Drama Narrative And Translation

As a traditional literary genre,the particularity of drama makes it necessary to take its text into comprehensive consideration so as to achieve a complete translation with both literary and expressive forms in the translation process.Taking narratology as a theoretical foundation,this thesis takes O'Neill's Emperor Jones and Beyond the Horizon as the major research materials.Two dominant problems would be explored through this study,one being how the translator applies framing methods to construct the narrative in the target language,the other attempting to find out is there any deficiency during playwright's multiple interpretation.By conducting a case analysis,this thesis will categorize the selected samples into four types,namely,temporal and spatial framing,selective appropriation,labelling and repositioning of participants.These methods were described and reorganized by Mona Baker.This thesis would apply her embedded narrative theory as well.Through a comparative study,it unfolds that some embedded narrative factors are lost in the translation process such as character image,accent,self-identity,religion recognition,mental insanity and so on.These deficient embedded narrative factors can be divided into five aspects in this research thesis,including throwing out the starting event,visible embedded factors,sound embedded factors,accent embedded factors,and intangible embedded factors.The disruption of flash-forward and flashback also result in a disordered narrative layout in the target language.So in order to deliver a complete main story based on the particularity of drama,it is not only important for translators to maintain the faithfulness and fluency in the original script,but also necessary to grasp the application of embedded narrative factors and apply framing methods successfully.After highlighting embedded narrative factors contained in the original play and translation framing methods,this thesis addresses the proper use of these elements in drama translation.It is essential to narrate the main story entirely and deliver the original script completely for being a drama translator.Meanwhile,this thesis also aims at drawing more attention on this discipline and providing a new perspective for further improvement of drama translation.Thus,it is of great importance to integrate the relevant theoretical knowledge of narratology in order to make the drama translation with readability,performability,reflection,and appreciation.