In order to attain a high degree of stage effect and get a better understanding and acceptance of foreign audience, therefore, Ying Ruocheng applies colloquial, concise, and humorous language in his translated work.
Chapter Two An Overview of Skopos Theory
Being a “German School” of functionalist translation theory, Skopos theory plays an important role in the process of translation. Meanwhile, it also has an effective guidance to drama translation. In the following part, there is a brief introduction of Skopos theory and its usage in drama translation.
2.1 Vermeer’s Skopos theory
The word “skopos” originates from Greek, to put it simply, it means “intention” or “purpose”. “In Greek, skopos means aim, purpose, goal, objective, and intention. It is a technical term used by Hans Vermeer (1996) to refer to the purpose of a translation, which determines the strategy to be used during the translation process.” (Munday 2001:79) Skopos Theory was put forward by the German linguist Hans Vermeer and then developed in Germany in the late 1970s. Skopos theory focuses on translation as a human activity with an intention or purpose, and on the intended addressee or audience of the translation. To translate means to produce a target text in a target setting for a target purpose and target addresses in target circumstances.
Vermeer ever mentioned Skopos theory as follows:
Each text is produced for a given purpose and should serve this purpose. The Skopos theory thus reads as follow: translate/ interpret/ speak/ write in a way that enables your text/ translation to function in the situation, in which it is
used and with the people who want to use and precisely in the way they want it to function. (Vermeer, qtd. in Nord Christiane 1997:29)
According to Skopos theory, translation is an action, and any action has its own purpose. The purpose of translation determines the translation method and strategy. Literature creation is also an action, so the translation of literature works is an action with a specific purpose. 2.2 Skopos Theory in drama translation
C.K.Quah ever mentioned in his book Translation and Technology that Skopos theory also allows a source-language text to be translated into a number of different target-language texts depending on the purpose specified in the so-called ?translation commission? or belief. (C.K.Quah, 2008:25) As mentioned above, According to Skopos Theory, translation is a human action with specific purpose. In addition to its purpose, any action has an outcome. The outcome of translational action is a translatum (Vermeer, qtd. in Mona Baker 2004:235) Moreover, the purpose of translatum plays an essential role among the whole translation process. That is to say, the purpose which the translatum intends to achieve is just the purpose of the whole translation. One of the most important factors that determine the purpose of translation is the audience-the receiver of translated work. As Lin Kehuan ever mentioned that “The prime purpose of drama performance is making a visual exchange on the foundation of having a common feeling of life. Drama skill namely is to make audiences reach a maximum reflection and adapt to them.” (Lin Kehuan, qtd Du Qingyuan 1986:268)
It is well known that drama has duality. One exists in literary system while another one exists in drama system. Just dual natures bring about great confusion for translation. In a whole, drama translation must make sure it beneficial for reading in literature system and suitable for performing in drama system. As to the translation, Peter Newmark in his book About Translation says as follow：
If I define the act of translating as transferring the meaning of a stretch or a unit of language, the whole or a part of a text, from one language to another, I am possibly putting the problem where it belong, viz., the meaning of meaning rather than the meaning of equivalence, identity, similarity, likeness, sameness, correspondence and so on. (Peter Newmark, 2006:27)
Therefore, when we judge a drama translation, we cannot consider it a good translation for its target readers, nor can we think it a success one for its target audiences. In fact, owing to the translators? different purposes, the expected results may also be different.
2.3 Ying Ruocheng’s performance-orientation and Skopos theory
Spoken drama is a synthetic art which is the fusion of dramatic works, director, performance, maypole, lighting and criticism. Not a single one can be omitted. What?s the most indispensable one is the receiver of this form of art-audiences. As Gao XingJian ever said that “All dramatists clearly know that literature plays only offer a foundation for performance. However, A play has to be performed on stage before the evaluation whether a play is a success or not. ”（Gao Xingjian, qtd. Du Qingyuan 1986:46）At all times whether drama performing can be completed smoothly is always with the aid of stage which has many forms. On one hand, stage performance is helpful for performing action of the actors; on the other hand, it gives convenience for audience to appreciate from every perspective.
According to the Skopos theory,“The prime principle determining any translation process is the purpose of the overall translation action…Each text is produced for a given purpose and should serve this purpose.” (Nord, 2001:27) In order to satisfy needs of Teahouse?s being performed abroad and make audiences understood the contents, Ying Ruocheng?s language is very concise and compact and has a flowing
sense.
The purpose of Ying Ruocheng?s English version Teahouse is apparently for stage performance. In preface to his translated work, he ever said that
Stage performance does have its unique requirement. What the audience expects to hear is crisp language that is clever and well patterned and dialogues and arguments that go back and forth. These to the great master of language, such as, in the works of Oscar Wilde or Bernard Shaw can be found everywhere. As translator, we are responsible for representing them in front of the audience. (Ying Ruocheng, 1999:12)
As an experienced actor, director and translator, he prefers to highlight its stage performance. However, stage performance has its own characteristics. For one thing, it is limited by time and space; for another thing, the plot of stage performance has to be performed before the audiences. As we all know, drama translation mainly involves director, translator, actors and audience. The translator has an important mission to make the director easy to direct and actor easy to perform. What is more important, a drama performance cannot be called an excellent one without audience?s intense response and acceptance. In this case, translator should take drama language into consideration and adopt suitable translation method and strategy to make the drama fully understood by the audience.
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