Manipulation In Translating Modern Chinese Drama:A Case Study Of Song Of Yellow Earth

The Manipulation School holds that all translation activities involve a certain amount of manipulation to achieve desired effects.Despite their maturity,the theory or theoretical approaches of the school have not been applied to translation practice in various fields,such as modern drama translation.As an important medium for spreading culture that has long been ignored,however,modern Chinese drama is yet to be translated in great number and its translation research from the perspective of manipulation to be followed up.Taking the script of the stage play Song of Yellow Earth for translation and its translation as a research object,this thesis consisting of translation and practice-based research aims to study the script translation from the perspectives of“manipulation as improvement" and "manipulation as distortion" coupled with the corresponding translation strategies adopted.The results show that "explicitation" is the strategy most frequently applied to translating the script,which is followed by the strategies of substitution,omission,addition,and attenuation,each serving both a target culture-oriented purpose and contributing to the "speakability" and "performability" as two principles for drama translation.