A Study Of Drama Translation Based On Theatre Semiotics

In translation studies, literary translation, which is worth of studying, has achievedgreatly. However, the study of drama translation, as a special field of literary translation, isrelatively behind. It seems that translation researchers always analyze drama translationfrom literary view, few from features of drama itself and drama performance. Compared toother literary translation, drama translation is rather complicated, so researchers seldomstudy it. First, drama translation does not only keep the literariness of drama but alsotheatricality. Second, besides linguistic transference between two languages, dramatranslation should consider stagecraft, audio-visual feature, orality, and action of thetranslation language, and acceptability of audiences. Namely, because of peculiarity ofdrama itself, what problem drama translators had had to face is different from othertranslations. Thus, drama translation refers to the transformation from original text to targettext, and non-verbal elements should be considered.Based on the researches of the theories of drama translation, the thesis explores andanalyses the translated version of drama from verbal signs and non-verbal signs under theguidance of theatre semiotics. First, the thesis summarizes the key theories of theatresemiotics, explores features and research status, and introduces the application of theatresemiotics and drama translation. Then it analyses drama translation from the perspective oftheatre semiotics. And drama verbal signs include lines and stage direction of drama;drama non-verbal signs include acceptability of audiences, spatio-temporal limitation ofdrama and paralinguistic signs. The thesis discusses the application of verbal signs andnon-verbal signs though a lot of example. Meanwhile, the author points out sometranslation methods and strategies which should be noticed in the process of translation.Finally, it analyses the relationships between non-verbal signs and drama translation, andthe influences of drama non-verbal signs. Finally, the thesis summarizes implications oftheatre semiotics for drama translation, the author believes that the application of theatresemiotics provide drama translation with a new direction and page.