A Functional Approach To Performance-Oriented Drama Translation

Despite George Bernard Shaw's reputation as a renowned dramatist in the 20th century, not many researches have been done on the translation or reception of his plays in China. This thesis gives a general introduction to the translation of Shavian plays and their production in the Chinese theatre, with Major Barbara and Mrs. Warren's Profession being analyzed in detail.Drama, being a unique literature genre, has dual identities, both on the page and on the stage. It imposes difficulties for drama translators, whether to reproduce the play as a text in the target literary system or as one in the target theatrical system. This thesis combines Functionalist translation studies with drama translation theories, and proposes some guidelines that might be useful for performance-oriented drama translation. To guarantee a performable target playtext, the translator should, on the one hand, does his utmost to reproduce the action of dramatic language, by using colloquial, terse and forceful language, rendering politeness in the dialogues, translating gesture of language with verbs rich in sound, and appropriately handling the delivery rhythm of the lines. On the other hand, he has to meet the requirements of social, cultural and literary systems in the target language for translation, and more importantly, choose to either preserve the source culture or adapt to the target one according to the gap of differences between the two theatrical conventions. It further rectifies these principles through a contrastive study of the two translated versions of Major Barbara by Lin Haozhuang and Ying Ruocheng respectively, and a comparative study of the different reception of Major Barbara and Mrs. Warren's Profession in the Chinese theatre.