On The English Translation Of Cultural Elements In Chinese Drama

Drama translation is an important branch of literary translation. However, ithas been given the slightest concern because of its peculiar characteristics. Based onNida's functional equivalence, this thesis explores the translation of cultural elements inChinese drama through a comparative study of the two English versions of Lao She'sCha Guan.This thesis consists of five chapters.The first chapter is a general introduction of the whole thesis.The second chapter gives an overall survey of drama and drama translation. Drama,differing from "play" and "theatre", is a term generally used to refer to a literary forminvolving parts written for actors to perform. Chinese drama that originates fromwestern drama has already formed its own features and become a treasure of Chinesenational art. However, the study of drama translation is a comparatively less exploredarea. The reason mainly lies on its dual nature: a play text that can be either read orperformed. Since the full potential of the text cannot be realized unless it is put intoperformance, the author merely concentrates on the dramatic text for stage performing.In this case, the audience's important role should be taken into account.In the third chapter, Nida's functional equivalence is offered as the translationtheory to illustrate issues on drama translation. Because this thesis is a study of thetranslation of cultural elements, so the relationship between language, culture andtranslation is firstly discussed. And then the author mainly focuses on the essence offunctional equivalence. According to this theory, the receptor of the translated textshould experience the same understanding and appreciation as the receptor of the sourcetext does and thus the reader's response becomes an important standard for judging thevalidity of the translation. In order to fulfill such requirement, certain adjustments are probably needed, thus Nida's six principles of producing functional equivalence areoffered in the end of this chapter.The forth chapter, the main body of the thesis, presents a detailed comparativestudy of the two English versions of Lao She's Cha Guan. Firstly, culture-loadedexpressions are chosen to be discussed in four aspects: words about material life, wordswith particular historical background, words originating from religions and idioms.Secondly, considering the Beijing flavor of Cha Guan, the author mainly compares thetranslations of Beijing dialects, including addressing terms, greeting words in the twoversions.In the fifth chapter, conclusions are drawn. The comparative analyses providespecific and practical proofs of the applicability of functional equivalence in translatingcultural elements in drama.