A Report On The C-E Translation Of House Guest From The Perspective Of The Performability Principle

As an indispensable part of Chinese literature,modern Chinese drama is an essential approach for other countries to know about China.However,drama translation,one of the ways to introduce Chinese drama,has not received the same attention as poetry and novel translation.Therefore,translating excellent Chinese dramas into English is of great significance.The selected text of this translation report is the drama House Guest created by the famous playwright Yu Rongjun.Based on the life experiences of the three older people,this drama focuses on exploring the specific generation of intellectuals’ constant questioning of themselves,and their pursuit of the meaning and value of existence in the vicissitudes of times.Drama,as a special literary form,is characterized by “literariness” and “performability”.Its dual nature requires that the translated version have the same linguistic characteristics that make it performable as the original script.For this reason,inspired by the performability principle,this paper intends to explore the translation strategies and methods when translating Chinese dramas into English from four aspects of speakability,actability,individuality and acceptability to make the translation more suitable for stage performance.Illustrated with examples,the author concludes that omission makes the lines more concise and fluent.Colloquial expressions with connotations can be flexibly dealt with through liberal translation,and retaining those rhythmic expressions in the original text is conducive to achieving speakability.To make it actable,the translator must externalize the actions contained in the lines to trigger performers’ strong physical movements.Meanwhile,the characters’ psychological state can be displayed by utilizing adapted translation and literal translation.Additionally,amplification and division are effective methods to highlight the characters’ personalities.Finally,acculturation and compensation make the translation more intelligible and acceptable to the target-language audience.During translation,the translator explores a series of translation methods,demonstrating the performability principle’s feasibility and operability in guiding drama translation.Hopefully,this report can provide some reference for drama translation and its related studies.