Translating children’s stories from Chinese to English

Abstract

Translation, according to the German functional approach to Translation Studies, is a purpose-driven interaction that involves many players. Translating children’s stories is no exception. Using her personal experience of translating Mr. Wolf’s Hotline, a book comprising 47 Chinese children’s stories by Wang Yizhen, a contemporary Chinese writer , in light of the Skopos and text-type theories of functional approach in particular, the author has outlined the strategies and methods adopted in her translations in terms of language, structure and culture. With child readers in mind during the translation process, the translator has used rhetorical devices, onomatopoeic words, modal particles, and also changed some of the sentence structures of the stories, such as from indirect sentences into direct quotations, and from declarative sentences into questions. In terms of culture, three aspects, namely, the culture-loaded images, the names of the characters and nursery rhymes are singled out for detailed analyses. Though marginalized, ‘children’s literature is more complex than it seems, even more complex’ (Hunt 2010: 1), and translation of children’s literature is definitely challenging. This paper outlines the strategies and methods the author has adopted in translating some children's stories from Chinese to English.