On The Dialogicality In Drama Translation: A Comparative Study On Three Chinese Versions Of Death Of A Salesman

Drama translation has gained more and more attention, but it seems that all of them put too much emphasis on the receptors (audience/readers), be it choosing translation strategy from Skopos theory, dynamic performance principle, performability, or audience-centered principle. In fact, the nub of drama translation does not lie in whether we should focus on the principle of 'performability'or not. It should be treated in a more holistic sense rather than receptors only. By observing the simultaneously interactive relations of all the dialogical participants involved in drama translation activity, this thesis tries to find a new perspective to examine drama translation.This thesis mainly elaborates the inspirations drawn from the theory of dialogism toward drama translation and analyzes why there exists dialogicality among the dialogical participants of drama translation activity. It further verifies the demonstration of dialogicality in the three Chinese versions of the drama Death of a Salesman as well as its influence on its translation. Dialogicality is a special form of interaction among the autonomous and equally signifying consciousness. The application of Bakhtin's dialogicality in translation argues that translation is a great cultural dialogue between the SL (source language) culture and TL (target language) culture by nature from the macro perspective. From the micro perspective, the translated text is produced as a result of multi-dialogical interactions concerning all the translating issues among the original writer, the translator and the reader based on both the original and translated texts. In drama translation activity, the dialogical participants are expanded more to the playwright, translator, practitioners and audience/reader. By conducting a case study on the three Chinese versions of the drama Death of a Salesman, this thesis validates the dialogues between the translator respectively and the playwright, the reader/audience, the practitioners. The former two are demonstrated at linguistic and cultural levels while the latter one from the translation of stage directions. Some typical examples of both dramatic dialogues and stage directions are chosen for the case study. Through analyzing the different translation strategies the translators applied as well as the factors they considered while communicating with their dialogical counterparts, the dialogicality in drama translation is delicately presented.Through a comparative study on the three Chinese versions, combining with theoretical analysis, here arrive the following conclusions:1) Drama translation is a multi-part dialogue within which the playwright, translator, practitioners and reader/audience simultaneously interact equally and differently.2) Among all the participants in drama translation activity, there are dialogical interactions that suggest the existence of the dialogicality. The dialogicality among all the participants in drama translation activity should be considered as a holistic part of the totality of the translated drama text.3) When the dialogical participants vary, the translation strategy applied by the translator is changed and the translation of the same original playtext is translated differently, even in the same target language, thus the dialogicality between any two of them differs correspondingly.