kids should have pedagogical meanings and high readability, so as to make children love reading literary works. If children are interested in reading, they will better take in the educational contents from these literary works. Children’s literature is created by adult writers for children. So the features which make the context more acceptable for young readers are significant. Only if translators master practical translation skills can they translate foreign literary works into brilliant Chinese versions. Reading excellent books help promote the all-round development of the children and then they can make contributions to society.
During these years, foreign literature for children has been translated at an over quick speed. Under this circumstance, it’s difficult to guarantee the quality of Chinese version of those foreign literary works. The quality of children"s books can roughly reflect the country"s economic development, as well as the degree of cultural and technological progress. In spite of rapid expansion of research on literature in China, studies on the translation of children"s literature are relatively few. Based on the domestic and oversea translation theory of children"s literature, this paper analyzes the lexical and syntactic characteristics of the translated versions of foreign children"s literature so as to make a beneficial exploration and provide theoretical basis for future translation practice. The current status and development of the translation practice of literature for Chinese children result in new requirements for translation criticism. It is difficult to guarantee the quality of children"s literature translated at an alarming speed without the supervision of the critics. It may even become a trap for children readers. (Xuamp; Jiang 67) Thus, we as adults should pay attention to the quality of translation of children’s literature and try to bring more excellent works for them. Among all the Chinese versions of The Wind in the Willows, Yang Jingyuan’s version is one of the most popular versions in China. And it has been accepted with great acclaim by other translators. Yang’s excellent translation style, her lexical choices and arrangements for sentences all fit the taste of children.
2. Literature Review
In order to study the translation characteristics of children"s literature, this paper selects The Wind in the Willows translated by Yang Jingyuan. The Wind in the Willows is a children"s novel by Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. The novel is distinguished for the combination of mysticism, adventure, morality and camaraderie. When translating this book, Yang Jingyuan combines elegant written language with lively spoken language so seamlessly (Lai 66), which shows her profound literary skills and extraordinary sense of beauty. Her translation makes children interested in and curious about the characters and plots. When reading aloud, they can get a feeling that their voices become more beautiful, and they will become fonder of reading it. It is very suitable for children to read.
2.1 The development of children’s literature
Since ancient times, children"s literature has gone through a process of development with many twists and turns, prosperity and decline.
2.1.1 The development of foreign children’s literature
The earliest literature of the written form originated in ancient Egypt in 1,300 B.C. Since that period, children"s literature has begun to appear in writing forms. In a broad sense, Aesop"s Fables (6th century BC) is widely considered as the first well-known collection of fairy tales in the western world. Generally speaking, people regard the late 18th century as the beginning of children"s literature. Besides, Emil, the biographical novel written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau"s in 1762, is regarded as the first novel in the history of children"s literature which describes children as individuals with independent personality.
In the 19th century, Andersen, Carlo Collodi and Mark Twain are known as the epoch-making giants of children’s literature. Brother Green collected and sorted out one of the best-selling German literary works for children from 1822 to 1857, called The Green Fairy Tales. It’s one of the most popular fairy tales being widely spread all over the world. With their rich imagination and beautiful language, the Brothers Grimm narrated magical and romantic fairy tales to children, which has had profound influence on the development of children’s literature. During 1835-1872, Danish writer Andersen independently created fairy tales, Andersen"s fairy tales, which laid the foundation for children"s literature. The accomplishment of fairy tales’ writers such as Andersen symbolized the first flourishing period of children"s literature in the world. Puppet Adventure, a book written by Carlo Collodi and published in Italy in 1880, is regarded as one of the classics of early children"s literature. In 1876, Mark Twain created The Adventure of Tom, which also became a famous American work of children"s literature.
The emergence of a large number of excellent works in Britain, the Soviet Union, the United States, France, Italy, Sweden and other countries in the 20th century marked the second prosperity of world children"s literature. Alice"s Adventures in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll, has direct enlightenment to the later famous children fantasy novels, such as The Wizard of Oz and The Legend of Narnia. The Wizard of Oz is a series of American fairy tales published from 1900 to 1920, which has a profound influence on children"s literature since then. In 1943, the French writer St. Exupery created fairy tale The Little Prince, which has been translated into more than 100 languages, and was also made into films and dramas.
