On The Principles Of Performability And Drama Translation

It is well known that drama is different from other literary genres in that drama is more of a performing art than a mere linguistic art. There is no universally applicable translation theory that is proper for all types of text. Consequently, in translating drama which has its own uniqueness, a translator should adopt translation theories and principles that are the most relevant.When it comes to literary translation, drama has been the most neglected area among the major types of literature. Bulk of genre-focused translation study books involving the problems of poetry and fiction translation can be easily found while materials related to drama translation are scare. The ultimate goal of the drama translation is for the stage performance. But unfortunately, as a branch of literary translation, the performability of translated dramatic texts has remained on the margins of Translation Studies for a conspicuously long period. In the 1980s, Susan Bassnett put forward the concept of performability, which provides a brand new view to the research of drama translation.Many scholars have attempted to combine the Skopos theory with the translation of certain drama text to illustrate the translation strategies applied in performance-oriented drama translation. In their views, translation purpose has decisive influence on translation strategies. However, this thesis argues that thanks to the subjectivity of purposes and the ignorance of performability, translation strategies based on the Skopos theory is not valid enough to give guidance to the drama translation practices and perfomability should be taken into consideration in drama translation for a better analysis of the translation of dramatic texts.Teahouse, as one of the most famous plays in Chinese literary field, is distinguished not only for its significant content, but also for its unique linguistic style. It also gained international reputation when it was invited to make performance abroad. This thesis examines the application of performability as shown in the two versions of Teahouse translated by Ying Ruocheng and Howard-Gibbon respectively.This thesis involves three chapters aside from the Introduction and Conclusion. Chapter One gives a literature review on an analysis of the two English versions of Teahouse based on the Skopos theory, pointing out that the different translation strategies are influenced by different translation purpose from the perspective of the Skopos theory. Chapter Two tries to focus on the performability of dramatic texts and the importance of it in drama and drama translation. Chapter Three is a case study, and argues that the combination of Skopos theory and performability can result in better validity for the different choices of translation strategies.