Comparative Study Of The Two Chinese Versions Of Death Of A Salesman From Perspective Of Skopos Theory

As a special art form with dual nature, drama can not only bring audiences lively audio-visual enjoyment on stage, but also can be read by readers as a literary work, just like fiction and poetry. However, for years, drama translation has not gained enough scholarly attention. Monographs and theses on drama translation are also limited both at home and abroad. Due to the dual nature of drama, translators are faced with a dilemma: whether to emphasize the literariness of drama, or to ensure its performability. In addition, how to evaluate a translated drama is anther thorny problem.In the west, the study of drama translation started almost thirty years ago. However, one question remains unsolved: which to conform to in drama translation,"readability"or"performability"? Sussan Bassnett, a well-known British translation theorist, is noteworthy in presenting ideas in this field. After the mid-1980s, she put forward"readability"as the evaluating criterion---just opposite to"performability"she had earlier introduced in 1970s. In order to make these two extremes meet, this thesis, from the Functionalist perspective, based on the Skopos Theory, compares and analyzes the two Chinese versions of Death of a Salesman, one is translated by Ying Ruocheng, the other by Chen Liangting.Skopos Theory, developed from German Functionalist Approaches, holds that translation is a purposeful intercultural action and the reproduction of any translation is conditioned by many factors and regards translation purpose as the most important factor determining the translational action. It provides a new perspective for solving the dilemma of drama translation. Besides, by advancing"equivalence"with"adequacy"as the criterion for translation evaluation, Skopos Theory offers valuable insights to evaluate translation properly.By adopting a qualitative approach, through exemplification, listing and comparison, the thesis presents a comparative analysis on the two Chinese versions of the world classic drama Death of a Salesman from perspective of Skopos Theory. In this thesis, drama is explained and the features of drama are introduced. A review of the study of drama translation is also presented, followed by a theoretical review of the core theory---Skopos Theory, which is to provide the basis of analysis in the latter part of the thesis. At the same time, this thesis introduces briefly the source text of Death of a Salesman and the two translators. After detailed purely linguistic perspective and cultural perspective comparison and analysis, the thesis finally proves that the hypothesis put forward is true. That is, under their respective translation purposes, the two translators adopt different translation strategies: Ying Ruocheng uses free translation and adaption more, while Chen Liangting adopts literal and faithful translation more.