A Report On The C-E Translation Of Turmoil Guided By The Performability Principle

The translation of Chinese drama has not received enough attention as that of novels and poetry for a long time and has its special value.However,drama translation is an indispensable part of literary translation.In order to make a modest contribution to the English translation of Chinese drama,the translator takes the famous playwright Tian Qinxin’s play Turmoil as the project of this translation practice.The play treats the early mental journey of the dramatist Tian Han as a clue,presenting many Chinese early dramas,while Tian Han’s six works,such as Salome and Nostalgia,are used to link various emotional stories.Turmoil not only shows the magnificent development history of Chinese drama,but also intuitively displays Tian Han’s little-known emotional experiences for the readers and audiences.To translate a spoken drama well,performability should be considered.Susan Bassnett,a British translation theorist,declared that only in performance can dramatic text be truly complete;Ying Ruocheng,a famous performing artist and drama translator in China,also argued that translators should give priority to the playability of the selected drama.For this reason,based on C-E translation of Tian Qinxin’s drama-Turmoil,the project aims to explore how to achieve colloquialism,conciseness,actability and individuality to highlight the performable effect.The practice report is divided into five parts: the first chapter introduces the background of the translation task,the real purpose of carrying out the task and the significance of the practice;the second chapter is about the process of translation,including a series of preparatory work done before translating,“obstacles”encountered in the process of translation and post-translation proofreading.The third chapter focuses on Susan Bassnett’s concept of theatrical performability and four important features of Ying Ruocheng’s principle of performability.Aiming at the difficult cases during the process of translation,the author points out how to process the source text through a series of translation strategies and methods-acculturation,literal translation,metaphor translation,adaptation,amplification,omission,compensation and static translation of verbs to ensure that the translation highlights the performable features of the internal structure of the text to the maximum extent.The fifth chapter summarizes the results of this translation practice,including both the experience gained in translation and the limitations of this report.