接受美学视角下《小王子》的翻译分析_英语论文

An Analysis of Translations of The Little Prince from the Perspective of the Reception Aesthetics

摘要

儿童文学，顾名思义是指为少年儿童创作的文学作品。很少有一部儿童文学名著有如《小王子》那般被多次翻译。《小王子》以童话的故事结构，简洁天真的语言，阐释了被喧嚣的生活所掩盖的人生哲理。这样一部伟大的作品值得我们永远认真解读，因为它向人们指引了一条心灵回归的道路。接受美学倡导“以读者为中心”，为儿童文学翻译研究提供了新视角。它强调读者的地位，期待视野以及文本的不确定性。

本文主要从儿童文学的特点入手讨论，以接受美学理论为研究视角，选取儿童文学《小王子》两个代表的中译本，对其进行比较分析。通过从音系学、词汇学、句法学和修辞层面的分析，证明了接受美学理论应用于儿童文学翻译研究上的可行性，并且提出了一些翻译建议。即译者应当翻译口语化，选用简单句式结构，使用生动的表达方式。

接受美学理论可以指导译者对拟声词、感叹词、文化词、修辞手法、生动的表述以及简单句式加以关注。因而他们要牢记“儿童中心”和儿童的期待视野。本文研究结果期望能引发更多对这领域的关注，促进和完善儿童文学翻译的研究，为儿童译出更多高质量的作品。

关键词：《小王子》；接受美学；儿童文学；儿童文学特点

Abstract

Children’s Literature, as its’ literal meaning shows, is mainly written for children and read by children. Few children’s classics can match the charm of The Little Prince as it has many translation versions. As a children’s literature, it uses plain and innocent language with fairy tale type of structure. Though a children’s book, The Little prince makes several profound and idealistic observations about life and human nature which are covered by the hustle of life. It’s a great work worthy of perpetual and careful reading as it shows people the way back to their hearts. Reception Aesthetics can provide a new perspective as the core notion, for it is reader-centered. It emphasizes on reader’s role, horizon of expectations and indeterminacy and vacancy of the text.

This paper is going to analyze two translations of The Little Prince according to the features of children’s literature from the perspective of the Reception Aesthetics. Through the analysis from phonology, lexicology, syntax and rhetoric, the application of Reception Aesthetics is proved and some suggestive methods are raised. Translators should translate in colloquial ways, choose simple sentence patterns and use vivid expressions.

Reception Aesthetics can guide translators to pay more attention to onomatopoeia, interjections, colloquial expressions, cultural words, figures of speech and simple sentences. Thus they should keep “child-centered” in mind and take children’s “horizon of expectations” into consideration. It is hoped that this paper could attract more attention to this field and promote the study of EC translation of children’s literature in order to translate more high-qualify works for children.

Key words: The Little Prince; Reception Aesthetics; children’s literature; the features of children’s literature