Drama Translation: Principles and Strategies Drama Translation ...

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54 Drama Translation: Principles and Strategiesperiod spanning the last four decades and only the mostrepresentative scholars are examined.In the sixties, in an article entitled “Some PracticalConsiderations Concerning Dramatic Translation”, Hamberg(1969:91-94) outlined certain principles for the drama translator. Hesays,“Drama is action […] and in translating for the radio,television and the theatre it is important to realize whatthe dramatic theoreticians above all demand from thespoken line. It must characterize the speaker and thusseem genuine; it must characterize time and place as wellas social class; it must not be ambiguous; and it shouldhave been given or one should be able to give it the rightemphasis so that it leads the attention of the audience inthe desired direction. […] It goes without saying that aneasy and natural dialogue is of paramount importance in adramatic translation, otherwise the actors have to strugglewith lines which sound unnatural and stilted. […] Evenwhere the author does not indicate in brackets how a lineis to be spoken, the translator as well as the stage managermust be able to know how. […] A translator must beespecially careful with entrance lines and exits.”[Emphasis in italics is mine.]Following suit in the seventies, Gravier (1973:41-43) in hisarticle “La traduction des textes dramatiques” states that“Le traducteur ne doit pas oublier non plus que le textedramatique, débité à la vitesse normale de la parole, n’estcapté qu’une seule fois par le spectateur. […] Chaqueallusion doit être transparente, […] Il faut éviter lestournures grammaticales qui tombent en désuétude (parexemple: les verbes au passé simple) et, presque partoutles questions présentées sous forme d’inversion sontdifficilement acceptables. La proposition énonciative
Suh Joseph Che 55directe suivie d’un point d’interrogation qui se traduirapar une intonation appropriée, dans la bouche ducomédien, est, dans presque tous les cas, à préférer. Demême on proscrira, bien entendu, toute traduction mot àmot qui déclencherait une crise de fou rire chez lesspectateurs. […] Que le traducteur des textes dramatiquesregarde un peu à ce qui se passe au cinéma. Le doublagedes films n’est rendu possible que par une minutieuseétude des mouvements que font les lèvres des acteurs,quand ils prononcent les répliques originales.” [Thetranslator must not also forget that the words of the playtext when spoken at normal speed are captured only onceby the audience. […] Each allusion must be transparent,[…] Archaic grammatical turns must be avoided (forexample: verbs in the preterite) and, in almost allinstances inverted question forms are hardly acceptable. Adirect statement followed by a question mark whichshould be pronounced by the actor using the appropriateintonation is to be preferred in virtually all cases.Similarly, any word-for-word translation likely toprovoke the giggles in the audience must obviously beproscribed. […] The drama translator should pay someattention to what takes place in the cinema. Dubbing offilms is only possible through a very careful study of themovements of the actors’ lips when they pronounce thelines of the original play.] [Emphasis in italics is mine.]In the eighties Wellwarth (1981: 140-146) outlined a seriesof principles to be followed by the drama translator, categoricallyasserting that “there are some guidelines that he must follow”.According to him,“The dramatic translator […] must have a sense of therhythm of speech patterns, particularly colloquial ones, aswell as the ability to recreate the tension of dramaticsituations without falsifying the playwright’s intention orlosing dramatic credibility within the new context. […] Itis absolutely imperative when translating a play to
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Page 15 and 16: Suh Joseph Che 67Bassnett, S. (1998
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