A Comparative Study On Two Chinese Versions Of To The Lighthouse From Perspective Of Androgyny

Translation studies have been in contact with other theories gradually after the cultural turn in the 1980s. Feminist translation theory is the combination of translation studies and feminist movement, which makes great contributions to translation studies. In feminist translation studies, however, in order to highlight the female status, the translation strategies such as supplementing, rewriting, and even "hijacking", advocated by feminist translators, go against the basic principles of translation, thus getting the suspicion of reconstructing the binary opposition. Therefore, some feminist translators apply androgyny into feminist translation studies to remove the binary opposition.Androgyny, originally referring to the subjective coexistence of masculinity and femininity in the same body, emphasizes translators’ subjectivity which means that translators should have the gender awareness, and shift the gender perspective to understand and translate from the gender other in the process of the translation for a translator, after it is applied in feminism translation.Taking androgyny in feminist translation studies as the theoretical foundation, the author of this thesis selects two Chinese versions of opposite gender translators of To the Lighthouse, a masterpiece of Virginia Woolf, who is a famous British feminist writer, as the analytical objects, namely:Qu Shijing’s (male) version and Ma Ainong’s (female) version, in order to make a comparative analysis of the two Chinese versions concerning seven aspects (description of appearance, description of characters, description of actions and behaviours, physiological description, description of dialogues, lexical selection, and syntax level) and two dimensions (language comprehension and language expression) by focusing on whether the two translators take androgynous perspective in process of translation and the influence of the translators’ androgynous perspective in translated texts. The analysis shows that the two translators, both male and female, can interpret and translate the original text from the perspective of the other gender; and from the perspective of androgyny, the translators can create better translated texts that are more faithful to the original texts. This finding is very significant in recognizing the relationship between the translator and the author, the translated text and the original text, as well as male and female. It is also valuable to some extent in correctly understanding and dealing with gender awareness of works with feminist thoughts for translators in the process of translation. Androgyny in feminist translation studies is the perfection of feminist translation theory.This thesis is made up of five chapters. Chapter one is the introduction part, which mainly covers the research background, significance, questions, methodology as well as the structure of this thesis are introduced. Chapter two is the literature review, a review on the studies on feminist translation theory, studies on androgyny, the Chinese versions of To the Lighthouse and the translation studies of To the Lighthouse. Chapter three is the theoretical foundation. The author makes a review on the theoretical foundation, including the limitations of feminist translation theory, the androgyny theory, and androgyny in feminist translation studies. Chapter four is the case study. A brief introduction of To the Lighthouse and the two Chinese translators is made and then a comparative analysis is made between the two Chinese versions of opposite gender translators from seven aspects (description of appearance, description of characters, description of actions and behaviours, physiological description, description of dialogues, lexical selection, and syntax level) and two dimensions (language comprehension and language expression) about how the two translators show their androgynous perspective in translation and how they realize and deal with the feminine of To the Lighthouse. Chapter five is the conclusion part of the thesis, which covers briefly the finding of the analysis, the limitations of this thesis and some suggestion for further research.