On The Creative Treason In Feminist Literary Translation

Since the 1980s, translation studies have witnessed the "culture turn". Various factors are taken into account in the field of translation among which feminist translation stands out to be a very important part of such studies and receives extensive attention in the west. However, it is nearly neglected in the Chinese translation circles. In light of such condition, this paper will make a detailed analysis of feminist translation theory and its "creative treason" in literary translation.This paper will first probe into the formation and framework of feminist translation theory by tracing the historical metaphoric of gender and translation. In order to "make women's voice heard and women's body seen"(Sherry Simon, 1996:3), feminist translators put forward their unique viewpoints: 1) Translation is the translator's culture intervention and mediation. 2) The source text and the target text should co-exist with each other. 3) Language can not only reflect but also construct a new reality. Feminist translators revise the source text by means of individualistic translation, omission, adaptation and so on. Meanwhile, the comparison and example analysis methods will be applied to illustrate "feminist creative treason" in literary translation. Owing to different development of feminism and different literary translation context, feminist creative treason is done consciously is the west and unconsciously in China. In addition, Pearl Buck's version of "Shuihu Zhuan" is provided to further illustrate the two kinds of "feminist creative treason": the conscious and the unconscious.Based on the above analysis, this paper summarizes the main contributions of feminist translation theory: it brings the aspect of "gender" into translation studies and broadens the studies of translators' subjectivity. Feminist translators are no longer invisible, they have the rights to revise, manipulate and occupy the source text. Feminist literary translation is nothing but the translator's creative treason from the perspective of feminism. This revision gives high priority to the identity of the translator and opens a new prospect for translation studies.