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Key words: drama translation; performability; Teahouse
论戏剧翻译的可表演性原则以《茶馆》两英译本为例
1.Introduction
1.1 Research Background
As a significant component of literary translation, drama translation is special, which makes this task different from the translation of poems, essays and novels. Susan Bassnett, a famous British translation theorist, is excellent in presenting ideas in drama translation. She stated that drama translation is like “Ways through the Labyrinth”. (Bassnett 1985) Drama is of dual characteristics: one is performability, the other is readability. (李晓红 2009:79) Because of the complexity of drama, its translation is neglected and characterized by a serious lack of theory. Through literature search, we find that translation studies involving poetry and fiction can be easily found in the library, but studies related to drama translation are few.
Study of drama translation started thirty years ago in the West. There are many studies on drama translation, such as the theories of drama translation, its language characteristics, cultural factors, translation strategies and so on. Many Western scholars have made great contributions to the principles and methods of drama translation. In China, there is not much discussion on drama translation. Nowadays, Chinese-English drama is still small in quantity.
China's increasing cultural flourishing is reflected not only in development of the traditional arts, but also in its exportation. As an important part of the Chinese culture, dramas are of great significance in this culture export. In the new international situation, drama translation is becoming important.
1.2 Objectives of the Study
Extensive reading of related fundamental studies and research workindicates that more and more scholars have paid attention to drama translation. However, there are still rather few articles that suggest that perfomability should be taken into consideration in drama translation for a better analysis of the translation of dramatic texts. One view is that drama translation should be from the angle of pure literature. This kind of drama text can be translated under the guidance of traditional translation theories. Its sentences tend to be the style of general literary works, suitable for the readers. In another view, drama translation should follow the principle of performability. The creation of the drama is service for the audience, and translators should pay more attention to the stage effect of the drama. The important characteristic of performability requires that drama translation should be easy to understand as soon as the audiences hear it. At this point, the wording in translation should be more in line with the performance.
Teahouse is one of the famous dramas by Lao She. The drama is set in a typical old Beijing tea house and follows the lives of the owner and his customers through three stages in modern Chinese history. As one of the most popular dramas in Chinese, Teahouse is distinguished not only for its significant content, but also for its linguistic style. Teahouse has been translated into over 20 languages, of which the versions by Ying Ruocheng and John Howard have their own features in terms of art, and Ying Ruocheng’s version on foreign stages has achieved great success.
Now, many studies from different perspectives have been conducted on Teahouse, but its English versions on performability has aroused little attention. Its culture, aesthetics and rhetoric have been studied in few articles. Therefore, the two English versions of Teahouse are used as a case study in the paper. Ying Ruocheng’s versions on foreign stage is more popular because it’s feasible to realize stage performability in drama translation.
1.3 Organization of the Paper
This paper consists of four parts aside from the Introduction to Conclusion. Part one gives a literature review on an analysis of the studies on performability. In this section, a general explanation of drama and drama translation will be presented. Susan Bassnett’s and some other’s views on performability constitute the body of theory analysis. Part two is an introduction of Teahouse and its two English versions. Part three focuses on the performability in Teahouse. Following the performability principle, the appreciation of the two English versions of Teahouse will be done by comparison. In this section, the reasons why Ying Ruocheng's version is more suitable for stage performance are given. This thesis tries to establish performability as a important principle of drama translation and exploring its instructional role in drama drama translation. Part is a brief summary of the study: the achievement and suggestions for future study.