An Exploration Of Performance-oriented Drama Translation Based On Semiotics Of Theatre And Drama—Taking Zhu Shenghao's Translation Of The Tempest As An Example

Drama is a comprehensive art,integrating numerous elements.It can be both appreciated as a literary text and performed on the stage.This feature of drama brings many challenges to its translation and translation studies about it.Drama translation has always been a heated area of scholars whose discussions about it was hugely enriched since the emergence of semiotics of drama.At the same time,scholars'interest was also raised on the concept of drama translation,drama translation principles,the completeness of translated drama text,etc.It is of no doubt that drama translation is very distinct from the translation of other literary texts,and the modeling of drama figures and final presentation of them on the stage require the efforts and cooperation of drama translator and theatre workers(director,actors,etc.).However,the current drama translation and drama translation studies are far from satisfying,which can be seen by a brief review about the Chinese translation of Shakespeare's works.Each of Shakespeare's dramas has many Chinese translation versions.Taking the translation of Hamlet as an example,translators such as Zhu Shenghao,Bian Zhilin,Sun Dayu.Fu Guangming,Gu Zhengkun all translated it into Chinese.But,all these translations are not fit for performance.Luckily,the theatre success of The Tempest in National Centre for Performing Arts in Aug.2018 shed light on the translation and translation studies of western dramas.And it is of great referential value to the study of performance-oriented translation by making out the relations between drama text and theatrical text.Therefore,this study is of great practical value to investigate fr-om this perspective.Drama semiotics can be originated from structuralism proposed by Prague linguists and literary theorists who attempted to build a structure for studying arts.This approach initially focused on poems and other literary texts and then gradually expanded to philosophy,linguistics,literary,aesthetics.history,anthropology,etc.And it also opened a new approach to study theatre.As the development of drama semiotics,scholars classified dramatic text and theatrical text into 11 semiotic systems,namely systematic,linguistic,generic and intertextual.textual and structural,formal and presentational,epistemic,aesthetic,logical,behavioral and ethical,ideological,psychological and logical,as well as historical systems.This classification makes it clear for understanding the relations between dramatic text and theatrical text,which opens a new approach to study how to help achieve drama's theatrical value through translation.This thesis studies how to make performance-oriented translation from linguistic,logical,psychological and historical aspects by analyzing Zhu Shenghao's translation of The Tenmpest.Zhu Shenghao's translation is known for literariness,but whether it is applicable in theatre performance from the perspective of drama semiotics remains to be explored.Thus,this study adopts textual analysis to illustrate the selected extracts.This thesis finds that Zhu Shenghao's translation of The Te,mpest is not fit for stage performance from linguistic,logical,psychological and historical aspects.In linguistic aspect,Zhu paid more attention on the form of original text and ignored the aesthetic nature of drama language;in logical aspect,Zhu's translation doesn't meet the requirements for clear logic by the immediacy of theatre performance,which may add burden to the understanding of the audiences;Oin psychological aspect,Zhu's translation can't make the psychological state clear to the audience;and in historical aspect,the difference between the source culture and the target culture and that of then Chinese culture and current Chinese culture make Zhu's translation not fit the current stage performances.In addition,during the translation of drama,the above four aspects are closely interrelated,the improper processing of drama linguistic elements will lead to the insufficiency to logical and psychological problems,and historical gap will have an effect on dramatic linguistic,logistic and psychological problems.which also proves the complexity and comprehensiveness of drama from the perspective of drama semiotics.