Pragmatic functions and translation strategies of address terms in Lao She’s Tea House and the English version by Ying Ruocheng

This study investigates the classification, pragmatic functions, and translation strategies of address terms in the classic Chinese play Teahouse, written by Lao She and translated into English by Ying Ruocheng. The non-equivalence between the Chinese and English addressing systems has presented difficulties for translation. Moreover, the previous studies on address term translation reviewed in this study rarely examined the retention or adaptation of pragmatic functions throughout the translation process. The significance of this study lies in that identifying the retention and adaptation of the pragmatic functions for address terms during the translation process reveal the pragmatic competence of a translator. The specific objective was to: 1) identify the categories of address terms in the Chinese and Ying Ruocheng’s English version of the play Teahouse; 2) examine the pragmatic functions of the address terms in the Chinese and Ying Ruocheng’s English version of the play Teahouse; 3) explore the extent to which the pragmatic functions of the Chinese address terms in Teahouse have been retained in the English version by Ying Ruocheng; 4) analyse the strategies used in translating the Chinese address terms of different types in relation to the contextual factors reflected in the source text. The data for the study were collected from the source text of Teahouse by Lao She and its English version translated by Ying Ruocheng. The data consists of 106 Chinese address terms and 329 English translated address terms in diverse contexts. This study uses a qualitative method with the Speech Act Theory developed by Austin (1962) and Searle (1976) successively, Hu’s (1994) Contextual Framework, and Baker’s (2018) taxonomy on translation strategies as the theoretical basis. The key findings of this study are presented as follows. From a grammatical perspective, the Chinese address terms were classified into three types: nominal, pronominal, and phrasal terms. Based on the construction of the address terms, the 106 Chinese address terms were categorised into ten types, and the 329 English address terms were classified into eleven categories. The pragmatic functions of both Chinese and English address terms are grouped into four main types: illocutionary function, interpersonal function, social function, and politeness function. Specifically three illocutionary functions, representative or assertive, directive, and expressive, were identified. The retention degree of these pragmatic functions in the target text varies across six degrees: 0%, 33%, 50%, 67%, 75%, and 100%. Additionally, three types of adaptation of pragmatic functions were identified: addition, modification with addition, and shift. Regarding translation strategies, based on Baker’s taxonomy, six strategies were determined, along with three additional ones: specification, addition, and literal translation. Cultural substitution constitutes the largest portion, with a frequency of 134, followed by loan word at 133, and literal translation at 78. The retention degree and adaptation of the pragmatic functions for address terms during the translation process by resorting to various translation strategies reflected Ying Ruocheng’s pragmatic competence. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the complexities involved in preserving pragmatic functions during cross-linguistic translation.

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