Translating space from Chinese to English: A Case Study of Cao Wenxuan’s Bronze and Sunflower

Abstract

Translated children’s works from English to Chinese have flooded China unprecedentedly since the end of the 19PthP century. However, there is a discrepancy in the translation of Chinese children’s works into the English language. This is maybe because western scholars are still largely ignoring Asian texts for young readers. Therefore, the research aims to fill the gap in the scholarship by studying the translated Bronze and Sunflower, which is a renowned work written by the Chinese first Hans Christian Anderson winner Cao Wenxuan, from the aspect of narrative space. A qualitative approach is adopted to compare the similarities and differences of narrative space between the source text and the target text. The samples will be taken from Cao Wenxuan’s Bronze and Sunflower and its English translation. The textual analysis is illuminated through the narratological framework, which is based on three-layered space: The topographic level, the chronotopic level and the textual level. The study explores how narrative space is constructed in the process of translating Bronze and Sunflower. It is hoped that the findings of the study will show how space is created in a different languagea, and that the translator prefers to change the narrative space rather than keeping the same spatial structure in the target text.