A Comparative Study Of The Two English Versions Of Teahouse

Drama constitutes an important part of the world literature and art and its translation between countries has been going on for many centuries. Yet only limited scholarly attention has been devoted to the translation of drama. The reason mainly lies in the duality of dramatic text: for it can either be viewed as literary works or as an indispensable component of the art form of drama. Dramatic text is the foundation of stage performance, through which its value can be achieved totally. On the contrary, if a dramatic text cannot be performed on the stage, it won't be a successful play. Abundant facts can prove that dramatic text is a particular literary genre, whose particularity primarily lies in its purposes for stage, and secondly for page.The dual characteristics of dramatic text make drama translation distinct from other forms of literary translation. Drama translation should have its own characteristics and criteria. "Teahouse is the great work which stands for the top achievement of Lao She in the art of language. It's already won the universal praise. In the circle of play, Teahouse is unanimously considered as a good play famous for 'One line depicts one role.'"(英若诚, 1999:6) Very conspicuous are the characteristics of the play: rich dialects with Beijing flavor, individualized, terse and humorous language and abundant cultural connotation, all of which makes the play enjoy a high prestige both at home and abroad all these years. It's safe to say that the strength and appeal of the play lies in Lao She's masterful portrayal of the characters and their language with Beijing dialect and the Beijing culture manifested. Yet all these characteristics of the play pose a big challenge to the translators.Based on the analyses of the peculiarities of dramatic literature and the purposes and characteristics of drama translation, this thesis puts forward the idea that drama translation should particularly, besides abiding by the translation criteria for general literary genres, follow functional equivalence proposed by Nida and the standard of performability proposed by Ying Ruocheng and Yu Guangzhong, the great Chinese drama translators. This thesis also makes a comparative study between the two English versions of Teahouse of Ying Ruocheng's and John Howard-Gibbon's. By comparison, it tries to analyze how equivalence is or isn't achieved in the linguistic and cultural characteristics of Teahouse by...