No abstract

Translating narrative space is a necessity due to its fundamental role in children’s literature. To date, studies have shown that efforts to examine the strategy in rendering the space issues in children’s literature translation remain scarce. Responding to that, the paper aims to explore how narrative space is transferred from one language to another. The theoretical framework is based on Ryan et al.’s model of narrative space and Baker’s framing strategies. A qualitative approach is designed to study the renowned Chinese children’s literature Bronze and Sunflower and its English version. A total of 146 examples are purposively selected as the samples. The findings show that selective appropriation is the most frequently used framing strategy. Also, it is observed that the translator prefers to omit some repeated settings and descriptions of spatial frames even though the source text elaborates them, consequently softening the sense of space in the target context. The findings may provide new insights into a better understanding of spatial issues in the translation of children’s literature.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the translation strategies adopted by the translator in translating the Chinese novel Big Breast and Wide Hips into English, as well as the factors influencing the translator’s choice of translation strategies, by using the descriptive research method and culture-specific items (hereafter referred to as CSI). Eight translation strategies are examined in the data analysis: 1) substitution; 2) transliteration; 3) free translation; 4) literal translation; 5) omission; 6) literal translation plus amplified translation; 7) literal translation plus explanation; 8) free translation plus substitution. The findings of the study show that the type of CSI influences the choice of translation strategy. Furthermore, the results suggest that translation strategies should not be developed on the basis of subjective assumptions or hasty generalisations about the expectation of the audience. Rather, they should be based on the specific situation of the culture-specific items.