On Chinese Female Translators' Subjectivity In Western Feminist Translation Theories

In the 1980s, the"cultural turn"in translation studies and development of the third wave of western feminism drove scholars to a new topic: feminist translation and a group of feminist critics and translators emerged, such as Sussane de Lotbiniere-Harwood, Lori Chamberlain, Luise von Flotow and Barbara Godard etc. They approach translation from a gender-study angle, aiming at revealing male-orientations and gender prejudices in works and translations. Moreover they doubt the basic standards in translation field: fidelity, equivalence and invisibility of translators. They emphasize that translation is a political activity used to strive for a due position for women and translators in society. In practice, feminist translators employ radical translation strategies, such as supplementing, hijacking, prefacing and footnoting, to make women seen and heard through their translation.Introduced into China by Zhu Hong in the 1980s, feminism began to exert significant impact on the study and criticism of foreign literature, especially female literature. Western feminist translation theories started to influence Chinese translation field from 2002. Since then many articles discussing its'theories have been published in authoritative journals and magazines. Due to different social, cultural and historical backgrounds, Chinese female translators adopt relatively mild and conservative attitudes and strategies in translation practices instead of aiming to overthrow patriarchal domination.This paper will first briefly review the origin and development of feminism, the combination of feminism and translation studies and introduce the most important part of western feminist translation theories, then make a careful examination of its'actual situation in Chinese context and its'influences on Chinese translation studies. Analysis of translation practices by Chinese female translators will be highlighted to make a comparison with its'western counterparts. This paper will also analyze three Chinese versions of an American feminist work translated by a male and two female translators.Their choice of words, tones, translation strategies and ideological backgrounds will be compared. My paper concludes that Chinese women translators'subjectivity is positioned and constructed through mild rewriting.