Feminist Translation Theory And Practice

In the mid to late 1960s, the post-war feminism began to develop a certain momentum along with many of the other protest movements of the times in Western Europe and North America. At the same time the notion of'gender'evolved to complement and extended that of biological sexual difference. This term soon entered the realms of language and literature. It was noticed that language was not only a tool for communication but also an effective manipulative instrument. Attention was drawn to the'patriarchal language'---the language created and used in societies mainly ruled by man. Feminist scholars began to think over and sought to answer questions as follows: How do woman use language? Is their use different from men's? How do men and women's consciousness come into being respectively through language? etc.Reflections on and response to these questions had a revolutionary impact on feminist writing and translation. Feminists criticized the existing patriarchal language and tried to change it through their writing practice. By creating new language and new literature forms for women feminist writers and translators did their utmost to reflect the poor and repressed living fact of women for the purpose of'speaking for women'. Those translators with'women consciousness'would inevitably pay attention to and focus on these experimental works, thus some special translation means appeared to deal with difficulties in such works. That is what is to be called'feminist translation'in this thesis.Feminism has its own stages and features in its development in China. This thesis discusses the influence in China of both feminist theory and practice. First, the feminist movements and feminist theories were introduced into China by Chinese scholars and translators in 1980s, among whom Zhu Hong was a representative. She was not only the first one who translated and introduced feminism into China, but also actively applied feminist theory into her practice of translation. Then, the years after the Fourth International Women's Conference held in Beijing in 1995 saw an increase of translated works of literature and theories. Yang Jing and her translation of The Bell Jar belonged to this period.This thesis is divided into five chapters. It adopts descriptive and contrastive methods and cites examples to explore and analyze the influence of feminism and feminist translation theory on the Chinese feminist translators and their translation practice. Research shows that feminist translators in China are deeply inspired and enlightened by western feminist translation theory, but they are not as radical as their counterparts in the West. Their works tend to be more conservative and implicit. As a result, feminist translation practice in China attracts less attention and criticism.