Skopos Theory And Drama Translation

As one of Oscar Wilde's prestigious plays, Lady Windermere's Fan has been translated many times in China since the early twentieth century. However, the translation of this play is given very little attention in China's translation studies. The author of this thesis tries to discuss the translation strategies applied in performance-oriented drama translation as well as the translation of such specific respects, as repetition, rhythm, colloquialism, cultural system, parallelism in play texts, as a result of the adoption of different translation strategies, based on the Skopos theory and a contrastive study of its earliest version translated by Shen Xingren from 1918 to 1919 and the latest one translated by Yu Guangzhong in 1992.Different from other literary genres, drama is characterized by its duality. It can be either considered just as a literary text to be read, i.e. a closet play or performance-oriented to be watched, which involves far more complicated theatrical factors. Therefore, every drama translator is confronted with a dilemma before he begins his translation: whether to translate a play for the reader or for the audience.Since the purposes of the two translators in translation of the play differs dramatically, with Shen Xingren for personal fun only and Yu Guangzhong for performance, the translation strategies adopted are differentiated, with Shen Xingren mainly adopting the literal strategy and Yu Guangzhong the free strategy. Hence the difference of the translation of some specific respects in the two translated versions. Specifically, with the free translation strategy, Yu Guangzhong's version is more successful for staging, with clear, concise language forceful with rhythm and crispness and by paying attention to performability. In other words, it is more colloquial. Short sentences and concrete words are used and westernized language is prevented.Yu Guangzhong's translation strategies are justified by the different...