On Translator's Gender Identity

Owing to the cultural turn in Translation Studies since 1970s, translation studies have witnessed a booming development, new translation schools have emerged one after another, and a pluralistic situation has appeared. Many scholars began to study the phenomenon of translation and combined the disciplines of feminism with translation, and then established the feminist translation school. With the growing association of feminist with translation studies, how to embody the feminist discourse in the translation and reflection of translators' subjectivity has become an important issue of feminist translation studies. The feminist translation theory has not only subverted the traditional translation theory and identified the translator's subjectivity, especially the female translator's subjectivity, but also given priority to study translation with a focus on gender difference, thus the translator's gender identity was considered to be very important. However, in China feminist translation studies mainly put the stress on analyzing gender metaphors concerning translation at the present stage. Up till now the translation research in the domestic context from the feminist perspective has still stayed at the stage of introduction and has fewer attempts to application in translation practice and translation criticism.This paper introduces the development of feminist translation studies in Chinese and western history, the impact of gender identity on translation and the construction of translators'gender identity. It will try to make a research in the issue of translator's gender identity and its corresponding influence on the translator's strategies through a comparative study of the two versions of Alice Walker's The Color Purple by Yang Renjing and Lu Shujiang in order to enlighten the translation studies from a new perspective. This paper makes an analysis of different translation strategies of Lu Shujiang and Yang Renjing from the perspective of feminist criticism. The following questions are discussed:the first:whether or not will the translator's gender awareness exert any impact on translation? The second:In the translation of female works, is it really better for the female translators to understand women psychology and experience in order to better grasp the author's creative intent? Through studying Lu Shujiang's translation strategies and methods of highlighting the translation of women's discourse, the author finds that the translator's gender identity has indeed influenced the final appearance of the translation. However, through particular examples we find that Yang can also draw near to the original, understand the gender factors in the translation, and sometimes even show relatively strong gender consciousness. Lu can still not speak for the women in the translation because of the impact of patriarchal culture. Therefore, the author proposes that the concept of androgyny put forward by Virginia Woolf can be bought in translation in order to make more objective evaluation to the translation.