A Comparative Study Of Two English Versions Of Teahouse

Lao She is a famous writer in the history of modern Chinese literature.Teahouse is called the peak of Lao She’s drama creation.After translation,the Teahouse has been widely praised by the oriental stage and widely praised by foreign audiences as "the miracle on the oriental stage".However,in Lao She’s wonderful drama,the time line span is huge,the characters are numerous and very rich in personality.It is a challenge for translators.In order to translate this text well,the translator should not only make a comprehensive and concrete understanding of the Chinese history at that time,but also grasp the expression habits of Beijing dialect,and analyze the numerous characters in the play,and grasp the characteristics.Only in this way can translators translate good works.Nevertheless,as Chinese culture is very different from western culture,translators often make errors in the original and the translated versions for various reasons.Therefore,we need to compare different versions and analyze the reasons for the differences in order to promote better excellent versions.This paper compares the English versions of Ying Ruocheng and Howard from the perspectives of Beijing dialect,personality expression and idiom in the Teahouse.Through comparison,it can be seen that in the translation of Beijing dialect,Ying Ruocheng has a better understanding of some words in the text than Howard,and a better understanding of Chinese history.As a Canadian,Howard has been actively learning Chinese and Chinese culture.However,due to lacking corresponding language environment and national background,his understanding of Beijing dialect is not as profound as that of Ying Ruocheng.In the translation of the expression of characters,Ying Ruocheng is more accurate in the acceptance and output of personalized characters’ words than Howard.In general,Ying Ruocheng has a stronger emotional color in translation,and can transmit the emotional changes of the characters to the readers through the translation;Howard also tried to translate the emotion behind the language as much as possible in his translation.However,due to the differences in cultural background,Howard is not sensitive to the emotional color contained in the personalized language of characters,and the transfer of emotional color is not accurate in translation.However,due to his knowledge of English,he can express some of the Chinese emotions which cannot be directly corresponding to English in another way.In the translation of idioms,as Ying Ruocheng has lived in a Chinese environment since he was a child,he understood the idioms more accurately and thoroughly,Howard,on the other hand,starts from the western mode of thinking and finds the corresponding expression form in the fixed collocation of English,which is more conducive to the readers’ understanding,but the characteristics of idioms are not reflected.In the translation of proverb,Ying Ruocheng is used to use free translation,and expressed the real meaning behind the proverb directly,and achieve the accurate transmission of meaning.However,Howard used to use the direct translation method.Although he was faithful to the original text,the readers may have doubts about the translation and do not understand the real meaning of proverb.Finally,the article analyzes why the two translations are different,and explained mainly from five aspects: translators have different personal backgrounds,translators’ understanding of the source text is different,translators’ translation purposes is different,translators’ translation views is different and translation strategies is different.