Norms In Drama Translation

Drama translation is a field lacking enough researches.Because of the drama’s own particularities,translators not only have to transfer the original meaning, but also need to consider the factors concerning its stage performance.Leiyu, as Cao Yu’s first drama, is an immortal masterpiece and it marks the maturity of Chinese drama. Besides,it is also the most translated one among Cao Yu’s dramas.Among the six English versions of Leiyu,the author picks two representative ones,one is Yao Ke’s version, and the other is Wang Zuoliang and Barnes’s version (Wang Zuoliang’s version for short in the following content).Because Yao Ke’s version is the earliest translation and Wang Zuoliang’s version is the most popular one.The thesis tries to analyze these two English versions of Leiyu from the perspective of Toury’s norms.It mainly analyzes the two translators’respective choices under the influence of the initial norms,preliminary norms and operational norms during the process of translating Leiyu.The thesis consists of six parts.Part One presents the research background. After special features of drama translation studies,it demonstrates the research questions and research background by using a different view. Part Two begins with the introduction of drama translation and norms.Drama is different from the poetry, prose and novel,so is drama translation.By taking a brief review on drama translation theories at home and abroad,it sets the drama translation in a special position. Besides, the theories on norms are also introduced in this chapter.Part Three starts to analyze the two English versions of Leiyu from the view of initial norms.It tells the two translators’backgrounds of translating Leiyu and how they were affected by their historical backgrounds at that time in the process of translation.Part Four goes on analyzing Wang Zuoliang’s Thunderstorm and Yao Ke’s Thunder and Rain from the perspective of preliminary norms.By demonstrating the six versions of Leiyu, it explains the reason why the translators choose different original texts.In Part Five,it discusses Wang Zuoliang’s Thunderstorm and Yao Ke’s Thunder and Rain from the view of operational norms. Then the text analysis will prove how the textual-linguistic norms affect the translators in their translations.Part Six presents the author’s major findings and limitations of the research. In this way, it suggests a new research view in drama translation studies.