Drama Translation From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

In the past decades, the study of translation has developed greatly and relevant theories are formed while the study of drama translation is limited. The reason for this phenomenon is the distinctive feature of drama itself. The version of drama is not just for reading but for the performance on the stage as well.Drama is a very important part of the world literature. The traditional Chinese opera is an art for the stage, which can also be classified to "drama" in a broad sense. Chang Sheng Dian is a masterpiece in the history of traditional Chinese drama. It has attracted the public's attention from its appearance for the superb artistic achievement and gains highly praise from the readers and audience. The version of Xu Yuanchong also helps the target readers and audiences experience the beauty and artistic achievement of the source text, which are both suitable for performance.Reception Aesthetics establish the central position of readers in literature criticism. It turns the emphasis of literature study from authors, texts to the readers. The realization of the literature works lies in the process of readers'reading and comprehension. Similarly, the translation of drama also aims at the immediate effect on the stage and audiences'reception. The author tries to introduce the theory of reception into the process of drama translation and do the case study of Xu Yuanchong's version of Chang Sheng Dian from two perspectives in order to discuss the approaches and strategies applied in drama translation.The thesis can be divided into six chapters. In chapter one, introduction, it introduces the general information about the research aim, research background, research significance, and the thesis outline. The following five chapters will be the detailed and systematic study of the Xu's version of Chang Sheng Dian based on the theory of reception.In chapter two, literature review, it gives a general introduction of the translation study based on Reception Aesthetics in the west and China. Chapter three provides theoretical frame for the case study of chapter four. In this chapter it firstly introduces the origin of Reception Aesthetics, and then gives a description of four key notions, horizon of expectation, fusion of horizon, indeterminacy and aesthetic distance. In Chapter four the author tries to fuse the above notions into drama translation to form the theoretical basis and methodology. Chapter five is the case study from the perspective of Reception Aesthetics. Xu's version is mainly studied in terms of fusion of horizons and indeterminacy.Chapter six is the conclusion. The author tries to get some conclusions about the approaches and strategies of drama translation.To sum up, this thesis applies Reception Aesthetics to the studies of drama translation in terms of fusion of horizons and indeterminacy. Apart from introducing a new perspective into drama translation studies, a more significant purpose of the thesis is to propose some constructive strategies and methodologies for translators in general to follow.