A Study Of Adaptation In Drama Translation

As society progresses, the current era witnesses the prosperity of human civilization both in material and entertainment worlds. Meantime, human people also continue to beautify their spiritual domain. Drama, as an elegant art with a long history, becomes more and more accessible to ordinary people. Subjected to performance requirements, drama is different from other literary styles, poetry, prose and fictions included. Its duality makes drama translation alien from translations of other literary styles. Undoubtedly, drama translation is a challenging task for translators to keep the literary beauty and performability. Besides, translators have to bear drama culture and aesthetic outlook, sometimes, even social settings, historical origin, economical model, physical environment and faith etc. etc. in mind. Therefore, it is of vital significance to apply adaptation theory proposed by Verschueren(维索尔伦)into drama translation.Verschuren's adaptation theory provides a theoretical basis for the study of drama translation in this paper, and translations of The Importance of Being Earnest are specific examples to prove that adaptation theory plays an important role in drama translation. Thus, it reveals drama translation is a process of choice-making and adaptation-making. This paper focuses on comparative analysis of different translations of The Importance of Being Earnest, but Yu Guangzhong's version is the core. The author proceeds to elaborate translations of The Importance of Being Earnest from four aspects ( contextual adaptation, structural adaptation, dynamics of adaptation and salience) of adaptation theory based on three properties of language: variability, negotiability and adaptability. Beginning with contextual adaptation, by way of structural adaptation and dynamics of adaptation, ending with salience of adaptation in translations of the play, the author draws a conclusion in view of comparisons and differences of several versions. That is, in drama translation, translators should not only accomplish the complexity of linguistic barriers but also different social conventions. Thus, drama translation gets involved with a compounding system that translators or scholars should concern original meaning as well as its performability and speakability. This paper aims to verify that adaptation is of great use and help in drama translation and provides a framework of reference for future study on drama translation.