Fidelity Under The Influence Of Feminism

With the "cultural turn" in translation studies, feminism has exerted an increasing influence on translation. In the west, feminist translation practice, theory and criticism have been established, while in China, the influence is starting to be shown.Fidelity has been a key concept in translation for thousands of years. However, it is only after the feminist approach was introduced that our understanding about fidelity is able to jump out of the constraints of dualism and patriarchy. In the west, a new "writing project" based fidelity, which is a description of the feminist translation practices, has been built. It has given new life to the concept of fidelity and has provided new vision to the translation studies. In China, few researches have been done on the translations influenced by feminism and none have been done on the fidelity in these translations. Thus, this research intends to discuss the fidelity in Zhu Hong's translation of Unlike a Dream from the feminist perspective. It is hoped that through this case study, the fidelity in the translation where both the translator and the source text are influenced by feminism in the Chinese context may be approached.In the paper, the author first reviews the influence of feminism on translation in the west and in China. Then, under the feminist perspective, the author criticizes the traditional understanding of fidelity for its philosophical basis of dualism, its reflection of the patriarchal ethical requirement on married women and its simplification of the translating process as a transparent move-over. The fidelity rebuilt in the feminist translation theory in the west is also discussed. It is found that although the feminist translation in the west is quite different from the translation influenced by feminism in China, the feminist fidelity can still provide some enlightenment for the study of fidelity in the Chinese context, such as its descriptive approach, its consideration of gender and its emphasis on both thetranslation product and the translating process.Guided by the enlightenment, the author discusses the fidelity in Zhu Hong's translation of Unlike a Dream through the analysis of the translator, the comparative study of the translation and the source text and the examination of the translating process. It is concluded that in the translation, Zhu Hong is faithful to a covert "writing project", where she has implicitly cooperated with Si Yu in developing and strengthening the feminist ideas of the source text. In this project, although Zhu Hong and Si Yu do not cooperate with each other in the real sense, they have demonstrated the same writing/translating purpose, enjoyed the same authorship and expressed the same feelings in the translation.