A Functional Approach To The Translation Of Traditional Chinese Drama

The translation of traditional Chinese drama and its overseas dissemination have remained a problematic and puzzling area. This thesis, based on the German functionalism, aims to find a feasible and effective approach to the said translation and dissemination, with special reference to The Peony Pavilion.Firstly, through a general overview of the theoretical polarization between readability and performability in drama translation and by drawing on Snell-Hornby's concept, the Author of the thesis argues that the dichotomy of readability and performability should be replaced by the concept of a fluid spectrum (Snell-Hornby).Secondly, given the fact that traditional Chinese drama is both hard to perform and difficult to accept in the target culture, the Author proposes a multi-level translation strategy based on the functionalism, namely, domestication for private reading, foreignization for scholarly study, and the alternate use of domestication and foreignization for subtitling(/surtitling) that should take temporal and spatial restrictions into consideration.Thirdly, to justify her hypothesis, the Author carries out a comparative study of three English versions of The Peony Pavilion rendered by Wang Rongpei, Cyril Birch, and Xu Yuanzhong and Xu Ming respectively in the way in which the poetic function and other sub-functions of the expressive text are represented in the said English versions, and points out the differences and their causes in terms of translation strategy and the object of "loyalty" by making a comparative study.Finally, the thesis reaches the conclusion:functionalism can not only work for the translation of traditional Chinese drama but also diversify the translation strategies and help promote the overseas dissemination of traditional Chinese drama.