Theatre

Not all theory and practice in the field of translation studies is amenable to the genre-specific approach to translation this entry assumes. Skopos theory, for one, posits that the resultant qualities of the rendering of any of a variety of source texts, literary or otherwise, may depend not on the unique features of the original, but on the purpose (σκοπός) for which the translation is to be used or has been commissioned. Thus, the generic markers of drama, such as they might be identified, may well be ignored, downplayed, modified, exaggerated or otherwise altered to suit the needs or desires of the target-text consumer. Interventionist approaches or methodologies of resistance that actively seek to transform the characteristics of a source text, often for political but sometimes for aesthetic reasons, also put into play the correspondence of textual traits over languages, periods and cultures. Even Text-Type theory, which seemingly invites the examination of theatre translation as a particular kind of translation, has come under fire for the generality of its three categories: “expressive”, the communicative form under which “artistically organized content” (and thus drama) is subsumed, remains broad enough to encompass all literature as well as “mixed forms” (Reiss 2000, 163, 164). Still, within the canon of translation studies, clusters of commentary (as well as some reasonable consensus) can be found in the genre-based discussion of theatre translation as a specialised subset of translation, these often centring on questions pertaining to: the optimal qualities of a translator of theatrical works; the changing landscape of reception; drama translation as the production of readable text vs. performable script; the inscription of non-verbal aspects into target texts; translating in whole or part, ‘faithfully’ or as adaptation; the maintenance of stylistic features in verse drama, particularly as these relate to poetic metre and rhyme; the retranslation of theatrical works, and cultural differences in audience expectation. For the purposes of this entry, the terms ‘drama translation’, ‘theatre translation’, ‘play translation’ and their variants will be used interchangeably, although certain scholar-practitioners employ some of these terms with more specific meanings in mind.