2.1.2 The development of domestic children’s literature
In ancient China, relatively closed and defective "children"s outlook" strangles children"s independent personality; the shortcomings of primary education limit the appearance of children"s literature. The status and function of children’s literature didn’t get enough attention they deserve (Wu 90). What’s more, there were no realistic basis for the creation of children"s literature and the development of criticism theory until May 4th Movement. Therefore, the creation and criticism of adult literature in the past century was relatively earlier of the research of children"s literature.
Children’s literature appeared on the scene in the early 20th century. Chinese children"s literature has developed over a long time since then. The literature of children written by Zhou Zuoren is a path-breaking work of domestic children’s literature. It’s the first time that the concept of literature for children has appeared. After that, children’s literature appeared in people’s sight, and its research began to thrive. With children’s literature being increasingly popular, scholars who studied it has been raising. They have created many brilliant literary works and criticism theory of children’s literature. Scarecrow Man, one of Ye Shengtao’s works created in the early 20th century, was considered as the foundation of modern Chinese fairy tales. Children’s prose Send Little Readers written by Bingxin also occupies a significant position in the developing process of children’s literature. Since then, more and more brilliant writers sprang up, such as Xu Guangyao, Chen Bochui and Hong Xuntao. The Cultural Revolution devastated the Children"s Literature from 1966 to 1976. While after 1976, more excellent works of children"s literature of various genres have emerged for children of all ages, such as fairy tales created by Zheng Yuanjie and ZhouRui, and children novels produced by Cao Wenxuan, Shen Shixi etc.
2.2 The development of translation of children’s literature
The study of translation of children"s literature began to thrive from the mid-20th century. Children"s Novels in the Translator"s Hands, published in 1986 and Language in Translation of Children"s Literature, published in 1995 are quite influential articles in this field. In the 21st century, only in the first ten years has the study of translation of children"s literature developed rapidly.
In China this kind of study is not mature compared with the West. Although language of children"s literature seems easy to adults, its translation is not easy at all. When translating foreign children’s literature, translators must use the vocabulary and sentences that children can understand. In addition, the language of children"s literature should also have the characteristics of image, music, simplicity and childlike interest. Therefore, certain skills should be employed in translation so that the Chinese version will be faithful to the contents and adaptive to the style. The criteria for translation of children"s literature should be an organic combination of the substantive characteristics of children"s literature and the essential demands of translation. (Xuamp; Jiang 67)
Children at this period of language development process have not mastered complicated words and sentence structures, making it difficult to understand and accept esoteric languages and lengthy sentences. Therefore, excellent children"s literature always tries to be concise and vivid when fully display the interesting points of languages by the extensive use of common words and simple sentences. Thus, when translating children’s literature, the translator should seriously consider the children’s receptivity, ability to read, thinking mode, development characteristics of intelligence and psychology, etc. And they also should take children readers as center and their reception as the goal, which means that we need to pay great attention to lexical choices and sentence structure (Xu 33).
Unlike adults, children first derive aesthetic pleasure and interest from rhythm and cadence. This thinking characteristic of children requires authors and translators to have a strong sense of rhythm and musicality in word selection and sentence construction. Actually, this is the higher level of requirement for the spoken language (Shou 52). Specifically speaking, it is necessary to describe the characteristics of children"s life with humorous and vivid language, so as to arouse the interest and resonance of young readers.
3. The Features of Lexical Choice in Translation of Children’s Literature
Since children at this age have a limited amount of vocabulary and life experience, the translator should make the language, content and idea intelligible and receivable for these target readers. What matters the most in translating children"s literature is to make it acceptable for children"s readers. Therefore, when translating foreign literature of children, translators have to choose suitable vocabulary which should be consistent with the understanding ability of children.
As is known, all translation theorists believe the closeness in style is very important for translation. Lexical choices and sentence arrangements of literature translation can reflect the degree of readability and interest of the text, to which the translators should pay their attention. In order to give a better interpretation to children, translators should identify the stylistic feature of the source text and then choose appropriate words in target language to express the original meaning and style of the source text.
