A Comparative Study Of Stage Lines Conveying The Illocutionary Force From The Perspective Of Speech Act Theory

The study of speech act can be traced back to the 1950s. Referring to previous researches, Austin initially proposed the Speech Act theory and classified it into three categories as locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act, among which the illocutionary act remains an issue of research attention. Later, John Searle categorized the illocutionary act into five types, namely the representatives, the directives, the commissives, the expressives and the declarations. As one of the four representative works of classical Chinese drama, Chang Sheng Dian written by Hong Sheng of the Qing Dynasty is chosen as the source of the Chinese data. Among its English versions, the translated version by Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang and the collaborative version by Professor Xu Yuanchong and Xu Ming are the two most outstanding translations and thus are chosen as the source of the English data. The two translated versions shall be hereinafter referred to as Yang’s version and Xu’s version.The present research is trying to conduct a comparative study of stage lines conveying the illocutionary force in the two English versions of Chang Sheng Dian based on Searle’s classification of illocutionary act, which makes an attempt to answer three questions:1. What is the overall distribution of stage lines conveying the illocutionary force in the two translated versions? 2. What are the similarities and differences of stage lines conveying the illocutionary force in the two English versions? 3. What are the reasons leading to such similarities and differences?This study is conducted by a combination of qualitative and quantitative way of research. The first 24 scenes excluding the epilogue in the two English versions of the classical Chinese drama Chang Sheng Dian are taken as the sources of data for detailed analysis. All cases conveying the illocutionary force are identified by examining the two versions sentence by sentence. Based on the cases collected, the overall distribution of stage lines conveying the illocutionary force in the two versions is explored first. The cases are further categorized according to the five types, namely the representatives, the directives, the commissives, the expressives and the declarations. Then the similarities and differences of stage lines conveying the illocutionary force in the two versions are elaborated respectively, and the reasons behind those similarities and differences are also explained. Specific cases are quoted as examples for analysis.The conclusion shows that there exist both similarities and differences in stage lines conveying the illocutionary force in the two English versions. Similarities mainly lie in three types, namely the directives, the commissives and the declarations. The frequencies of the three types are highly consistent with each other in the two versions.The major differences mainly appear in two types:first, in terms of the representatives, the frequency of the type is much higher in Yang’s version than that in Xu’s version. Yang’s version tends to translate the sentences describing various characters and sceneries by overt coherence, which is realized mostly by performative verbs such as "I think", "I believe that", which may result in a larger proportion of representatives in the translation. Second, as for the type of expressives, compared with the type in Yang’s version, there is a higher frequency in Xu’s version, which can probably be explained by the perspective and translation style of the translators, who regard the original as a love story between the Tang emperor and Lady Yang, dedicating to convey the characters’ emotions. Furthermore, the use of the end rhyme pattern in Xu’s version also contributes to the illocutionary force of expressives.It is hoped that through the present research, firstly, readers can get a better understanding and appreciate the unique charm of stage lines conveying the illocutionary force in the classical Chinese drama, which contributes to the cross-cultural transmission of ancient Chinese culture. Furthermore, applying Speech Act theory to a broader field in classical Chinese drama contributes to the development of this theory. Thirdly, it can provide some enlightenment for the assessment of the translation of classical Chinese drama.