Comparative Study Of Two Translation Versions Of Hong Long Meng From The Feminist Perspective

Translator as well as translation has long been placed in a marginalized position in the history of the development of translation theories. They thought the faithfulness of the target text is ultimate and a translator should reproduce the meaning of the source text on a linguistic level. The cultural turn in the 1970s confirmed translation studies down to the field of cultural research and therefore, translator's visibility and subjectivity has been gradually brought into light and become an important subject in translation research. Among them feminist translation studies have given translation a new point of view to observe the nature and process of translation. They state that the meaning of the original is multilayered and plural, thus the translator is allowed to rewrite the text and any forms of reproduction of the original text are translation. In addition, feminist theorists more than frequently urge translators to constantly put "woman" and gender awareness into consideration during the whole translation procedure. Therefore in practice, they allow the reevaluation of translations, interventionist translation approaches, desexation of sexist language, and other methods to make females visible and audible in the target text. Generally speaking, feminist translation theory has reformed such concepts as difference, fidelity and equivalence in translation and has challenged the view of the translator's invisibility. As a result, translation ceases to be a passive linguistic transfer from one language to another and becomes an active process influenced by translator's identity, personality, views of the world and environment, experience, memory, motivation, intention, intuition and even subconsciousness. There are a number of adorable female images in the great novel Hong Lou Meng, which has been translated by more than twenty languages. It is of great significance as to examine whether these lovely figures are properly represented in the translation works and whether the readers can see and hear them. The author Cao Xueqin loves the girls in the novel and through them he expresses his rebellious feminine viewpoints against the feudal society. He respects women, loves them, pities them, and looks upon them as equal. Then are these feminine viewpoints fully expressed in translation? With these questions in mind, the author of this paper studies the two most popular translated versions of Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang as well as David Hawkes and John Minford in a micro sense from the feminist perspective. Through the comparison of the two versions, the author tries to find out whether a translator, male or female, lowers or uplifts the female images in the translated versions subconsciously or consciously. The study shows that, while translating or evaluating the translation of the novel Hong Lou Meng, feminist perspective can be an option. The author of the paper calls for more attention to the feminist translation studies and more gender awareness in translation practice.