Drama Translation In The Perspective Of Gestalt Aesthetics

Drama translation study has been concentrating on the efforts to achieve linguistic equivalence in spite of its long history. However, owing to the unique duality of literariness and performality involved in drama, the artistic quality constitutes the indispensible element of a drama text. With the stand that drama translation should reserve the original artistic effects to the maximum, the author believes that drama translation is an equivalent transference of not only linguistic elements but aesthetic elements.According to the image-G actualization theory put forward by Jiang Qiuxia, the equivalent transference of aesthetic elements means the representation of aesthetic qualities in the TL text so that a similar or the same aesthetic experience will be enjoyed by TL readers. Moreover, the aesthetic representation can be achieved by means of the image-G actualization. Besides, during the process of the image-G actualization, the translator will gain the aesthetic experience of the feeling, atmosphere or the tone involved in some scene, character or act of the original text as well as the cognitive meanings of the linguistic structure. Such aesthetic experience will work on the mind, forming a schema as the integration of the cognitive meanings and aesthetic experience, which will contribute much to the representation of images and meanings on the whole level rather than the linguistic transference of words or sentences. The only linguistic transference may not only result in the difficulty in the understanding for target readers, but tear up the original whole artistic image into pieces. As a result, the equivalent transference on the aesthetic level is essential for the intact images to be reserved in the target text and the inevitable issue confronted by drama translation research in the future.This paper will tentatively introduce image-G actualization theory to drama translation studies, which will ensure the maximum reservation of images. Based on the definition of gestalt images, this paper first defines the gestalt images in the drama text. Then, by a comparative case study of the two Chinese versions of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman—translated by Ying Ruocheng and Chen Liangting respectively and from the aspect of aesthetics, this paper studies the active influence of the image-G actualization model on the drama translation process and even drama translation study from the linguistic and aesthetic levels. On the linguistic level, the influence on semantic accuracy and integrity will be discussed and on the aesthetic level, the diction and the choice of translation strategies of the translator will be focused on. By this study, the author hopes to attract scholars'attention to the equivalent transference of aesthetic elements, which are the key for drama text to be enjoyed, and further helps to look for the possible means of aesthetic representation in drama translation.