Reproduction Of Literariness And Performability In Drama Translation

Compared with other genres in literature,the translation of drama has been neglected in a long period of time.That is because drama translation has its unique dual nature,namely literariness and performability,which has hindered the further development of translation studies on drama.Scholars have conducted in-depth studies on drama translation at home and abroad,but not a single theory of drama translation is proposed with solid foundation and general applicability.Studies on drama translation have stuck in the long-time discussion.Their opinions are quite polarized.Even on the issue whether performability is taken into consideration in translating drama texts,both sides,represented by Susan Bassnett and Patrice Pavis respectively,cannot reach the agreement.The long-time disagreement between them also impedes further development of translation studies on drama.Skopos theory proposed by Hans J.Vermeer,the core of functionalist approaches to translation,is introduced as the theoretical basis of the research,which marks a move away from linguistic typologies towards a consideration of culture.The theory takes translation as a purposeful activity during which cultural factors should also be taken into consideration.Different translators have different translation purposes even to the same work,which leads to different translation strategies.Therefore,there are great differences between translations.In view of the duality of drama texts,reproducing the literariness and performability of the original work should be taken as the principle when translating drama texts.Emphasizing any one of the features unilaterally may damage the artistic value of the original work.This research conducts a comparative study based on two English versions of Leiyu.One was translated by Yao Xinnong in 1936 and the other was translated by Wang Zuoliang,cooperating with A.C.Barnes.It will be analyzed from the perspective of reproducing literariness and performability of the original text in two translated versions.Literariness includes implicit language,characteristic figures and rhetorical language.Performability comprises speakability,actability and audience reception.Through comparison,the research tries to find out whether the two translations reproduce literariness and performability of the original text and if there exist differences between them and uncover the reason.By the comparative study of the two versions,it is easy to find that there exist obvious differences between them.The reason lies in the different translation strategies.Yao Xinnong's translation is source text oriented and he adopts foreignization as main translation strategy.Wang Zuoliang prefers target text oriented translation strategy and he adopts domestication as his main translation strategy.The reason why they choose different translation strategies is that they have different purposes of translation.Yao Xinnong wants to show the western world Chinese style in drama,and to a greater extent he prefers to preserve the characteristics of the original text.While Wang Zuoliang considers more about reception of the target audience,he wants readers and audience all over the world to enjoy Chinese excellent drama without much difficulty in both reading and listening.Both of the two versions are very good representatives of transmitting the essence of the original text into their translations,and almost fully reproduce the literariness and performability of the original work.In some aspects,Wang's translation does better than Yao's version.But that is not the main thought this study really concerns about.It is crucial to prove that a good translation of drama should be a mix of both literariness and performability.The dual nature of drama can coexist in a well-organized way.