Representation Of Performability In The Translation Of Dramatic Text From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Drama, as an important part of human’s civilization, is both a literary art and a performance art. Because of its dual nature, drama translation and the study on it lags far behind that of other literary genres. But since the rising of Semiotics of theater,more and more attention has been paid to drama’s theatricality. And accordingly,studies on drama translation begin to concern how to represent the performability of dramatic text. This thesis will explore the representation of performability in drama translation from the perspective of Reception Aesthetics(reception theory), a relatively new theory.To begin with, Reception Aesthetics establishes a new reader-centered paradigm,rather than the traditional author-oriented or text-oriented way any more, which corresponds to the view put forward by Prague semioticians: audience in theater plays important roles in producing the meaning of dramatic text. Reception theory treats translation as a dynamic communicative process, which is participated by the factors of literary ontology: author, text and reader. As the privilege reader, translator plays a vital part. Apart from communicating with the author of source text, filling the gaps left by author deliberately, concretizing the meaning of the source text, translator also conducts conversation with implied readers and audience, taking their horizon of expectations into account, so as to make the translated version performable and be accepted by readers and audience.Furthermore, concerning dramatic text, it possesses a series of features, such as instantaneity, brevity, individuality and so on, which inevitably exert influence on the representation of performability. Usually, performability is composed of speakability,actability and acceptability. Therefore, only when translated version with such characteristics can it be called a successful performable version.As to translation strategy, the most influential ones are listed in this thesis. In terms of which one is suitable for drama translation, the thesis maintains that under the premise of intelligibility and appropriate aesthetic distance, literal translation and foreignization are wise choices. Thanks to these two strategies, readers and audiencegroup could enjoy the original aesthetic contents and styles, and with the absorption of new knowledge and experience, the horizon of readers and audience will be broadened. As a result, the goal of cultural communication is realized.In the end of the thesis, the translated version of Eugene O’Neil’s A Moon for the Misbegotten is employed to explore how the translators represent dramatic performability, namely speakability, actability and acceptability. And the thesis finds out that there is some deficiencies in this translated version, so it offers the modified translation, hoping to make the version more performable.