Achieving stylistic equivalence through explicitation in translation: a comparative analysis of three Chinese versions of The Happy Prince

• Main Author: Yan, Renjing
• Other Authors: -
• Format: Thesis-Master by Coursework
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Humanities::Language
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/168411
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This dissertation discusses the translation of children’s literature, which shares similarities with other literary genres while keeping its distinct qualities. Expilicitation, a translation strategy, provides new insights into stylistic equivalence in translating children’s literature. In this work, a child-oriented approach and qualitative analysis have been adopted to discuss the application of explicitation in three Chinese translations of the well-known children's book The Happy Prince and its effect on the stylistic equivalence of the translations. The strategy of explicitation is applied in two dimensions: mind style in Leech & Short’s term(Leech & Short, 2007) and emotional style. Mind style equivalence involves reproducing the author’s and characters’ intentions through the strategy of explicitation, while emotional style equivalence combines explicitation strategy with specific contexts to achieve emotional equivalence between the translated (TT) and the original text (ST). Both of the applications can improve readability and acceptability of the TT for children, as well as promoting the overall translation quality.