Translating for the Child: Seven Chinese Editions of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol

• Main Authors: Chang, Ling-Chien, 張齡謙
• Other Authors: Ku, Chia-Yen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/8grhwv

碩士 === 輔仁大學 === 跨文化研究所翻譯學碩士班 === 103 === This thesis observes how a classic English novel has transformed after it traveled across historical, cultural, linguistic, and age boundaries and became children’s texts. The case to be studied is Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843), and in this research, seven translated children’s editions of this novel published from 1970s to 1990s in Taiwan are discussed. My study draws upon Itamar Even-Zohar’s Polysystem Theory to examine each translation in terms of its textual and paratextual realization. The seven translated texts are divided into three time period groups to facilitate the discussion: (1) 1970-1986, (2) 1987-1990, and (3) 1990 to present. My research reveals that translations are not only very likely influenced by moral, poetic, and cultural norms of the time they belong to but also conditioned by the material and ideological restrictions of their time. This study concludes that literary translation is dynamic; they are closely related to the literary models, genres, and ideology of the target culture of a certain time.