A Contrastive Study On Teahouse

Although drama translation is a part of literary translation, it has its own properties because of the requirement of performability. Some drama theorists and critics have argued about the strategies of drama translation, such as the two conflicting trends that appeared and developed in drama translation criticism and the five strategies for theatre texts put forward by Susan Bassnett. But just as Susan Bassnett states that there is very little material on the special problems of translating dramatic texts. As to the Chinese drama translation, this is also the case. Spoken drama is an indispensable part of Chinese drama, and it is also a treasure of Chinese national art. Translating Chinese spoken drama is an effective way of transmitting Chinese brilliant culture. There also exist some problems in Chinese spoken drama translation. The thesis reviews different understandings of meaning of different linguists and their classifications of meaning, illustrates the nature of meaning and its importance in translating, and explains Nida's "Translation is translating meaning". Based on the theories of Roman Jakobson and Liu Miqing, the thesis chooses Lao She's Teahouse to do case study and analyses. Teahouse is a milestone in the history of Chinese spoken drama, both in its language characteristics and its great artistic achievements. By case study and analyses, it is found that cultural meaning, figurative meaning, conceptive meaning and style meaning are the key points in translating theatre text, which should be paid enough attention. Moreover, it is found that in the process of translating drama, some kinds of meaning are to be considered whether to be preserved or to be discarded in terms of performability. On such a basis, the thesis tries to give some suggestions, hoping to give some enlightenment to other forms of drama translation.