A Comparative Analysis On The Two English Versions Of Tea House From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Limited attention has been paid to the research of drama translation, owing to the lack of theory and special problems confronting the translator for the stage. Drama is different from other literary genres in that drama is not only a mere linguistic art but also a performing art. Dramatic text has its own characteristics, such as colloquialism and briefness, which makes it suitable for stage performance. Therefore, the translation of dramatic text should take the performativity of the performer and the acceptability of the audience into consideration.Lao She, one of the best loved Chinese playwrights and a master of language, was famous for his humor and his vivid description of the poor. Tea House, one of his most successful dramas, represents the highest artistic value in drama writing in China. The drama reflects nearly fifty years of historical changes in Chinese society from the late Qing Dynasty to the Pre-liberation Period through the description of the people who frequently go to the Yutai Teahouse. The language in Tea House has its own characteristics. For example, there are many Beijing dialects, short sentences and imperative sentences which can vividly express the writers'implication and.language style.Relevance Theory, proposed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson in 1986 provides a new perspective for translation after the concept of "equivalence", Ernst-August Gutt first applied this theory to translation. According to relevance translation theory, translation is an ostensive-inferential process following the principle of relevance. Playing a double role as audience and communicator, the translator can choose appropriate contextual factors to achieve the optimal relevance. In terms of drama translation, contextual factors are the characteristics of dramatic text as a blueprint for stage performance. If its language meets the requirement, it is easy to perform on the stage and be accepted by the audience thus we achieve the optimal relevance.This thesis, from the perspective of Relevance Theory, through the observational study, will do a comparative analysis on the two English versions of Tea House on the level of diction, sentence structure, cohesion and rhetoric and finally get the conclusion as follows:The language of Ying Ruocheng's version is colloquial, concise and vivid which is suitable for performance on the stage, while Gibbon prefers literal translation, and sentence structure is more complex, thus hard for the actors to perform on the stage.From the perspective of relevance translation theory, Ying Ruocheng's version is better, while in terms of doing some professional research, Gibbon's version is more suitable.