3.1 The application of informal words
The employment of language should be in line with various situations. And when translating or writing, the translators need to have the choice of vocabulary consistent with various conditions.
In Chinese, there are so many words with semblable meaning, but their degree of formality is different. For example, for the meaning of happiness, 很开心 is certainly an informal expression, however, words like 兴高采烈、喜不自胜are of higher formality. In practice of translating The Wind in the Willows, Yang Jingyuan applied large amount of informal vocabulary which is easy to understand for children.
Many special words such as the suffix “er” are widely used in Chinese. It’s usually used in dialogues or informal situation. What’s more, some literary works also use the suffix “er” because the author needs language with local characteristics. But they hardly appear in elegant written languages. This kind of words is used frequently in Yang’s translation in children’s literature, such as “being young and faint-hearted” into“年纪小、胆儿小”and “today” into “今儿”. When reading, children are used to reading aloud, which can help them not only better integrate into the article and the scene, but also understand the article better. “er” can bring a strong sense of rhythm, and it’s very suitable for children to read with loud voice. What’s more, “er” sounds show affectionate and strong attitude ingeniously.
3.2 The massive use of reduplicated words
Reduplicated words can make the rhythm harmonious and consistent, and can also produce auditory beauty. The use of reduplicated words in the translation makes the beauty of the translated text vividly reflected, which arouses the children"s interest in reading and makes it easy to read (Sang 11). Repetitions well embody rhythm and musicality in word selection. When translating, Yang skillfully uses repetitions.
Example 1:
ST:
“Never in his life has he seen a river before--this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh. All was a-shake and a-shiver--glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble.”
TT:
“这只光光滑滑、蜿蜿蜒蜒、身躯庞大的动物，不停地追逐，轻轻地欢笑。它每抓住什么，就咯咯地笑，把它们扔掉时，又哈哈大笑，转过来又扑向新的玩伴。它浑身颤动，晶光闪闪，沸沸扬扬，吐着旋涡，冒着泡沫，喋喋不休地唠叨个没完。”
This is a typical example for employment of reduplicative words. It describes a river which Mole has never seen before. Graham compares the river as a giant animal that is lively and charming. When translating, Yang uses “光光滑滑” and“蜿蜿蜒蜒” to show the features of this beautiful river. And with “闪闪”“沸沸扬扬”“喋喋”, Yang well present not only how attractive and charming the river is, but also how amazed and excited Mole is when he sees a river for the first time. What’s more, Yang skillfully uses reduplicative onomatopoeia “咯咯” and “哈哈” to translate two different laughter “gurgle” and “laugh”. This vividly shows the distinction between gurgling and laughing. And it vigorously expresses emotions and feelings showed by “gurgle” and “laugh”. Yang chose these words to make the translated text more interesting to children and more rhythmical to read, which reveals her delicate translating skills.
Example2:
ST:
It was a bright morning in the early part of summer; the river had resumed its wonted banks and its accustomed pace, and a hot sun seemed to be pulling everything green and bushy and spiky up out of the earth towards him, as if by strings.
TT:
这是初夏的一个阳光灿烂的早晨。大河两岸已经重现原貌，河水恢复了通常的流速，暖烘烘的太阳，仿佛用无数根细绳，把万物从地下拔起，拽向他自己，使它们变得绿油油、郁葱葱、高耸耸。
This example describes a picture of a sunny and warm day in spring. On this sunny morning, Mole and Rat are busy with repairing, maintaining the boats and preparing for the boating season. The reduplicated words in this text are in forms of ABB. And these words have been learned by children already. Therefore, instead of causing difficulties with reading, these words bring better rhythm to the passage. The reduplicated words used by Yang lively and harmoniously present the beautiful scene and comfortable weather. With these words, it seems that children can be brought into the scene by her vivid descriptions.
3.3 Extensive application of onomatopoeia
As a component of languages in the world, onomatopoeia is a kind of words that simulates the sounds of nature. The sounds are interpreted by children’s ears, brains and the phonological system of children. With onomatopoeia, children readers can get a feeling like being personally on the scene which is displayed more vividly in text. Please read the example for the embodiment of onomatopoeia below.
ST:
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