The Site Struggle In Gender: A Comparative Study On Chinese Versions Of Wuthering Heights By Female Translator And Male Translator

The interplay between feminism and translation studies over the seventies of last century in the west ultimately exerted forceful influences upon the conventionally-held concepts of translation studies, necessarily yielding fruitful researches. Western feminist studies believe that the impact of gender does exist in any production of feminist translators, whose personal experiences are encoded in the translation texts. In the feminist translation practice, translator reads, rewrites and manipulates the source text by means of language. Through their revolutionary changes in concepts, sentence structure and terminology, the Western feminist translators try to usurp the conventional patriarchal language system. However, domestically, only in the year 2002 could feminism actually exert influences upon translation studies."Wuthering Heights" written by the female novelist Emily Bronte is a novel which is full of feminine features. It was probably written from 1845 to 1846 and published in 1847, and attracted considerable critical attention: many people were shocked and horrified by sheer violence of this novel. It is now established as one of novels of the nineteenth century, the work of a singularly powerful imagination. The article tries to compare the two translated versions of "Wuthering Heights" from the perspective of feminist translation studies. The chosen Chinese versions are respectively translated by Fang Ping (male) and Yang Yi (female). Based on the comparative study of two translated versions, this paper discloses the features of translators of different gender on translation style, linguistic expression, some words and paragraphs which are full of feminine features and so on, especially the feminine features of female translator so that it can advocate the introduction and popularization of feminist translation studies in China. The paper hopes that we can know the novel of "Wuthering Heights" better.Focusing on the gender difference, the research is done the following parts. In chapter one, the literature review is about feminist translation theory, the influence of gender upon translation, "Wuthering Heights" and its translation will be introduced.The parts from chapter two to chapter five respectively analyzed the gender's differences of the two versions in dealing with the narration characteristics, the plots, the characters and the rhetorical devices. Comparison between these two translated versions aims to disclose the differences of the two translators in different genders and advocate translation practice in light of feminist translation studies. We're not discussing which one is superior or inferior here because every translation has points of strength and point of weakness.The chapter six concludes the above chapters: the article makes a comparative study on the two translated versions of "Wuthering Heights" from the perspective of feminist translation studies and hopes it can lead to wide application of this theory to the English-Chinese translation.A sizable portion of the discussion focuses on the translation of parts with feminine features in the source text, through comparison of which, it aims to indicate the differences existing in the understandings and expressions between two translated versions. Therefore, the present author, as a female learner of feminist translation studies, tries to indicate the feminine features in the source text through translating in the light of feminist translation studies and hopes it will achieve better translation effect. This is also the originality of this paper.