Features Of Drama Language And Stage-oriented Drama Translation

The action theory claims that any action has a purpose or a series of purposes. As far as drama creation is concerned, most dramatic texts are produced for the stage. Correspondingly, translation of dramatic texts is mostly stage-oriented. In this case, either it is the creation of a drama by the playwright or the rendering of a dramatic text by the translator, the primary purpose is to accomplish success on the stage.In order to realize the purpose of staging the dramatic text, playwrights have to deploy languages in certain ways, which gives rise to certain language features in drama, such as colloquialism, brevity, musicality, characterization, gesture of language, etc. All theses features not only establish drama as an independent genre in literature, but also help reproduce the theatre scripts on the stage.Skopostheorie gives prominence to the function of a text. The translation of drama is targeted at achieving equivalent theatrical effects in the target culture. The characteristics of stage performance not only constrain the playwrights' freedom of employing language, but also unavoidably introduce a new dimension to the translation of drama. Hence, it could be an advisable choice for drama translators to review the features of drama language so that they can make well-informed decisions about the strategies and methods to be adopted in drama translation.In the conviction that features of drama language are able to provide some implications for drama translation, this thesis examines the general features of drama language and matches those techniques with certain translation strategies and methods. Guided by Skopostheorie and with reference to the study of drama language, two English versions of Teahouse are analyzed, in an attempt to find out better ways to realize the theatrical effectiveness of the target text in the target theatrical convention.