Study On Translators’ Subjectivity From The Perspective Of Feminist Translation Theory

Wuthering Heights was written by Emily Bronte. The novel describes that an orphan Heathcliff was adopted by a master of mountain villa. Because of humiliation and unfortunate love, he went out and came back with great fortune. Then he began to revenge the master Linton who was the husband of Heathcliff’s ex-girlfriend. The whole novel is full of struggling spirit of anti-oppression and striking for happiness, but covered with strange and nervous atmosphere. At first, this novel was considered as the naive imagination of young female writer. But because of the class struggle and social phenomenon, it was highly affirmed by critics and given warm welcome by readers. Movies adapted from the novel are still popular till now.Feminism originates from the liberal feminism in the18th century, on the theoretical basis of social gender and gender theory. Women’s rights movement in1960s is the embodiment of feminism in culture. In this movement, feminists find that the inequality between women and men not only exists in the election rights, the work and the educational rights and other social sectors but also in culture. Language is the meaningful place that we should strive for, and it is the athletic field for main body examination and self-certification. At the same time, the "cultural turn" in translation studies necessarily pays attention to the political, social, historical aspects of translation activity. And in this occasion, feminism knocked the door of translation. As one aspect of culture construction,"gender consciousness" has been received in translation’s theory and practice. And the combination of these two research trends makes a new translation theory-feminist translation theory.Since the "cultural turn" of translation studies in1970s, translators’ subjectivity became one of the hot topics for translation study, which mainly focuses on translators’ subjective initiative, including the intentionality, independence and creativity. The establishment of the position of translators’ subjectivity provided a new perspective for many important propositions in the field of translation studies and reminded us translation process is for translators to make choices from language constantly, and they play the most active and central role in translation process. Based on the Feminist Translation Theory, this thesis aims to do a research on the translators’ subjectivity in the process of translating by the contrastive study of the two Chinese versions of Wuthering Heights.The thesis intends to make a contrastive study of the two Chinese versions (Yang Yi’s version and Fang Ping’s version) from the perspective of Feminist Translation Theory, including the ideas of "gender" and "translators’identity construction". This present study chooses Yang Yi’s version in2006and Fang Ping’s version in2011for research. Through the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the two Chinese versions, the thesis discovers that in general both Yang Yi and Fang Ping apply the translation methods of literal and liberal translation together. Their differences lie in that because of the gender difference, female translator Yang Yi is prone to adopt literal translation method, while Fang Ping applies liberal translation more often. Analyzing the two Chinese versions from the perspective of feminist translation study, the thesis shows that Yang Yi as a female translator experiences more strong and profound understanding of the female characteristics than the male translator Fang Ping. She tries to foreground her awareness of woman-handling over the original text. Mrs. Yang is loyal to the original but also has more sense of domination over it. Her version seems to be more readable, which adds female features which contain appreciation and affection for the female images in the novel from a woman’s angle. Comparatively speaking, Fang Ping, as a male translator, performs differently from Yang Yi, subconsciously presenting his naturalized male dominance over the text and prejudice toward women in the translated text. So the translation methods of the two translators embody the subjectivity and creativity of the two translators.The thesis consists of six parts in total as follows:Chapter One serves is the introduction of the thesis. It presents the research background, research objective, the structure and significance of the thesis.Chapter Two gives a specific literature review on relevant theories of the feminist translation theory and translators’subjectivity concisely and literature review about Wuthering Heights abroad and at home.Chapter Three introduces data collection and research methodology. This chapter will introduce Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, two translators and their Chinese versions, etc.Chapter Four covers data analysis:first of all, the present study attempts to make a contrastive analysis between the different emphasis on "gender difference" of the two Chinese versions from physical, psychological and cultural level. Then the present study will make a contrastive analysis on how the two translators construct identity difference from the perspective of lexical level, syntactical level and textual level. Finally the summary covers how the two translators exert their subjectivity in the process of translating.Chapter Five serves as a discussion about translation methods adopted by two translators respectively and the present study will analyze their instructive significance to literature translation.Chapter Six aims to conclude the whole text and the present study will point out the major findings of the thesis and suggestions for the future study on this topic.To sum up, based on the Feminist Translation Theory, this thesis aims to do a research on the translators’subjectivity in the process of translating by the contrastive study of the two Chinese versions of Wuthering Heights.