Summary In drama texts the written and the spoken modes work together to communicate multiple and complex messages simultaneously. Consequently, the dramatic text has a dual role in both the literary and the theatrical systems of a particular culture. This duality has also influenced the translation of drama. If the drama is intended to appear in print only, the translator is likely to approach the translation as a literary text and will then produce a page translation. In contrast, if the main aim is staging the drama, the translator will create a stage translation that will appeal to contemporary theatre‐goers. Both page and stage translations of drama texts are written for spoken delivery. In other words, the dialogue in such texts is usually designed to simulate real‐life, face‐to‐face communication. This is also the case in Shakespeare dramas and their translations. When a recent stage translation of The Merchant of Venice in Afrikaans is compared to an older page translation it is clear that the stage translator has deliberately employed certain linguistic features to simulate participation or “involvement” between characters and make them sound more like real people in authentic situations (Kruger 2000). It is therefore no surprise that the stage translation exhibits more contractions than the page translation‐this is a primary method in any language to indicate spoken speech. What is unusual, though, is the deliberate insertion of a far wider range of discourse markers in the stage translation, despite its being much shorterthan the page translation. The only logical explanation for this particular finding is that the translator has actively attempted to influence the conversational coherence of the dramatic dialogue of the stage translation by foregrounding the interpersonal and text‐building functions of discourse markers such as feedback words, interjections, exclamations, vocatives and courtesy adjuncts.