Comparative Study Of Two English Versions Of Teahouse From Perspective Of Skopotheorie

In light of Skopostheorie approach, the author makes a comparative study of the two English versions of a Chinese play---Teahouse. Though Teahouse is just a three-act drama, it is all-inclusive and indeed it is a reflection of Chinese culture and history.Drama, being a unique literature genre, has dual identities, both on the page and on the stage. The major features of dramatic dialogue are colloquial, individual, etc. This complex nature of drama presents the translator with a central problem:drama translation should be both reader-oriented and performance-oriented. It is a real challenge to translators to put it into EnglishAccording to Skopostheorie, the prime principle determining any translation process is the purpose (Skopos) of the overall translational action. Skopostheorie evaluates the translation by adequacy to the translation purpose. As long as the translation is adequate to fulfill the purpose, the translator will not be restricted in the choice of the translation methods, but he or she can resort to any method that is considered suitable to achieve the task.After the brief introduction and analysis to the two English versions, a conclusion is drawn at the end of the paper that under their respective translation purposes, the two translators adopt different translation methods:Ying uses free translation and adaptation more, while Howard-Gibbon adopts literal and faithful translation more.