A Study Of Ying Ruocheng’s Drama Translation Selection And Strategies

This thesis studies the characteristics of Ying Ruocheng’s drama translation aswell as the habitus which has influenced his translation. The texts selected are theeight plays translated and performed in the New Age, and were published in ""ASeries of Famous Plays Translated by Ying Ruocheng"("英若诚名剧译丛") in1999.Ying Ruocheng’s drama translation will be discussed from two aspects, selectionand strategies. The eight plays Ying has translated and staged are all welcomed byboth readers and audience, which is relevant to his selection. After a study of relativematerials and the plays, it can be found that Ying’s drama translation selection ischaracterized by distinctive features, such as high artistic values, cultural information,profound thoughts, diversified choices and practical functions, and stageperformability is also one of Ying’s concerns in selection. The versions translated byYing are different from those by other drama translators for being both classical forliterary reading and ready for stage performance. His strategy for drama’s sake is torepresent the characteristics of drama in the translation, such as actability,colloquialism, brevity, individuality, poetry and rhetorical devices, and to recreatetheatricality and literariness in drama. The recreation of both theatricality andliterariness in Ying’s drama translation has dismissed the long-existing binaryopposition between the two and achieved their unity. Ying’s translation of dramamanifests his understanding of drama, which is quite different from other dramatranslators. Ying’s strategy for cultural information in the plays is acculturation, that is,he manipulates the cultural information according to the acceptability of the receiversin the target culture. Apart from this, adaptation in general can be found in his plays,which is out of his aesthetics or cultural awareness.After a study of Ying Ruocheng’s drama translation selection and strategies, thethesis will go one step further to apply French Sociologist Bourdieu’s habitus theoryto analyze the reasons behind his uniqueness in drama translation. Ying’s forming ofhabitus will be discussed from several aspects such as family and school education, social experiences and connections, and links with drama based on his autobiographyVoices Carry, which explains the reasons behind Ying’s drama translation selection aswell as strategies. The study of Ying Ruocheng can also serve as a case study forfuture translator study under habitus theory.