The Translation Strategies of Foregrounding Languages in Dramas: A Case Study of Eugene O'neil's The Iceman Cometh

Eugene O'neil is the most famous American playwright whose plays have been introduced into China and been thoroughly studied. However, up to now there are still few scholars or published academic works studying on the Chinese translation of O'neill's plays. In view of this, this paper chooses one of O'neill's later masterpieces—The Iceman Cometh as a case to analyze the Chinese renderings of his plays. It is mainly based on British linguist G. Leech's qualitative foregrounding and quantitative foregrounding theory combing qualitative and quantitative research methods to analyze the foregrounding languages in The Iceman Cometh, and then puts forward three tentative strategies for translating the foregrounding languages in drama. This paper aims at drawing translators' attention to foregrounding languages so that translation quality can be improved accordingly.