A Comparative Study On Three Chinese Versions Of The Color Purple

With the development of feminist movements and the cultural turn in translation studies in 1980s, feminism and translation studies begin to exert influences on each other, which finally leads to the emergence of the feminism translation theory.Feminist translation theory challenges the traditional translation theory by redefining its fidelity standard, emphasizing the subjectivity of the translator, advocating creative treason in translation and adopting specific translation strategies such as supplementing, prefacing and footnoting, and hijacking. It has provided the translation studies new direction and angle from female's stand.Three Chinese versions of The Color Purple, a famous feminist novel written by black female novelist Alice Walker, are the study objective of this thesis. The novel is marked by its specific feminist ideas and full of feminine consciousness. Since The Color Purple is a typical feminism novel, it is meaningful to study whether the translators have completely and faithfully transmitted feminism characteristics of the novel; whether translators have the gender-consciousness in translating process. The three Chinese versions the author chooses in this paper are respectively translated by Yang Renjing (male), Tao Jie (female) and Lu Shujiang (female). Three translators have their own creativity and features on translating style and linguistic expressions. Their differences are especially manifested in the understanding and expression of the words and paragraphs having feminine features or concerning sex description in the source text and in the translation strategies they adopted.After the introduction of feminism and feminist translation theory, the thesis conducts a systemic comparative study of three Chinese versions of The Color Purple. Many examples are picked out from the original text and translated versions to analyze in details the different aspects of the novel:the preface, female feelings and images, male images, body and sex description, and the features of different translators, especially their feminist consciousness manifested in the translating process. Differences between three translated versions are summarized after the comparison. Finally, the author presents reflections on other reasons that may have influenced the translation of sex and body descriptions besides the translator's gender consciousness. The conclusion is that the feminist consciousness of female translators Tao Jie and Lu Shujiang is stronger than that of the male translator Yang Renjing. The female translators pays more attention to the details presenting feminism and are more sensitive to women's feelings and have better understanding of women's mind. Besides the gender consciousness, the mainstream of the social ideology and the policy of the press also have great influences on translators and the translating process.It is hoped that after reading this thesis, readers will have a deeper understanding of feminist translation theory and Alice Walker's feminism in The Color Purple; and will pay more attention to the translators'gender consciousness and the translating process. Thereby, this thesis will be considered as have contributed to the studies of feminist translation and The Color Purple.