Drama Translation

Drama is a special literature style, which absorbs the elements of novels, poems and arguments. Such kind of artistic type is really popular among the masses all over the world. Drama translation is always considered as a hot potato, in that there are two lives co-existing in drama. One comes from the literature system, while the other from the drama system, as a result, we are always confused by the duality. What's more, drama has two highlighted features --- performability and culture-loadedness ask for a higher -level translation. For a long run, many a theories have been put forward while few of them can be proved to be the appropriate criterion for drama translation. Meanwhile, a comprehensive critic system for drama translation, which will be applied to compare and perfect the translation to help meeting the need of the value subjective (such as the readers) is still absent by now .In the view of the above, this thesis starts from the Skopos theory that adequacy is emphasized as the translation criterion to analyze the representative translation work in the history of Chinese dramas ---- the English version of thunderstorm (Wang Zuoliang & WillisBarnstone, 1958 ) in the way of description, so that the Skopos theory for drama translation can be proved. As early as in 1971, Katharina Reiss proposed a new mode for criticism of translation whether the translation action meets the special purposes of translation. According to this paper, we will conclude that thunderstorm by W & B is a successful translation work generally, while with the development of the times and the constant change of value subject's consciousness and level , new and higher requests appear which implies no perfection for translation.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one includes three parts: I first introduce the traditional translation idea of equivalence with some application in china and the west and point out its defects and relativity, so make it clear that new idea of translation---adequacy breaks through the old and more suitable for translation in practice, that is the motivation and the problems for the study, then mention the aim and the methods for the study, last draw the organization of the thesis. Chapter two introduces the concept of the Skopos theory and look back on its process of development and main rules. Chapter three introduces the features of drama and the difficulties in translation because of the duality, then point out the process of translating Thunderstorm. Chapter four analyzes the English version of thunderstorm to check how the rules of Skopos theory decide the translation strategies applied by translators. Chapter five concludes the guiding role of the Skopos theory for drama translation and put forward a new criticism system of translation based on"the rule of Skopos"is urgently needed .