Comparative Study Of Chinese Female Translation And Western Feminist Translation

Since the wave of feminism in the late1960s, the problem of gender has been the core offeminism. It is known that men and women are biologically different. But feminists in the Westhold that biological sex alone does not determine gender identity in society and culture and thestatus quo of women is not caused by sex but by gender.In the society, there exist many theories, like psychoanalysis, formalism, semiotics,post-modernism and post-colonialism, etc. These theories appeared as new intellectualmovements. One of the theories—feminism emerged. It leads us into the practice and theory oftranslation studies.In the history of translation, it can be seen clearly that there exists close associationbetween women and translation because their social positions are similar. People attached labelsto them, like secondary, humble, weak, passive, and less creative, etc. Because of this, they aredescribed as marginal. Translation and women were treated unfairly, so they both worried abouttheir respective positions. Furthermore, western feminists understand that language is not only ameans of communication, but the shackles to fetter women’s spiritual and social activity. In thetraditional studies, people view translation for a long time as secondary and subordinate to theoriginal. While women’s situation is similar to translation as in the patriarchal society womenare lessened to the second sex. When the first patriarchal society came into being, the inequalitybetween men and women started. In Eastern countries, as in the west, men have an image ofdominance, authoritativeness, positiveness, creativity, while women have an image ofmarginality, subordination, negativeness, imitativeness.This thesis will first introduce the relationship between feminism and translation studies,including the origin and development of feminism and translation theory and strategies. Thentake the female translators in the period of May4th as examples. By analyzing women’sdifferent values and the conflicts of the values, we know that women’s values have great effecton translation. Subsequently, this thesis will take Chinese female translator Xue Qiying’stranslation of An Ideal Husband and Shen Xingren’s translation of Lady Windermere’s Fan as acase study in an attempt to analyze the characteristics of her translation with the emphasis onthe choice of texts, views on marriage and pursuing equality in legal status. Based on thisanalysis, the thesis will give the characteristics of Chinese female translation and compareChinese female translation with Western feminist translation.