On The Translator's Gender Identity In Yang Yi's Version Of Wuthering Heights

In the 1980s, the "cultural turn" in translation studies drove scholars to focus on a new topic of feminist translation. Western feminist studies believe that the impact of gender does exist in any production of feminist translators, whose personal experiences are encoded in the translated texts. In the feminist translation practice, translator reads, rewrites and manipulates the source text by means of language. When Yang Yi translated Wuthering Heights in the 1950s, China was witnessing a women's liberation movement, which enabled women to gain equal rights with men. Therefore through a comparison between Yang Yi and Fang Ping's versions of Wuthering Heights, this dissertation demonstrates that in the similar social movement, the translator translates with a mask of male identity instead of foregrounding her female identity, which is closely related with the immaturity of the women's liberation in China.Western feminist translators tend to handle their version with a visible female identity as a method to subvert the patriarchal order. Gender identity is not determined by one's biological sex, but is nurtured in certain social context. Therefore, it is necessary to see the translator's gender identity in Yang Yi's version in the social background that has nurtured her understanding of gender identity.In a comparison with Fang Ping's version, it is found that Yang Yi does not use language as a weapon against the existing patriarchal order as radically as Western feminist translators. The idea of subversion through translation practice has not spread to China. Chinese women translators with their male colleagues accept the general principle of faithfulness in literary translation. In this sense, Yang Yi is more faithful to the source text than Fang Ping. Examples have shown that she would not adapt the original sentence structure to the Chinese linguistic habits, which makes her versions full of long sentences and many attributives. Yang Yi's overemphasis on the principle of faithfulness contradicts the rebellion against fidelity in the Western feminist translation theory. The opposite standard of translation practice proves that Yang Yi'sversion is not the work from a so-called feminist translator.When a female translates, her version is expected to carry on some linguistic features particular for women. These linguistic features will help readers to figure out correctly the gender identity of the translator. But Yang Yi refuses to understand the source text and to write in a female identity. She hopes to extinguish the linguistic features that objectively reflect her female identity. She seldom uses sentence final particles like ba, ha, ne, ma, which are considered as signals of women's femininity in language. Furthermore, compared with Fang Ping, Yang Yi inclines to consistently adopt standard patriarchal language in most cases. Her adherence to the patriarchal language only indicates that she is one of the masculine world, who writes in their standard language. Besides, she understands the source text from a male perspective and so she uses words connotatively with cultural bias against women. Since Yang Yi understands the source text from a male angle and then writes it in a standard patriarchal language, she constructs a male identity in her version.The mask of male identity indicates the translator's belief in the traditional inferior role in the patriarchal society. Yang Yi, as one of female intellectuals in the 1950s, translated in her low status without any attempt to subvert the patriarchal order. Thus her obedience at that time was determined by the social and historical factors. Firstly, although Yang Yi was born in a newly founded China where women's interests began to be taken into consideration and equal rights were granted, the deeply rooted bias against women still existed and permeated into the language system that could hardly be removed in a short period. Secondly, fundamentally speaking, Chinese women's liberation movement was a by-product of Chinese political movement under a male dominant leadership. Self-consciousness of Chinese women remained to be awakened and it even degraded into content with what they have obtained.Therefore, in the 1950s, Chinese women's Liberation Movement did not accomplish the task of emancipation of women's mind. The fundamental idea of women's inferiority has not been eradicated, so the female translator is not confidentto translate in her female identity. She is afraid that her version will not be acknowledged by the patriarchal society. Her fear makes her resort to a mask of male identity to realize her dream. The low self-esteem of the female translator makes her yield to the masculine criteria and thus Yang Yi can never become a feminist translator in her persistence of using a male mask.