Navigating performativity via stage directions expressing emotion: a case study of the English-Chinese drama translation of Lady Windermere’s Fan
Abstract
The affective pragmatic investigation of stage directions offers a valuable lens for how emotional expression activates the performativity of playtexts, as exemplified by the landmark success of Hong Shen’s English-Chinese translation of Lady Windermere’s Fan. This study integrates corpus-based quantitative analysis with affective pragmatic interpretation to examine Hong’s translation in comparison with two other representative Chinese versions by Shen Xingren and Yu Guangzhong. The findings reveal that Hong’s translation systematically reconfigures emotion in stage directions through addition, omission and adaptation (including typological shift and content change). These strategies collectively produce increased emotional density, intensified conflict with a shift toward neutrality, polarized emotional intensity, and amplified emotional fluctuations. Underpinning this reconfiguration are three communicative moves derived from affective pragmatics: declaratives make characters’ psychology explicit, imperatives embody verbal orders into gestic cues, and commissives drive the plot by anchoring characters’ future actions. The study argues that stage directions expressing emotions constitute a pre-performing space wherein the translator negotiates between source-text fidelity and stage-oriented performativity, thereby positioning the drama translator as an active co-constructor for future performance. The findings underscore the significance of sentiment analysis and affective pragmatics in investigating drama translation.